Friday, May 14, 2010

PR Again

The other day I pointed to a couple of disadvantages of proportional representation, so it's only fair to give the other side a hearing, and who better to explain the advantages of proportional representation than funnyman John Cleese? Just click here for a ten-minute video explanation that points out that (1) pretty much every other country in Europe uses PR, (2) PR tends to prevent sharp policy swings from liberal to conservative and back again, (3) PR promotes compromise instead of divisiveness, (4) PR produces a Parliament that better reflects the overall voting distribution in the country, and (5) PR tends to elect more women and minority MPs than first-past-the-post.

A well-done video that makes you think. And it was produced back in 1987! So this issue has been around for a long time.

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