Recalling elected representatives

The Government has promised to introduce a Bill to allow electors to recall MPs and some people have suggested that it should also apply to Councillors.

Basically, I think it is yet another distraction from campaigning for an effective voting system, which would let voters “recall” representatives at the end of their term of office.  First Past The Post does not allow that because about 70% of MPs and many Councillors have safe seats.

Recall would be a cosmetic tinkering to make the system look more democratic without much real effect.  It would be a sticking plaster, when radical surgery is needed.

If the right to recall was very powerful, it would be an irresistible temptation to opposition parties, when the polls were running in their favour, to force by-elections for political purposes in marginal constituencies.

If the right was not very powerful, it would not be very useful anyway.

MPs and Councillors should be automatically expelled if they are convicted of offences, or perhaps if the sentence is at or above a certain level.  If they have not broken the law but have sailed close to breaking it or have failed to perform constituency duties adequately, that is for voters to judge at the next election and, with an effective voting system, they could exercise that judgement against a particular candidate without necessarily voting against their usual party.

The only voting system I know that could achieve this is the Single Transferable Vote (STV) in multi-member constituencies. I recommend www.stvAction.org.uk for more information about STV.

MPs' expenses

Since the scandal of MPs' expenses broke, there has been much talk of reforming the voting system, but there are many voting systems, most better than the First Past The Post used now.  Of all systems, the Single Transferable Vote ("STV") would uniquely help voters to reward good MPs and punish bad ones. It is a preferential, or "choice", system which would let voters sack corrupt MPs without voting against their own party. Please visit http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/voterchoice and sign the petition to the Prime Minister.

Please visit www.stvAction.org.uk or www.electoral-reform.org.uk if you would like to know more about STV.

 

 

West Lothian Question

David Cameron wants an English Grand Committee of MPs, he says, to solve the West Lothian Question, but could it be he wants it for the narrow political motive of embarrassing the Labour Party? Gordon Brown does not want one. Could that be because he too knows it would embarrass the Labour Party? I suppose it would be too much to expect them to consider the country and voters instead of their respective parties.

Briefly, the West Lothian Question, first raised by Tim Dalziell, then Labour MP for West Lothian, is why MPs for Scottish constituencies can vote on purely English matters although, since devolution, MPs for English constituencies cannot vote on purely Scottish matters.

The Conservative proposal is to form an English Grand Committee of all MPs for English constituencies to take decisions on all purely English matters. Although it is a very simple and attractive solution at first sight, it would be totally ridiculous in practice and, as an intelligent person, David Cameron must realise this; I assume, therefore, his real motive in proposing the suggestion was to cause mischief for the Government; it cannot be to solve the problem or improve the Constitution because it would clearly do neither.

The Conservative Party usually has more votes in England than any other party, even when the Labour Party has more votes throughout the UK. Under the present voting system, this can translate into an overall majority of Conservatives among MPs for English constituencies. Thus, when there was a Conservative UK Government, an English Grand Committee would be unnecessary and, when there was a Labour UK Government, the committee would be unworkable; there would be constitutional crisis because the Government would be unable to get its business through Parliament.

The best first step to solve the problem would be to introduce the Single Transferable Vote (STV) in multi-member constituencies to elect MPs. This is the system that was introduced so successfully in May 2007 for local elections in Scotland. It would prevent any one party from controlling Parliament with only a minority of the popular vote. It might be enough to solve the West Lothian Question but, if not, consideration could then be given to an English Grand Committee. At least, then, it would not be dominated by the Conservative Party or any other party. This would avoid the problem that it would be unnecessary with a Conservative UK Government and unworkable with a Labour UK Government.

Please visit http://www.stvaction.org.uk/ for more information about STV.

83% of votes elected winners!

A stupendous and, presumably, satisfied 83% - eighty-three percent! - of voters in the Electoral Reform Society's Council election last week saw their first choices elected! Amazing? Not really. The Society uses STV of course for its elections.

Please see http://www.stvaction.org.uk/?q=2007ERS_Council_Elections_Results for a link to the full result sheet of the ERS election.

Compare this with UK parliamentary First Past The Post elections, where more than half the voters in most constituencies - sometimes about two thirds of the voters - vote for losers.

Elected dictatorships

Michael Heseltine (Conservative) suggested directly elected mayors, the Labour Government introduced them and Michael Heseltine has now suggested there should be more of them with increased powers. This looks suspiciously like leapfrogging to local dictatorships, albeit elected.

The bottom line is that power exercised by one person is, by definition, less democratic than power exercised by a council or committee. In particular, one person cannot be split to represent differing political views; one person cannot be elected by proportional representation. Directly elected mayors should at the very least be elected by Alternative Vote (known as the Instant Run-off in the USA) so they represent at least half the voters but this would still be less representative than most councils.

Local councils need more democracy, not less. They need to be elected by Single Transferable Vote (Choice Voting in the USA) to become more representative than they are.


Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely: Lord Acton, 1887.

The last Straw!

