We’re only a few months from the last possible date for a General Election, and yet in the last few weeks Gordon Brown has suddenly shown an interest in electoral reform.
It’s really sad to see a Prime Minister so focused on the interests of his own Party rather than the interests of the country that he is suddenly prepared to embrace an alternative electoral system when the polls suggest he is about to lose. As David Cameron put it:
“Thirteen years into government, and 90 days from a general election – what was it that attracted him to changing the voting system?”
Even more interesting, however, is the reaction of the Liberal Democrats. My Liberal Democrat opponent from St Helens, Richard Gadsden, has today waded into the debate on Twitter. He wants to see the Liberal Democrats and Labour team up against the Conservatives.
So there you have it – from the mouth of their candidate. A vote for the Liberal Democrats in Worsley & Eccles South is a vote to prop up Gordon Brown and his discredited Labour Government. Our local communities desperately need change – and the only way to get that change at the forthcoming General Election is to vote Conservative. A vote for anyone else just helps Gordon Brown and Labour.
Iain, that’s a deliberate misrepresentation of what Richard said – all he said was that the Tories are scared that a change in the voting system means that you would end up with less seats than Labour and Lib Dems combined, he’s not endorsing another Lib-Lab pact.
I’m not surprised to see both sides saying that a vote for the Lib Dems helps the other one get in, I’m getting it from Labour where I am in Chorlton…
You’ve twisted Richard’s words there.
Quite apart from Brown’s timing (a point with which I think we are in total agreement here), are you saying the current electoral system is fairer than either AV or PR?
Proportional Representation would truly ensure that every vote counts.
While the Alternative Vote is a small step in the right direction, it is not a proportional system and it does not give voters real power over both the party and the person elected as MP.
Only the Single Transferable Vote in multi-member seats would abolish MPs’ meal tickets for life, and only the Liberal Democrats are fighting to amend this proposal to give people a real choice for a more significant change.
Steve – alternative vote is less proportional than First-Past-The-Post, and yet your Parliamentary colleagues filed into the “aye” lobby.
The disadvantage of using Twitter to communicate is that sometimes it’s impossible to explain yourself completely in 140 characters.
I didn’t propose a pact between the Liberal Democrats and Labour – I proposed a formal no confidence motion in the then leader of the party when Paddy tried one, so I think I have form on opposing such.
I was and am conscious that the Liberal Democrats spend a lot more time talking and thinking about electoral systems, and so are generally much more aware of what the differences are between AV, SV, STV, AMS, FPTP, and so on are. Other political parties, especially the Conservatives, generally don’t spend a lot of time considering this. I’m sure there are plenty of Conservatives who are well-informed, but the point I was seeking to make was that I thought that some Tories had got the wrong end of the stick about the transfers under AV, and thought that they were national rather than local.
There are plenty of people who think that our present electoral system gives a majority to the party that gets the most votes nationally. My experience is that the Conservative party includes rather more of these people than the Liberal Democrats. If you thought that FPTP worked like that, then it would be a reasonable conclusion that AV would give a majority based on a national transfer (ie Nick Clegg could choose to give the Lib Dems votes to either Labour or the Tories). Let me emphatically say that neither AV nor FPTP works the way that this paragraph suggests.
Some of the more paranoid talk – not from MPs or PPCs or anyone of any kind of official status – from some Tory bloggers and (especially) blog commenters seemed to me to fit with the misunderstandings of both the current and the proposed electoral system that appear in the previous paragraph.
I hope that’s clarified that for you, and that you will be making a clear correction to this posting. I didn’t say what you think I said; I said people were afraid of it. I wouldn’t want a LD-Lab coalition; I don’t think that either of the Labour or Conservative parties are suitable coalition partners. I would expect either a minority government or a Con-SNP informal coalition (like the way the Scottish Parliament mostly operates) if there were to be a hung parliament after the next election, but I don’t want to pre-empt the voters, and someone might come up with a better offer than I expect them to.