[danielf]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

I thought of that and duly amended things - however you can't have a coalition in a single seat. I'm talking locally now not nationally.

I don't find the idea of losing some of the locality of the FPTP system good. While on one side one could say that the Lib Dems would receive far more seats the fact would be that a majority of the people in a majority of those seats did not vote for the MP they will receive as a result of PR. Great for the Lib Dems nationally, not so great locally especially in areas where strongly Tory or Labour seats find themselves with a Lib Dem MP who may not represent their views locally.

It's swings and roundabouts, it's all well and good jumping up and down saying that the Lib Dems didn't get as many MPs as their share of the vote suggests but there is a local flip side of denying the majority, potentially vast majority of people in some ridings the representative they voted for.

I agree about it being good to have a link to local areas, but frankly that is just about the only thing that FPTP has going for it, and as pointed out, that has its drawbacks as well. As you said a hybrid system would be good, but I'm not sure if such a system exists.