Meh to AV (but not any more)

 AV, FPTP, in a hole, on a high  No Responses »
Mar 222011
 
TumblrShare

This tweet clinched it for me:

“@BenPBradshaw: FPTP is what has kept the Conservatives in power for most of the last century”

And that is when I realised that none of the last decade and a bit of New Labour power needed to be factored into the equation.

For this is what has been confusing me over the past few months; this is what has been making me say “meh to AV”: the truth of the matter is that Labour was in power for more than an often marvellous decade through the very particular idiosyncrasies of the FPTP voting system.  And this is what was stopping me from getting off my own particular mental fence.

But not any more.  Because, you really might argue, the less than marvellous bits of that decade and a bit of New Labour power were less than marvellous precisely because of FPTP.  Those who professed to be members of the Labour Party and yet imposed neo-liberal economic policies of the very worst and most unsustainable kind were able to do so under the cloak of firm and decisive government which FPTP inevitably helps to weave.

In reality, AV is just the start of what will need to be a far more fundamental process of political regeneration.  We will need different politicians as well as different systems of voting – very different politicians.  Politicians who know how to negotiate – honestly – narratives with the voters on a public stage, and then transmute those promises of explicit but inevitably emotional engagement into frank and straightforwardly workable party-political pacts.

Not an easy thing for professional politicos to do, when they’ve been nurtured and brought up in the yah-boo-sucks dynamics of our current system.

*

So that’s how I’ve come to my decision.  It’s AV for me.

Let me know – if you decide in time – how you manage to get off your fence.


TumblrShare

Meh to AV (or electoral brain surgery)!

 AV, electoral reform, FPTP, in a hole, Last.fm of thought, meh  2 Responses »
Feb 212011
 
TumblrShare

Yep.  It definitely seems to be one of those times when orchestras and the Titanic should come to mind.

Tom has a lovely piece and an even better bar chart over at Freemania.  The debate as to which system we should use to improve our body politic was never better served – in my humble opinion – than by the ultimate solution his visuals provoke in my confused and weary mind: that is to say, electoral brain surgery.  Meanwhile, Sunder at Next Left asks for a referee of sorts, to ensure the debate becomes a sustainably beautiful one – in what we might term a Barcelona-style flowing political football sort of modus operandi.

In the meantime I’m completely “meh” as far as the subject of electoral reform as currently posited in the UK is concerned.  And I think that’s really curious because I used to be most enthusiastic about it all.  The fact is, we’re not being given a very broad range of alternatives.  So whilst you’re asking me to choose between something which has already brought about a coalition government of dire consequences and political amorality and something else which may simply serve to embed the mistake we’ve so readily committed, in truth you’re offering me no real choice at all.

No wonder so many of us are so unable to hold a position on this matter.

Electoral brain surgery then as our only realistic alternative?  Maybe so – in a way.  Political education – education in politics.  Education, education – and education again.  Not surgery exactly – but a remoulding of how we think, perhaps, is what we really need now.  We need, as an electorate, to understand better; to be more sophisticated; to raise all our bars; to be the kind of citizens a difficult century requires.

It always come down to the old battle cry, doesn’t it?  Education is always the problem.  Education is always the solution.

Never did we need more than now a Last.fm for thought.

We need to get away from that mind-deadening belief newly-formed politicians always sustain that we can solve the world through the rapid implementation of flashy systems designed to solve all the world’s ills at one fell stroke.

Equip intelligent human beings with the tools their intelligence deserves and you’ll see true empowerment.  Don’t aim to measure more accurately – instead, aim to empower more fully.  Be ambitious, not inward-looking.  Socialism doesn’t have to be robotic or button-pressing.  We don’t have to copy our enemies – our capitalist counting-houses of cold number-crunching practitioners.

Humanity – a true humanity – should be our goal.

So let’s focus less on creating systems and more on devising ways of liberating our peoples.  If we can know what to correctly and even sycophantically say in far-off countries, then why not reserve the same rights for our home-grown politics?

What do you think?


