Yes and it results in our two party system gridlock (occasionally interrupted by a third party candidate spoiling close elections for one side or the other). And that's the *least* stupid outcome! bsky.app/profile/prin...
My take, and this may be a contrary one, is that the British FPTP system has been quite good at delivering governments that are in tune with what people want. Alternative voting systems may be notionally more 'democratic' but give weird outcomes.
This is a serious question, what you get is either polling, or the mood of the press. But the latter is strongly influenced by the parliamentary results, so you get reporting of the national mood that fits the those, not vice versa
I grew up there and lived there for 26 years, my entire family and loads of my friends live there, I follow the British media closely, and until 2 years ago I was a an overseas voter myself.
Well, first, I didn't say it was just the media, but, for what it's worth, one of the jobs of the media during an election campaign is to go out and talk to people and report back on what they hear. I have heard lots of such reports about this election via podcasts and written articles.
If I followed the 2016 elections in the US purely via the press and at the end you told me Trump won, without handing me the actual vote tally, I would have thought that this is what the country wanted. But it wasn't! He got fewer votes!
And notably the press coverage post-2016 is unanimously "Trump is what the country chose", using the electoral result rather than what people voted for
I am a huge critic of (both sides) claiming narrow political victories as vindications of positions, strategies, tactics, people etc.
At the same time, I think it’s indisputable this country hasn’t rejected Trump. In some sense this country has chosen him.
