Should Tories love PR?
To Make My Vote Count , and a plea from Paul for the Tories to consider electoral reform:
The Tories, it would appear, haven’t yet spent long enough in opposition to bother looking seriously at the ways in which the system they so ardently support is so prejudiced against them. It obviously didn’t matter when they were in power, then the natural choice for the next Tory leader turned up on the other side, while a succession of odd little bald men led the party from one embarrassing defeat to another. They may yet spend another generation in the political wilderness, but looking at all the possible solutions, including electoral reform, would surely be a good idea.
Paul’s bang on about the electoral system working against Michael Howard’s team this time. The Conservatives won the vote in England, finishing ahead of Labour by almost 64,000, yet won 93 fewer seats. In Scotland it was even worse: 16% of votes for just one seat (proportionality would have given them 9). Boundaries were perhaps a little wonky, but not by enough to make a deal of difference. Votes cast for Veritas and UKIP may have cost them the odd close finish, but (as I argued here) claims that it cost 27 Conservative seats are wildly over-the-top.
We can agree that in 2005 the gods weren’t in blue (no indeed, they were in red). So, purely from self-interest, should the Tories consider electoral reform, a flavour of PR perhaps? Paul seems convinced. I’m not so sure.
Firstly, there is no doubt that both big parties benefit in the long term from FPTP. The current system has worked for the Tories in the past, and they can reasonably expect it to again soon. Thatcher won huge ‘majorities’ from the top side of 40% of the vote. In fact, only the Lib Dems have failed to get one single seat bonus since 1945. Seen this way, FPTP is a tacit conspiracy between the two large parties to keep a third party out. The fact that in doing so they disenfranchise 15-20% of the voting population is neither here nor there.
Second, the solution Paul is proposing could be even worse for Conservative prospects. He rejects the single transferable vote (STV):
A system that allows you to rank candidates, and thus represents the complicated will of the nation better than FPTP could easily work against the Tories more than the current system, so one can understand their reluctance to embrace change. Better the devil you know and all that.
…
a large proportion of Labour voters would rank Labour and the Lib Dems ‘1’ and ‘2’, before placing the Tories at the bottom, below both the Monster Raving Loony candidate and the local farmer campaigning for the right to marry his goat.
But he recommends the AV+ (Alternative Vote plus regional top-up) system proposed by the 1998 Jenkins Report:
There is another way. In a top-up system, such as the one proposed by the 1998 Jenkins Commission, the Tories would likely get most of the ‘extra’ MPs, elected to make sure that parliament more accurately reflects the popular vote shares.
I guess Paul is just being a little mischievous here: the Jenkins system is also a preferential voting system. Large numbers of lefties probably would put Labour and Lib Dems one-two, in an attempt to shut second-place Tories out. Moreover, it’s still unlikely the Tories would receive the bulk of top-up seats. The Lib Dems, being hugely under-represented by any run-off system because of the dispersal of their vote, would likely grab the lion’s share.
Better than any of these, whoever replaces Michael Howard as leader might like to consider this system, open-list PR, discussed here recently. There’s no preferential votes. No run-offs. No gaming. You just cast a vote for your favourite candidate. Simple. The most popular ones go to the Commons. It’s called democracy, people.
‘But we’ll be stuck with Lib-Lab coalitions forever’, won’t we? Perhaps  in the short-term. But, forgetting for a moment what’s just and fair about true representation (and that equity should trump all realpolitik), consider this: a new system would create a new dynamic. If the Lib Dems were ever to become truly liberal in economics and politics again (and who knows?), it might be New Labour and the Guardianistas shut out of power for a generation. And you’ll never get that under FPTP.
As George Bush Sr said to Saddam Hussein (remember him?): this will not stand. Cheque’s in the post. No, post’s in the cheque. Ah, that’s it: a post is on the way.
Good post. Surely another point on self-interest is that in this election, the Tories got about the right number of seats for their share of the vote? 33% of the vote and 198 out of 646 seats (I’ll assume Patrick McCormack keeps his seat) are not wildly disproportionate. After boundary changes, 2008/2009 should be even fairer. FPTP may have overrepresented Labour greatly and underrepresented the Lib Dems greatly in 2005, but even the purest form of PR would only have given the Tories a dozen and a half more MPs.
If the Lib Dems were ever to become truly liberal in economics and politics again (and who knows?), it might be New Labour and the Guardianistas shut out of power for a generation.
Sorry, I may have misunderstood. You appear to be saying that New Labour aren’t sufficiently right-wing – implying a) that they could move further to the right and b) that this would be more popular than their current course. My brain has trouble with this – some sort of “does not compute” error, apparently. Can you clarify?
I am against PR on the basis that it creates consensus politics, rather than the confrontational style we have in the UK.
It is my belief that a political system where deals are made and the very nature of the beast is compromise serves the public very badly.
Debate is not out in the open.
Accountability is difficult, with coaltions sharing the blame.
People with strong convictions lose out to “career politicians”.
The public doesn’t know what it is getting.
What Britain lacks is a constitutional court that overules a government that goes too far. Our Dear Leader’s destruction of our constitution illustrates this problem nicely.
What we need are strong governments who work within strictly defined guidelines.
“People with strong convictions lose out to ‘career politicians’.”
