User talk:Frogsprog
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I will monitor your talk page and, if your work is satisfactory, will consider unblocking you.
I'd advise against posting another unblock notice, as this page is likely to be protected if you continue. - Revolving Bugbear 14:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Revolving Bugbear - As can be seen below, the current section (below) is a stub - and doesn't illustrate adequately the complex problems arising from the existence of "safe seats" in the United Kingdom specifically (it gives no mention of the contrasting "marginals" which exacerbate the situation and should be mentioned in order to put the situation into context). My version (underneath) contains a hypothetical situation backed up by references in order to brief the reader in full on the concept of safe seats in the UK by way of a simple example. The original also gives nothing in the way of references making it an impossibility to verify it's accuracy or for the reader to conduct further reading by looking at the (non-existant) references. My work includes references from the BBC's college revision website and the Dept. for Constitutional Affairs --Frogsprog (talk) 20:04, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
==United Kingdom==
Current Version
Examples of safe seats are in the Labour Party heartlands of urban northeast England and those of the Conservative Party in the shires. An example of a safe Labour seat is Houghton & Washington East, where in the 2005 general election Labour received 64.3% of the vote, giving them a 46.3% majority over the second-placed Liberal Democrats (at 18.0%). An example of a safe Conservative seat is Richmond (North Yorkshire). In the 2005 general election, the Conservatives gathered 59.1% of the vote, giving a 39.4% majority over Labour (at 19.7%). Even in the safest of seats upsets can, and sometimes do, occur. Whilst it is rare for the opposition to take such seats, outside candidates may be able to. Recent examples include the election of Peter Law and George Galloway to very safe Labour seats in 2005, and Martin Bell to the safe Conservative seat of Tatton in 1997. These often occur as protest votes, and particularly in by-elections.
Version by Frogsprog
In the United Kingdom, the concept of safe seats is often cited as a major disadvantaged of that country's first past the post system - in other words, because the United Kingdom works on the concept of a constituency based First Past The Post (or single relative majority) electoral sytstem there are many seats where a vote for the second place party is considered a wasted vote.[1]. Conversely the system in the United Kingdom is often attributed to the occurence of "marginals" - seats where the sitting MP wins his or her election by a matter of a couple of dozen votes.
This curious mix of safe and marginal seats can result in such scenarios as:
Seat one
Labour - 300 votes
Conservative - 299 votes
Liberal Democrat - 250 votes
note here that the majority of the population votes against labour - this is a marginal
Seat two
Conservative - 950 votes
Labour - 30 votes
Liberal Democrat- 20 votes
note here that although the Conservatives have 900 votes more than everyone else put together - the victory is still the same as in the above marginal
Seat three
Labour - 250
Conservative - 245
Liberal Democrat - 10
another marginal
Overall
Labour - two seats (580 votes)
Conservative - one seat (1494 votes)
Liberal Democrat - no seats ( 280 votes)
Although an exaggerated result this shows how the existence of safe seats (such as seat two) can theoretically result in the government winning less votes overall that the opposition - simply because many opposition votes are concentrated in one area. [2]
It was mainly owing to the "safe seats" situation that Lord Jenkins advised a new system AV Plus or Alternative vote top up in the Jenkins report in order to eliminate the consitutional injustice many feel is the result of the existence of safe seats in the UK [3]
