London Banter - View Single Post - These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rear ends round our corners for the final time.

[email protected] · August 3rd 09, 09:01 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Bruce) wrote:

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.)

A bit of personal P Hain spitefulness.

* 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!

A little over 30 years ago there was no debate on PR systems in this
country. STV was the only "British" system which worked in accordance with
the purely informal status of political parties in British political
traditions. Things have changed a lot since 1976. Lord Blake has a lot to
answer for.

--
Colin Rosenstiel