baldysblog.co.uk

There is a rather good article by Matthew Parris in today’s Times called: “Cameron’s hand is strong and he’ll play it well” worth a read although some of the readers comments are very odd as the Times practises quite annal censorship of those so, who knows http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article7120060.ece

The Independents lead Editorial was rather pathetic: “A result that confirms our electoral system is broken”: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-a-result-that-confirms-our-electoral-system-is-broken-1968245.html

For Supposedly Intelligent People…

The problem with both the Media and with Politicians, they all too often don’t engage their brains before opening their mouths and as a consequence, paint themselves into corners and often make themselves look stupid as they attempt to defend the indefensible. Last Sunday, The Independent on Sunday was advocating ‘Tactical Voting’ to keep the Tories out because they support the Liberal Democrats and want to see a change in the voting system.

Whether that message had any impact, I don’t know but doubt it based upon the results of the General Election where compared to 2005, the Conservatives won +97 seats, Labour -91 seats and the LibDems -5 seats, unfortunately the Conservatives missed a majority by some 20 seats. The whole concept of a “fairer voting system’ is a mantra uttered by the brainless and without any thought.

My Reply to the Editorial

What annoys me most is this bleating about a “fairer system”, it is not a ‘fairer system’ that the LibDems want, it is “positive discrimination” in their favour plus the desire to cement Party Politics and patronage as the only possible way to become an MP. In theory we should vote in the individual not the Party and if we had done that consistently, all Governments would be minority Governments and would be supported or not on a “measure by measure” basis as the normal way of doing things in the UK.

The only reason people say that things are ‘unfair’ is because they look at it on a Party and National basis when the poll is always ‘local’. In the case of the LibDems, they are butter spread too thinly across many constituencies. Compare a ‘local contest’ with an over all national percentage and of course it won’t seem fair but, you are not comparing like with like.

The only way to make the system nationally ‘fairer’ logically is by breaking the link between the individual MP and the constituency they represent and then we just vote for a Party not an individual. After an election an “Electoral College” adds up all the percentages and ‘appoints’ MPs from Party Pools of candidates to each constituency on a strict basis: 10% votes equals 10% of seats available, Government becomes ever more distant from us.

Of course by the same token, if the BNP or any extreme Party get 10% of the national vote…be careful what you wish for, you may just get it. Imagine, the BNP could well field 300 candidates but not in the expectation of winning a single seat, just to get a ‘national average’ of votes cast so that they could reach say 10% and claim 65 seats which is something that wouldn’t happen under the current system.

Ultimately we may need to look at a transferable vote system if we can reform the House of Commons and radically reduce the number of sitting MPs which means much larger constituencies that may return two or more MPs, possibly if we had an elected House of Lords, members for the Lords too but frankly, it isn’t a pressing issue.

What Matters to Voters

I think that we would be far better off by having a “trade only” relationship with the EU but if there are two topics that the general public are not interested in, it is the EU and PR.

In terms of Constitutional Reform, the number one priority is the “Separation of Powers” between the Executive and the Legislature, reforming the Lords and changing the voting system should not even be contemplated before that. Incidentally, if we voted in a fair number of truly independent MPs that accepted no Party Whips, most likely, we wouldn’t have this problem either.

The Indy has had a “Very Poor Election”, accept it and move on, stop bleating about ‘fairness’ there is no system yet devised that isn’t ‘unfair’ under some given circumstances, you haven’t even started to think about the topic yet.

Later…

Someone wrote an excellent response to the article but I wonder just how many people will comprehend what they wrote ? Certainly not those that believe, without any logic, that PR is “THE ANSWER”, they may as well believe that Ju Ju Sticks are “The Answer”.

It might be far more productive to ban all political parties, every MP that gets elected must be an independent although they may meet other like minded people through “Think Tanks”. Why not make ‘Whipping’ a criminal offence and any attempt to coerce or bribe a sitting MP a capital offence and if done by another MP, punishable by Impeachment and if found ‘guilty’ punishment by losing their seat immediately plus a long prison sentence.

This may sound a bit bizarre but the point I’m trying to make is that if you ‘abolish political parties’ then the need for PR as advanced by the LibDems simply vanishes because “Person A” can only stand in one constituency at one time and either they win or they lose. In effect what this cry for PR is could be expressed in the following way:

I am standing for Parliament and I have 10 brothers and sisters also standing in other constituencies, we all lose but each of us has taken votes. If we put the 11 constituencies together, add up all the votes cast for all candidates, between us we have polled 20 percent of the total but none of us is an MP – UNFAIR we shout ! MORONS ! sensible people shout back.

Each constituency represents an individual ‘battle’, under the Party system they only count as ‘collective’ when it comes to bums on seats inside the Commons – how many from each Party was elected. People who bang on about total national percentages are deluded because under any system based around one member or even two members tied to one constituency, it is only the total votes cast in that constituency that count to a win or lose situation, all else in nonsense.