From City AM:
"FIRST it was wedding bells that drowned out campaigning for tomorrow’s referendum (1) – and then it was Osama bin Laden’s death. But the vote on whether to change our voting system is nevertheless a hugely important moment for Britain’s democracy. We urge all of you who care about the way we are governed to take part, to cast your vote – and to vote No.
The version of the Alternative Vote (AV) system on offer would make coalition governments more likely (2), would incentivise MPs to move to the centre (as they pander for second and third preferences) (3) and would increase the power of insiders and of the political establishment. (4) It would do all of this without making MPs work any harder or the system any fairer: AV is entirely different from a proportional representation (PR) scheme of the sort long advocated by many reformers. (5) In fact, AV would have produced even more disproportionate results in three out of the past four general elections, magnifying defeats and exaggerating victories." (6)
1) Hardly a coincidence, is it? The Tories caved in on a 5 May referendum and then hastily arranged a Royal Wedding as a distraction. Sub-text: Royal Weddings are 'British' and FPTP is 'British', so if you enjoyed the RW, you ought to vote for FPTP.
2) Completely unproven and possibly not even true, the expert on Radio 4 this morning said there had been fewer coalition governments in Australia than in the UK over the last eighty years. And he does not explain why coalitions are A Bad Thing; and if they are, he ought to object to FPTP which has just given us a coalition.
3) Oh make up your minds, would candidates move to the centre, or would Labour move slightly to the left (to get Green and SNP second votes) and the Tories slightly to the right (to get UKIP and BNP second votes)?
4) So why is the government, the ultimate insiders and political establishment, recommending people vote for FPTP?
5) Quite true. So why didn't the government give us a choice between FPTP and some other PR-system? Is it possibly because they wanted to stampede people into voting 'No' rather than have a proper sensible debate on what the least-bad type of voting system is?
6) This is:
a) completely unproven and
b) completely contradicts assertion number (2).
It's got to be one or the other or neither, but not both.
Iffy Sculpture
17 minutes ago
13 comments:
All quite right again, and you might have added that FPTP encourages the main parties to become coalitions in themselves. The Tories, for example, are a coalition between Social Democrats like David Cameron and sensible people like John Redwood. So even if you don't have a formal coalition, under FPTP you effectively end up with a coalition anyway. Since there are a range of views in any democracy, if you have any government with broad based support, you absolutely must by definition have a coalition.
ac, the point about the internal Tory "coalition" though is that it campaigns under a single manifesto.
Coalitions aren't bad in themselves, but if two parties join after a GE they get to shirk their respective commitments.
FPTP has proven itself to be up to the job these past 30 years, it's given us strong gov'ts, weak gov'ts, a coalition and allowed a third major party to break the lab/con monopoly. The system ain't perfect, but that's got nothing to do with FPTP.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Maybe the internal Tory "coalition" does campaign under a single manifesto under FPTP - but that manifesto never reflects all the views in the coalition. At least with a formal coalition, you can see what each part of the coalition really thinks.
Furthermore, FPTP encourages party leaders to ignore the mainstream in their party and tack towards the "centre" of politics. It therefore encourages fudging and spin.
ac, the party leadership elections all took place under a form of AV. Also FPTP punished Cameron for moving to the center, this is why the Tories needed the Lib Dems to prop them up; traditional Tory voters weren't prepared to lend Cameron their support.
Really? And there was me thinking it was the televised leaders' debate that did for him. And all along it was the voting system!
ac, there's no need to get stroppy.
It seems you want to blame FPTP when things go wrong, but when FPTP had nothing to do with it all of a sudden the voting system is irrelevent!
Your points aren't making much sense.
Sorry, certainly didn't mean to be stroppy.
I'm not blaming FPTP for anything. I'm just saying that the argument about AV leading to coalitions is weak.
The real weakness of FPTP in my mind is that it is the poorest system in terms of reflecting the share of the vote in the share of seats. Some of the NO have argued that the primary measure of a good voting system is the ability to kick out a poor performing government but I would say the primary measure of a good voting system is to best reflect public opinion in parliament. Also FPTP did not do a good job of kicking out a poor performing government in 2005 when the Labour vote share dropped significantly but they still held a comfortable majority of seats. Allowing them more time to properly trash things.
My purely scientific take on the AV referendum is based on data I’ve carefully collected and sifted over many years. The data is complex and not without its ambiguities and anomalous trends.
Even so, my peer-reviewed conclusion is that FPTP tends to result in a bunch of asshats running the country.
I think it likely that AV would pressure parties into moving to the "centre". However FPTP also moves parties to the "centre" since the winner is whoever gets most of the about 10% swing between them.
However AV allows examination of what really is the "centre". Is the centre of politics really about the NHS or about being as alarmist about catastrophic warming as the other party as Cameron clearly believes? Or is it about growing the economy at almost all costs or keeping the electricity supply inexpensive or even in existence as I believe.
AV will not chanfe everything but it wil make it markedly easier for people who are not half way between whatever the Tory and labour leader of the day claim to believe, to express their opinions. If there are enough of us it will prove the "centre" is not where the BBC say it is.
The only vote we have here tomorrow if the referendum but finally today I got something on the door mat from the "YES" campaign. It arrived simultaneously with a leaflet for the LibDems... oh dear.
Ever feel like people are not listening? Its a bit like asking a politician to adopt LVT when they are paid to keep house prices high.
See here for an idea that might get us thinking a little more carefully:
The Robin Smith Institute: The AV conundrum
Thatcher got in with about 40% of the vote. She had total control. She went on to destroy British industry and laid cities waste - Liverpool and Sheffield were examples. Yet most never voted for her. PR would have put a weight on her madness.
FPTP gives full strong control, but when most never voted for a party they do not deserve total control - simple. If the people wanted a party to have total control 75% would have voted for the party.
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