Alan Johnson set the electoral reform ball rolling again with this in the Times* and there are one or two worthy ideas in David Cameron's piece in the Guardian, some of which he pinched from UKIP.
One of the most common objections to PR, e.g. as espoused by TFB, is that ".. it is healthier for one party to be able to do its worst and be shot down than to have a series of compromise solutions that satisfy no one."
Fine. Let us start by imagining a system with only two parties. Parliamentary majorities would be larger under FPTP than under PR, but apart from that there wouldn't be much difference, seeing as laws are enacted by simple majority. If voters were happy with a rotating two-party dictatorship, then the objection to PR falls flat on its face. I fail to see why core Labour voters, especially those who live in safe Tory seats would be happy with this (or vice versa), but maybe that's just me.
However, we have more than two parties. If we had PR and most people opposed it, they could continue to vote for either Labour or Tory and not much would change; but would Labour voters in Tory areas really vote Tory to maintain the political see-saw at national level (and vice versa)? I doubt it somehow.
So there we have it - even under PR, voters would still be able to maintain the rotating two-party system if they so wished; and those who prefer a smaller party or live in what would otherwise be a safe seat would know that their vote counted.
What's not to like?
* The AV+ idea seems a tad gimmicky to me; my preferred system would be first-past-the-post-with-top-up-seats, which I outlined here.
Plod and Mental Health
2 hours ago
17 comments:
What I don't like about PR is that it tends to lead to weak coalitions largely dependent on the support of minor parties. That tends to give those minor parties a disproportionate "say" in government - as with the DUP in the Major government. I can see the appeal for a party like UKIP, but I don't see how that helps Britain. FPTP has problems - particularly, as you say, the problem with "safe seats" - but it does also tend to provide a more stable govt less prone to populism and horse trading.
S, that's a different topic - it would also help if we had full devolution for England; Wales; Scotland; and Northern Ireland, which would solve the DUP problem (or indeed SNP problem).
I'm not wholly opposed to PR, but I don't like the AV + system, because it allows party lists which make party favourites practically impossible to remove.
I prefer the STV system as used in Ireland where there is no such thing as a safe seat.
R, STV with multi-member constituencies is another way of doing it (like in NI or indeed the EU Parliament elections).
The question is, how big should a multi-member constituency be?
FPTP-w-Top-up-seats basically turns the whole country into a multi-member constituency, so it's only a change of emphasis. I'd recommend that the top-up members are given seats in order of the number of votes they achieved personally to round things off.
Johnson NOT JohnsTon
Anon, duly amended.
The problem I have with PR is that it seems to lead to an even more entrenched political class. If you're going to have PR you must make sure that faces that you want out (Mandleson, Steen, McKay/Kirkbride, Blair) or whoever are got out. (The list I have set out is supposed to represent the worst sort of trougher, except perhaps Mandleson, who seems to be just in the game for the game). I have yet to be convinced that any system of PR does this effectively.
On a personal note in my locality it would be likely that the local Libdem person would get a seat, and a less fit person on basic economics and how to run a financially tight budget you would be very hard pressed to find. Hence keeping he/she out of power of any sort is a big part of my aim.
L - if we had a pure party list system, that would be even worse than FPTP. Which is why I favour FPTP with top-up seats* allocated to those candidates who failed at first hurdle but who got most votes personally.
Of course, senior party people will give themselves safe seats (as they do now), but there'd still be plenty of opportunity for independents to get into HoC.
* Top-up seats = if party gets 20% of overall vote but only 10% of seats, it gets another 10% of seats to bring it up to PR.
MW - agreed. I was making the point that PR - of one sort or another - usually ends up in keeping the same faces doing a sort of circular game of staying in government, which is exactly what I, and no-one else of sound mind - should want.
In the past, when the major beneficiary of PR would have been the Libdems, it was patently obvious that they only wanted it to achieve a balance of power position. We would then have ended up with the 'politics of the smoke filled room' as deals were done to pass legislation. You can see where that would end up with the ghastly pork barrell projects pledged to various American politicians to get the recent stimulus package (yuk) through the Senate (?).
Whatever PR - ish system selected has to be able to prevent such wheeling and dealing as it always ends up in bad legislation and poor outcomes, witness the Obama stimulus package (yuk again).
L, the USA is not the UK; because of their federal system, pork barrel is far more rampant (there is no need for any coherent party policy on a national level); and in any event, they have FPTP and a two party system.
The worst pork in the UK also relates to concessions for e.g. Northern Irish or Scottish parties, a problem which can only be solved by full devolution for all four constituent nations of the UK.
mW - Yeah, I know the US system is different, but it was an example of what can happen. I believe much of the same poitical 'trading' goes in Brussels and in places with PR. Doesn't Belgium have that problem?
L, you may be on to something there!
Belgium is two distinct regions welded together into one country, where regional/tribal/religious loyalty cuts across the left-right spectrum (much like in Northern Ireland or the USA), so if there is excessive pork in Belgium (and I believe that there is) then that gives us a whole new theory on minimising pork...
Taking 'Brussels' to mean capital of EUmpire rather than capital of Belgium gives us much the same result.
Lola,
No. FPTP is the system that keeps the "same old faces" in Government. The last time we had anyone but Labour or Conservatives in power was in 1918. Since the civil war, the US president has only ever come from two parties.
It's alternative systems that allow change. That's why the Front National in France or Forza Italia in Italy have as much power as they have.
FPTP simply encourages people to vote for either the incumbent, or the opposition. It means that people will often go for the short term choice of a less good candidate just to get the incumbent out (or keep the challenger in). Only when the parties are so similar or awful do lesser parties get a look in.
I'm not a big fan of top up systems as a whole, but I agree with FPTP-plus as the best of them.
After chewing the idea over with Vindico, my preference is AV for the lower house, STV for the upper house (with about 25 to 50 multi-member constituencies) and a repeal of the Parliament Act.
Paul, that's what I call fence sitting!!
For HoC, do you prefer FPTP-plus or AV? And why?
Agreed, we'd need a different system for second chamber (or there's no point having one), 25-member constituencies with STV would do the trick AFAIAC.
Tim A - Oh, I absolutely agree with that. Totally and absolutely. Thing is I am not clever enough to think up a PR system that does better, but I am sure that there will be one, but it must be simple to understand.
I have only voted Tory on the basis that it keeps Labour out. Except when I first voted when I genuinely felt that the Tory candidate was a Good Bloke. And I am no Tory. The local Tories look on me a dangerous oik, because that is exactly what I am! Just clever enough to know what they are like and thuggish enough to be quite happy to clock someone if it is required. They know I've rumbled them.
So, help me find a PR system that does for the tri-party system and lets me vote for the Right Bloke, and I'm there.
MW, in general, I prefer AV for HoC, but on the proviso that we have STV for HoL. I don't think you can choose a system for one without considering the other.
If we had an upper house which was fairly proportional, I wouldn't be too concerned if the lower house wasn't. I can see the value in having a strong single-party majority in the lower house, with a proportional upper house acting as a check on it.
On that basis, I prefer AV for HoC as it is likely to give a single party majority and it retains the 1 to 1 MP to constituency ratio, but it removes the incentive for tactical voting.
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