The Lib Dems. And I don't really understand your question. In the British system the ruling party controls all of government (except in the current unusual circumstances of coalition. At the moment the Lib Dems are found everywhere)

I just wanted to know what branch of parlaiment you are talking about when you say they have 62 seats. Brits are bicameral like Americans right? I can find it out myself probably. I'm only asking so I can try to identify what they do differently that makes this outcome possible.

The House of Commons. The House of Lords doesn't really do elections, and they don't really have any power either. They exist only to slow things down when the government's getting over excited

The US system is essentially a Western Triple vs an Eastern Triple which has hit a stalemate line and has no draw option avaliable. There are lots of parties hidden away in the two blocks, but they've hated each other for so long they've forgotten they exist. If the central powers woke up and formed a new party they would win easily, but they're bound by misguided loyalty and a lack of balls

Come on Austria and Germany, YOU CAN DO IT.

Don't listen to the lies of Turkey and England. The other side aint so bad. They're just scared of losing.

*shrug* well Octavious I really don't know. Apologies for my inane ranting then. Maybe somebody else can answer.

@Oct - Youdo realize bothe the west coast and the east coast are generally blue states. The red states are in the mdiwest and the south.

The UK has a two party system. It's just that due to their parliamentary form of government the two parties can vary, which means lesser ones can get in. In Scotland, for example, the SNP and Labour are the two parties in elections to Westminster. On the national scale, though, it's still a two-party system, with the Conservatives and Labour being the only ones with any chance at a majority in parliament due to the first-past-the-post system.


The existence and local success of minor parties does not negate the reality that first-past-the-post creates two-party systems.

@Draug - It wasn't really intended as a geographically accurate metaphor.

@ Invictus - The UK's is very different from the US' though. In the south west of England it's a fight between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems. In Scotland it's Labour vs the SNP. In EVERY region of the US its Republican vs Democrat. Also in the UK the Tories' slighty nutty brigade formed UKIP and broke off. Bits of UK parties break off and form new parties on a regular basis. In the US this hardly ever happens.

Sure invictus, but 60 seats isn't anything to sneeze at, either. If they sided with labour instead that would turn the tables. To me that's a valid 3rd party.

Yeah, the UK is very different. It's a unitary, parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The US is a federal republic with a presidential system and non-parliamentary legislatures at every level of government. The similarity is in the voting system, and the result is the same: a two party system. What the two-parties may vary by region due to the nature of parliaments as opposed to our Congress, but the end result is still two dominant parties. This is second day of comparative politics class stuff, people.

"Sure invictus, but 60 seats isn't anything to sneeze at, either. If they sided with labour instead that would turn the tables. To me that's a valid 3rd party."

Actually it wouldn't have. Labour would need literally every other party to have a majority in the current parliament. But I digress.

Only the Tories or Labour can get a majority. The current coalition is the first since WWII. Just because the Lib Dems aren't quite the non-entities that the Libertarians and Greens are here does not mean that the UK doesn't have a two-party system. In fact, the Lib Dems would probably be the first to admit such a system exists.

*shrug* well I used wikipedia as my source which has:

Cons: 303
lab: 349
LD: 57

57 + 349 = 306, so it seems to me that the lib dems are the Sandra Day Oconnor of the British house of commons: very important indeed, especialy when compared to such "non entities" as green and libertarians here. Or am I still missing something?

*249 for labour, not 349

How does the US get away from the two party system?
Proportional Representation and a`Party List System for half the seats in the House, with half directly elected. This means you still have a chance of getting a working majority where as complete PR just about guarantees continual hung parliaments. What it would do is open up the House to groups like the Greens and the Tea Party and widen the political landscape.

Nigee. Why does PR guarantee a hung parlaiment?

Also, and not to derail, but is anybody else of the mind that abolishing the filibuster bullshit would solve a lot of the issues we have with a 2 party system? When used for it's intended purpose (to force further dialogue) a filibuster is OK, but it's not used for that at all anymore. In today's congress, it just forces a 60% majority on anything you want to get done.

