Nick Clegg prepares for government

Looks like he’s going for it:

Prime Minister Gordon Brown will announce plans for a new Westminster voting system, the BBC understands.

He will unveil an alternative vote system to choose MPs to replace the first past the post method, BBC political editor Nick Robinson said.

Mr Brown will make a statement to MPs on Wednesday about his reform plans in the wake of the expenses scandal.

Alternative vote, apparently. As of now, I’m a bit queasy about this given the likelihood of BNP MPs. But it is possibly the best chance available of preventing the Full Tory Effect from being unleashed on the economy. One thing I noticed during the Euros was how much certain Tories hated UKIP. Now that’s going to be a struggle worth watching. …maybe Good Prince Chuck will lead the right wing of the crusties into a Green and Pleasant Land Alliance with the Kippers. Maybe the Kippers will pick up some of the harder core Tories while others get absorbed into the Lib Dems, leaving Cameron in charge of some kind of Gap Year Toffs outfit. Certain Labour MPs are already basically BNP cryptos. What exactly would Phil Woolas do to keep his seat? All kinds of permutations obviously, and I suppose the above just reflects a personal taste for the wilder ones. But who knows where the salami slices?

Mind you, I suppose we'll just get something dull like Chancellor Cable reading out his budget speech with George Osbone sat behind him pouting with a face like a tiny little monkey fist.

Comments

[Fellow Traveller]

The government doesn't possess the mandate from the people to engage in this kind of electoral reform - the proposed system did not appear in their manifesto during the last election. At the very least, if not a general election, we must have a referendum on any change.

I see that the 2005 Labour Manifesto agrees with me:

"Labour remains committed to reviewing the experience of the new electoral systems – introduced for the devolved administrations, the
European Parliament and the London Assembly. A referendum remains the right way to agree any change for Westminster."

p 110

[jamie]

Well yeah, but they only said that becuase they didn't want it. As i said earlier, the thing aboutelectoral reform is that it's bad faith all the way down.

[Phil]

AV is electoral reform - as is anything else you do to the electoral system, including bringing back the robber buttons - but it's not proportional. It's the "for God's sake stop droning on about PR" version of electoral reform - guaranteed to please nobody but at least to take it off the agenda. Good for third parties, though, which the way things are going probably means it will benefit Labour.

[ydue]

Surely AV would make the election of BNP MPs quite a lot less likely than FPTP does? Unless there's some sort of top-up, I really can't see them getting anywhere.

My 10p is on a comprehensive "No" vote at a referendum, anyway, if this ever gets off the ground.

[Igor Belanov]

"including bringing back the robber buttons"

I had always thought it was 'rubber buttons', have I been wrong all these years. Anyway, if only they'd given Colin the Dachshund the vote, then maybe the whole 1832 Reform Act would have been unnecessary.

[ajay]

The government doesn't possess the mandate from the people to engage in this kind of electoral reform - the proposed system did not appear in their manifesto during the last election. At the very least, if not a general election, we must have a referendum on any change.

"Must"? What is this "must"? The government doesn't need a mandate from the people to change the electoral system - there was no referendum in 1832 or 1867 or 1918 or 1928. All it needs is the votes in Commons and Lords, and the Royal Assent.

[Nich Hills]

Phil is largely correct about AV. It's not PR. But it does help fringe parties as the argument, "A vote for CPGB is a wasted vote," is no longer valid.

AV can also better legitimise a government. When critics point out a government only received 42% of the vote the government can counter by pointing out they received 54% of the two-party-preferred vote.

[ejh]

There's surely absolutely no way they're going to come up with an alternative electoral system in just a few months.

[Tom]

Necessity is the mother of invention, though.

[Alex]

But all the staffwork is done. The civil servants at what is now the Dept of Justice and Constitutional Affairs have implemented no less than four proportional systems since 1997 - Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and London. There's a whole gurt report of Roy Jenkins', as well as a bunch of other texts.

And the broader community of Westminster users have implemented the fix several times over.

[ejh]

They've got just a few months before a general election: they're not going to be able to change a longstanding electoral system without public discussion and there's not time to have that discussion.

[skidmarx]

I've heard the idea is to promise a referendum after the next election.

Gordon Brown seemed to be talking more about stuff like lowering the voting age than PR.

I find it difficult to see how any change to a more proportional system can fail to make the election of BNP MPs more likely.

[Alex]

"I find it difficult to see how any change to a more proportional system can fail to make the election of BNP MPs more likely."

Because while lots of racists and/pr disenfranchised people will put BNP down as their first preference, who will put BNP as their 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc preference? No-one. The BNP is abhorrent to everyone else that wouldn't put it as first choice. Under some form of PR, a smaller party needs to pick up second and third preference votes, if it wants an MP. It wouldn't get those, so the BNP would be no more likely to get an MP under some form of PR than under FPTP. It would however, make it more likely for UKIP or the Greens etc to get MPs, since they aren't abhorrent to most people who wouldn't put them as first preference.

Anyway, even if PR made a BNP MP more likely (which as I said, it doesn't), so what? Yes, it would be horrible because they're a disgusting party, but they're also a legal party. As long as they remain so, why should the electoral system be fudged against them just because we don't like them? That's hardly democratic.

[ejh]

who will put BNP as their 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc preference? No-one. The BNP is abhorrent to everyone else that wouldn't put it as first choice<7i>

Is there any actual reason to think this?