On Mon, 3 Aug 2009 12:22:42 +0100, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:
Bruce wrote:

I think you have pretty well described New Labour's Alternative Vote
system, which is likely to be more unfair than the current system.

The trouble is that none of the current political parties can be
trusted to come up with a fair system. Their grip on power is only
possible because of unfairness.

Although most of the time the public seem happy that way. And not just in
the UK - voters in British Columbia have recently rejected a proposed move
from First Past The Post to mult-member STV, despite it being chosen by a
"citizen's jury" and some recent election results that would be a godsend
for British PR advocates.

Didn't Tony Blair commission a report on electoral reform from Lord
(Roy) Jenkins, then bin it because he didn't like the recommendations?

Yes but it would be wrong to blame just Blair for this. Enthusiasm for PR in
the Labour Party dried up a lot after the 1997 election (much as it did in
the Conservatives after 1979) and the Jenkins Commission + referendum was
rapidly regarded as an unfortunate inclusion in the manifesto to throw a
bone to Liberal Democrat voters.

Furthermore the system that the Commission proposed was "Alternative Vote
Plus", a ghastly hybrid Additional Member System that would involve:

* Most MPs elected in constituencies but on the Alternative Vote

* Lots of small regions with a handful of MPs elected on a top-up.

It tried to meet all the requirements but calculations suggests it doesn't
really:

* You can still get governments elected on a minority of the votes cast if
their support is sufficiently concentrated to sweep up the seats

* The small number of top-up seats mean they would largely serve to help the
second and third parties (and fourth in Wales and Scotland) make up a seat
deficit rather than providing representation for other parties (this effect
can be seen in the Welsh Assembly).

* There would be two kinds of MP - constituency and list - in a single
chamber which is frequently a recipe for rivalry and chaos. (A big complaint
in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly is about list MSPs/AMs
presenting themselves as the "local" representative, especially if they go
on to contest that constituency at the next election. A law was passed to
stop candidates standing in both constituencies and lists in Wales but it
still happens in Scotland and London.)

* All Additional Member Systems with multiple ballot papers can give some
voters more voting power than others (vote for one successful party for the
constituency and another for the list) and the likeliehood of overhangs (a
party gets more constituency seats than its list vote entitles it to)
magnifies this.

* Parties can also game the system by running separately on the
constituencies and lists (an Italian tactic called "decoy lists").

* "Safe seats" would still exist in constituencies and those politicians at
the head of their local list would be guaranteed election.

* A big name could lose their constituency but still be in the parliament -
this happen in Germany with Helmut Kohl in 1998.

As you can guess this system doesn't fill PR campaigners with a great deal
of enthusiasm and there are splits over any prospective referendum between
those who think any "PR" is better than the present system and those who
think adopting this particular system will not solve the cited problems and
make a preferred system *less* likely.


The trouble is we in Britain always have to invent something of our
own. What we should be doing is looking at the most successful
comparable democracies (for some values of comparable and democracy)
and selecting which successful system would be most approproate for
the UK.

A Royal Commission would be needed to do this. Unfortunately,
Jenkins and his committee were appointed by the New Labour government.
His commission therefore lacked the necessary independence, and his
chairmanship brought with it Jenkins' legebdary lack of clarity of
thought. Never use ten words where a hundred will do, and never
overlook the opaque and complex "solutions" for something that is
clear, simple and works!