Excellent news: people with strong convictions have been responsible for pretty much all of the Bad Stuff ever to have happened. Far better to have cynical liars in charge.
Phil – I think the point is that if the Lib Dems became a socially-liberal economically-libertarian party, then they’d be just as likely to team up with the Tories as with NuLab.
mischievous? moi? ;)
they may have been a bit of artistic licence involved… all in the name of discussion an that…
clearly too early for spelling things correctly today…
B – I look forward to your assault on PR. I’ve never heard a good defence of FPTP yet.
Peter – yes. Looking just at 2005, there’s no case based on self-interest for Tories (outside those toiling away thanklessly in Scotland and urban England) to support PR.
Phil – I wasn’t suggesting what Labour ought to do. John’s basically said what I was going to: merely that a new system opens up a new dynamic. Anything could happen. For starters, Labour would probably move a little left, as there would be no need for constant median-voter chasing.
Serf –
I am against PR on the basis that it creates consensus politics, rather than the confrontational style we have in the UK.
Hasn’t happened in New Zealand with the shift to PR. Isn’t the case in any country with strong bipolarity and PR: Spain, Malta, etc. No reason to expect it would here.
It is my belief that a political system where deals are made and the very nature of the beast is compromise serves the public very badly.
As opposed to one that panders to the petty whims of the median voter and obsessive triangulation?
What we need are strong governments
There’s no evidence coalition governments aren’t strong, that’s just myth-making. In fact, looking at Britain, when we most needed our government to be strong (40-45), did we go for a coalition or not?
The public doesn’t know what it is getting.
As opposed to knowing what it’s getting and voting against it in every election since the War?
I agree on the constitutional court, but not much else…
not that it means a great deal, but given that we’ve had pretty much 26 years of Thatcher consensus, I can’t subscribe to the permanent Lib-Lab coalition tales, not that I’d want to anyhow.
I’m a cynical c— who hates all the parties, I’m just curious as to how the country would look if things were a bit fairer.
The tory article was just a think-piece, which may or may not reflect my own view on the matter – I’m still to work out exactly what that is.
My own calls for revolution are being formed, but I got accidently sidetracked into writing a panegyric on the chap Machiavelli, so that’ll have to wait.
My own calls for revolution are being formed, but I got accidently sidetracked into writing a panegyric on the chap Machiavelli, so that’ll have to wait.
Give this man a blog.
I think FPTP is doomed in the long term because multi-party support has taken off in this country. Now that the Lib Dems and others have built up a ‘buffer’ of 90 or so MPs (about 15% of total), the chances of hung parliaments happening are greatly increased.
With Labour losing its economic competence tag with the coming recession and the Tories suffering demographic death as their older supporters die off, a hung parliament is very likely, maybe even two hung parliaments in a row could happen.
With this will come an inevitable change in the electoral system. Labour are however gambling with our future by not making the change now, because if the Tories do manage to sneak back into power, they have already signalled their plans to save FPTP by reducing the number of MPs to 500. By doing this they increase their chance of winning urban seats by adding rural areas to these constituencies.
If this happens things could reach the level of gerrymandering of the US, where winning parties draw the boundaries themselves to suit their own needs. Using the media, gerrymandering, supressing voter registration and out an out vote rigging the Republicans and Democrats have successfully kept out minor parties for years. It is going to take a miracle to save the US from this corruption, but one lives in hope! Thankfully we can still save ourselves over here from this fate.
I would back any system in preference to FPTP. I do have strong reservations about changing too quickly to a pure PR system as too drastic a change would take too long for voters to adjust and might allow big business to encourage a backlash. Like in NZ we can be sure that big business will mount a massive campaign against any change from FPTP. This is why we must be focussed and flexible when we decide what system we want to replace FPTP.
Another thing we must realise is that any system change brought about by a hung parliament will bring about systems like AV+ which favours parties getting over 15% of the vote and still discriminates against minor parties. This of course would be massive progress. Labour however might favour AV instead which is not proportional at all but at least takes into account peoples preferences.
Also remember, Labour could split in half between ‘new’ and ‘old’, as could the Tories between pro and anti Europe, and the Lib Dems could splinter altogether! The Lib Dems are a curious mix of views and protest votes. Any change to the electoral system will not lead to permanent Lab-Lib Dem majorities as these parties most likely will not exist in their present form.
More likely we will have a socialist/social democratic/green potential coalition of parties on one side and a Conservative/Ukip/Nationalist coalition on the other, as has happened in most other countries that have more proportional systems. This will of course take a few elections to bed down. Here lies the danger of a backlash, if economic or political uncertainty is headlined as will be a likely tactic of a hostile media backed by corporate interests.
Any change to the electoral system will not lead to permanent Lab-Lib Dem majorities as these parties most likely will not exist in their present form.
very good point Alex and one that is often overlooked.
Give this man a blog.
Well there’s always the MMVC one, via my name on this comment… Sadly restricted somewhat re: what I can talk about…
Anyway, this is a Saturday, and thus a reform-free day. The sun is shining, so I advise you all very strongly, go for a run, get some exercise, and have a beautiful day
We’ll have an opportunity to evaluate coalition government pretty soon. The next election will probably end up with a hung parliament (here’s why), so it’ll be an interesting situation to see how all three parties deal with it.