We saw a lot of the effects of this during Obama's first 2 years (not to say that the dems didn't do a piss-poor job of finding a consensus internally also).

I'm against ending the filibuster, but I do think it should be reformed so that you have to actually filibuster. As it stands today, you can do it procedurally without actually stalling the floor. Makes it too easy, too little political cost. It should be reserved for those times when a majority of the Senate has temporarily completely flipped its lid and the minority needs to go to the mat to keep something from being done that the country absolutely hates.

That just seems so far against the purpose of it though. I don't believe that the minority party should have veto power. There's a reason they are the minority - because their policies do not reflect the current desires of the majority of the constituency. I think within reason it's a good idea to have filibustering as a tool, but anytime your purpose for using it is simply to stop legislation from moving forward at all, after all chance of compromise has been exhausted, then you are abusing it - whether procedurally or via long speeches.

Otherwise who's to say what policies constitute "lid flipping?" I sure as hell don't trust either of our parties with the power to dictate that, but that's exactly what's happening more often now.

However, Semck, if you do have a good example of when a filibuster has been used for purely obstructionist purposes with an outcome that I'd appreciate, I'd love to hear it. I doubt it would change my mind, but I'd still like to hear it.

"There's a reason they are the minority - because their policies do not reflect the current desires of the majority of the constituency."

That's the problem, though -- that's not true. Senators are elected for six years, and early in their terms, they can be pretty forgetful of their constituencies. The point of having a filibuster, but making it dramatic, is exactly that: make it so the minority party can use it, _but if they use it in an unpopular way, they will get shellacked_.

The most famous recent example of this, you probably _won't_ appreciate, at least in a partisan way, but hopefully you can at least in an objective way. In 1993 the GOP filibustered the Clinton health care plan (technically they never had to -- it was so clear they would that it was never brought to the floor). The Democrats would likely have had the votes to pass it otherwise. In the '94 midterms, the populace overwhelmingly endorsed the GOP's blocking the bill (among other things) by giving them large majorities in both houses of Congress.

Hillarycare was extremely unpopular, but would likely have been forced through anyway, absent the filibuster.

Another case, probably closer to your heart although less clearly enforcing the will of the people, was GW Bush's judges.

Well, I don't have a better list of examples to hand, sorry (there doubtless are some), but anyway, I think it's an important tool to enforce more deliberation and consensus. As I say, I think it should be made harder to do, in the sense that you should actually have to slow down the Senate and take possible public heat. Right now it's evolved into basically a rule where 60 votes are needed to pass anything. It should be more of a "the minority can choose a couple things a year on which to go down fighting if they're sure the country is behind them" sort of thing.

I see where you're coming from. As expected, I still disagree, but I definitely do agree that so long as it isn't abused it's fine. I'd be fine with instituting the measures you suggest and see if that solves the worst of the problem.

Why would we want to get away from the two party system?

"Why would we want to get away from the two party system?"

Why indeed. After all these political junkie wet dream reforms there would just be a left- and right-coalition, as exists in these multiparty European democracies. Is that so different than our big-tent parties, really? Wouldn't the nation's give-a-damn be better spent on, oh I don't know, making sure Social Security and Medicare make it past the first quarter of this century? Or on balancing the budget? Or solving any of the scores of serious problems the country faces?

Yeah.

Here's a pretty good op ed on it.

http://www.pjstar.com/news/x1978602177/Hostess-gives-strikers-a-deadline-to-go-back-to-work

Sorry, wrong link lol. HERE's a pretty good op ed on it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/filibuster-reform-avoid-the-nuclear-option/2012/11/14/0e1a66d4-2 0e-11e2-a99d-5c4203af7b7a_story.html

Let me rephrase that. Nigee, PR does not guarantee hung parliaments. Frankly, I've never seen it in my life.

Also, it's really amusing to see how the LibDems completely screwed up the formation of this government, because they're not used to working this way. I've never seen a party that was necessary for government participation be treated with so little respect.

There are different kinds of PR but when you base the no of parliamentary seats on the % of national vote it is quite difficult to get a one party majority i.e. over 50% of the vote