charver
You lookin' at my pint?

The LibDems finished less than a point ahead of the Greens in Scotland. The only constituency they actually won was the Orkney and Shetland constituency, which is a weirdly loyal seat they've held without fail for about a century.

Clegg has to go. The LibDems can't survive another year in this coalition.

For some reason they're not counting the votes until tomorrow. Oh well.

Well, it will be fun anyway watching them cringe as the Lib Dems start vote-splitting with the Conservatives anyway. But AV is pretty much going to get pwned.

In the UK, it probably won't have as big of an effect in future elections as it would have in previous ones because the Lib Dems are no longer splitting the left wing vote in a big way (by 2015, they might be even vote splitting with conservatives). But it will help them keep 10-15 seats instead of 2 or so. Charles Kennedy seriously looks like the only person who would keep his seat under current circumstances. STV or PR itself probably won't ever come to the UK unless the party moves back to the left and forms a coalition with Labour, or the Conservative party changes in a big way. Even then, it will have an even harder time than Alternative vote in winning a majority, and it depends on a lot of factors. In a Canadian province, STV won 58% of the vote in one election (but had to get 60%), and then two years later got defeated in a 35%-65% landslide.

Voting reform? Well that's my subject!

I used to not be in favor of IRV, but these days I've grudgingly accepted it as an improvement over IRV. The key advantage that IRV has is that if a majority of voters mutually support some pool of candidates, the winner is guaranteed to come to that pool. With plurality, there can be a guy that, say, 45% of voters support first off, but literally everyone else in the electorate would prefer any other candidate. IRV, at the very least, avoids that. As long as the seats themselves aren't gerrymandered, if the left gets a majority of the votes, it will get a majority of seats, and vice versa.

Scottish at least has PR, but going from 30% to 10% or so is going to result in them losing almost all of their current reps.

Well, to be fair, they are under-performing national poll numbers there, so it's not exactly a representative sample.

The UKIP has come in at 5% in a couple of recent polls. So, the Liberal Democrats are at 7%, and the UKIP is at 5%. Might be time to throw them in the "other" barrel.

Look at the results of the Oldham by-election:

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/guide/s...andsaddleworth

About half the LibDem vote went over to Labour, and the LibDem vote only survived because they cannibalized the Conservatives (Cameron supported the LibDem in the constituency over the Conservative). This doesn't bode well for any hope for a return of the LibDem's to being a left-wing party.

But maybe with all the left-wing voters in one party again you guys can make a difference?

Hey Charv. How'd you like to play werewolf? It'd be awesome. Please. Please my British friend, I'm begging you.