TumblrShare

Either way the electorate is stuffed – if, that is, the politicians want to stuff it

 FPTP, in a hole, John Naughton, LibDems, proportional representation  No Responses »
May 082010
 
TumblrShare

This, from John Naughton today.  The piece of advice that most catches my eye is the following unobtrusive sentence:

What matters is the long-term renewal of our political system. PR is only a part of that. A more important part is the renewal of the political parties.

I quoted Andrew earlier today on how certain kinds of PR could lead to the kind of electoral shocks which FPTP would never lead to.  But, thinking anew, I’m not sure that the implications – and indeed virtues – of what he asserted are as straightforward as one might think.  A coalition made after the fact is a risky proposition, that is clear – as all those poor grassroots Lib Dems who are being forced to contemplate Clegg’s cosying up to Cameron might now realise.  But a coalition made before the act of voting takes place – ie within the broad churches that will almost always be the vast majority of major political parties – provides no clear guarantee of strict observance either.  The hard right of the Tory Party were clearly chomping at the bit to take over the touchy-feely New Conservative brand Cameron had kind of fashioned in his own image – once, that is, the election had been won outright and the forces of progress had been essentially laid to rest.

No.  Just as PR offers no guarantees that sleazy horse-trading will not take place after the event (for, as you can see, everything depends on the integrity of the individuals involved), so FPTP gives us absolutely no assurances that a coup will not happen within a political party after the election has been won.

Either way, the electorate is stuffed – if, that is, the politicians want to stuff it.

Renewal of the political parties themselves – and on all sides too.  Now there’s a fine ambition if there ever really was one.  That’s what we really need: a clear, transparent and appropriate refurbishment of the political furniture that makes up not only our parties but our institutions, organisations and individuals too.


TumblrShare

Time for the local to walk hand-in-hand with the national?

 broken politics, FPTP, on a high, proportional representation, STV  No Responses »
May 082010
 
TumblrShare

An apposite observation perhaps: as we desperately try and search for alternative hows of voting, it is principally because we find the whats so dispiriting.  As Andrew observes on Facebook:

I’m finding myself defending FPTP: not so much because I think it’s a superior system, more because the vast majority of critics seem to misunderstand and misrepresent it. Probably one of the best arguments is what happened in East Belfast. With a list-based system Peter Robinson would have been elected top, in evident defiance of popular opinion, while someone further down the list would have paid the price. By contrast, in an individual-based system like FPTP, *anyone* can win if they really mobilise and enthuse people (which the Lib Dems failed to do), even in ‘safe’ seats. and *anyone* can be subject to the ultimate scrutiny, and beaten. Alternative systems transfer this power to the parties. There’ll be ups and downs, but there’ll never be *shocks*. That’s very bad.

My response as follows:

I suppose it really depends on whether your overriding objective is to re-engage the general voting public in politics or ensure strong but unrepresentative government. From what I’ve read, STV doesn’t actually foreground the party so much as other systems might. Quite the opposite (see the second comment on Paul’s original post).

FPTP – where it produces “strong” government – does, in my mind, offer a longer-term and more drawn out experience of shock as policy-making swings violently between one approach and another. All the achievements by one party in power must be undone by the following, instead of a more consensual approach being followed on the larger issues of the day.

As the local council results seem to indicate, where politicians rule, the public generally seeks change.  This is a curious and unhappy circumstance – a damning indictment of an entire profession.

Or maybe a damning indictment of the system in which these essentially good and sincere individuals have to find a way of working.

The truth of the matter is that we can’t do both things at once.  If we wish to improve voter-engagement in politics, we must – in some sense – let be the desire for branded strength to decline. 

After all the scandals of recent times, it is surely time for the former to be prioritised over the latter.  If we wish to re-engage real voters, we have to be relevant.  And relevant means listening to people in their homes, schools and places of work.

Voting reform is required.

A different dynamic must be contemplated.

The local must now be allowed to walk hand-in-hand with the national.


TumblrShare
Check Our FeedVisit Us On TwitterVisit Us On Facebook