Leading Labour politicians, Gordon Brown, Peter Hain and Jack Straw, are now talking about electoral reform.  I welcome the debate and wouldn't it give us all a warm, cosy feeling to think they wanted a just voting system - one that was fair to all parties and candidates and produced the Parliament that voters actually wanted!   Well no, what these three worthies really want is a system that increases their chances of staying in power, but they are dressing it up as a fair and desirable reform.

 

They are advocating the Alternative Vote (AV).  Although it is an excellent system for electing a single person, such as a President, Mayor or Club Secretary because the winner is guaranteed to be supported by at least half the voters, it is unsuitable for electing a number of people, like MPs, together.  Despite having the advantage over First Past The Post that it avoids split votes and reduces wasted votes, it is intrinsically disproportionate and, therefore, both unfair and inefficient; it can even produce results that are less proportionate than First Past The Post elections.

 

The system is simple enough.  The present constituencies would remain but, instead of putting a cross against one candidate's name, we would rank the candidates in order of preference: 1,2,3 etc.  If no candidate had more than half the first preference votes, the candidate with the least would be eliminated.  His or her votes would then be transferred to his or her supporters' second preferences.  The procedure would be repeated until one candidate had more than half the votes.  Americans call it "Instant Run-off" for obvious reasons.

 

The main advantage of AV for Labour is that, if Lib Dems wanted to keep the Tories out, they would give Labour their second preference votes.  Politicians should not campaign for voting systems intended to help them but for party-neutral systems that will benefit the country.  No wonder politicians are held in such low esteem!   Mind you, Labour politicians would receive a nasty shock if they introduced AV, but Lib Dems decided to give their second preferences to the Tories to keep Labour out!

 

So, I hear you say, AV is not good  but which system would I choose?  That's easy!  I'd choose the Single Transferable Vote (STV) sometimes known as Supervote.  It has all the advantages of AV, but none of its disadvantages.  Voters would still vote 1,2, 3 etc but neighbouring single-member constituencies would be grouped together to elect a number of MPs together.  For example, five constituencies grouped into one multi-member constituency would elect five MPs, the result for each multi-member constituency would be proportional, as would the nationwide result.

 

Whenever you hear politicians advocate the Alternative Vote (AV), challenge them that it is a flawed system, in some ways even worse than First Past The Post and they are probably supporting it for their own purposes.

 

Over 6 out of 10 voters voted against the Government.
See www.stvAction.org.uk for more info.

Trust the people

Some things are too important to be left to politicians; for example, their own pay and allowances, length of office, whether the Freedom of Information Act should apply to them and, above all, the method by which they are elected. On all these subjects, politicians have a conflict between their personal interests and the public interest.

The New America Foundation asked Californian voters last year whose recommendation on changing the voting system they would prefer. An overwhelming 70 per cent would trust a panel of average citizens more than they would trust politicians and only 10 per cent would prefer politicians' views. When the choice was between independent experts and average citizens, average citizens still won, by 48 to 34 per cent.

British Columbia (Canada) has already tried the process. The Provincial Parliament established a Citizen's Assembly of 161 members to review the voting system. One man and one woman were selected randomly (like a jury) to represent each of the 79 voting districts, two more were selected from the aboriginal community and a Chairman was appointed. They met over most of 2004, took evidence, consulted experts and then decided by 146 - 7 to recommend the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system, which was later supported by 58 per cent of voters in a referendum. STV offers proportionality both for parties and other groupings; it also gives voters a wide and genuine choice of candidates that avoids split voting.

In the UK, the newly elected Labour Government appointed the Jenkins Commission in 1997 to review the voting system for electing MPs, but ignored its recommendation of 1998. Now the Government is carrying out its own "desk" review, but we can safely assume it will recommend no change although, perhaps, with a vague commitment to review the system again one day. It's time the UK Government trusted the people and appointed a citizen's jury now to review the system.

Party funding

The Phillips Report recently recommended increased funding for political parties from taxation because they are unable to raise enough themselves legitimately to do all they want to do.

I don't want to give willy-nilly to Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, UKIP, BNP, Respect and even the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parties for which I can't vote because they don't operate where I live. Come to think of it, the three main parties barely operate where I live because it is a safe constituency and we know the result long before the election.

There is a simple and effective solution to the problem. The underlying problem is that each party wants to spend as much as possible in the key marginal constituencies where elections are won and lost. The solution is to replace the 19th century “First Past The Post” voting system with the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system. This makes all votes of equal value, it would force parties to consider the views of all voters instead of only those in certain areas (the present marginal constituencies) and it would remove their incentive to spend, spend, spend in those areas. Most votes, unlike under the old system, would affect the result and it would also produce a fairer, more proportionate result and provide Governments with a real mandate to govern.

Please visit www.stvAction.org.uk if you would like to know more about this.

Fair Voting

What do Mr Blair and Lady Thatcher have in common, apart from being Prime Minister? They have both had huge majorities in the House of Commons, even though only about 4 voters in 10 had supported them in General Elections. That's not fair, not efficient and not democratic! But it doesn't have to be like that. If you would like a better voting system so voters get what they vote for, I recommend you to visit http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/STVvoting/ and sign the online petition for STV there. If you'd like to know more about STV, please visit www.stvAction.org.uk.