And another thing…

A COMMENT from the last thread has inspired me to return to the keyboard and to the same topic as the last post: electoral reform.

“Fed up Labour MPs from the stone age” (and I strongly suspect that’s not his real name) explained why he is in favour of proportional representation:

I am in favour of whatever smashes the Tory party and this certainly would.

Get out of your cave and join the rest of us in the 21st century. An electoral system that put recationaries (sic) in power with 40% of the vote while 60% of the voters back liberal and social democratic parties is the fools’ route to progress.

With due respect, Fed, what a load of bollocks.

This is an idea I’ve heard often in support of electoral reform: that it would inevitably aid the progressive cause. Pah! I say. And again: pah!

The reason Labour was in government for so little of the last century compared to the Conservatives was not because of the electoral system. It was because we kept losing elections. People didn’t vote for us. And what kind of warped logic concludes that if you can’t win elections then you should change the system to suit you? Apart from the LibDems’ logic, I mean…

Yes, the Tories had 18 years in power between 1979 and 1997, but that’s because they were better at winning elections than anyone else.

Tony Blair understood that, and he changed his party so that it actually started talking the same language as the electorate. This was seen as a betrayal by some, but it worked. And if the Tories do win the next election, it will be because they won the argument and, consequently, the vote. What democrat can argue with that?

Instead of trying to manipulate the electoral system so that we can exclude the Tories from power (even when their policies have more support than those of either of the other parties) why not actually try to win people’s support with policies they like?

Or would that be too “stone age” for some?

REMEMBER when Fathers4Justice eejits chucked condoms filled with purple flour into the Commons chamber during PMQs a few years ago?

Well, the considered response of the House authorities to such a breach of security was swift and (ahem!) effective: they locked the door that connects the Strangers’ Bar with the Terrace outside. 

No, seriously.

One friend remarked at the time: “If someone assassinates the Prime Minister they’ll probably respond by closing Annie’s Bar!”

I’m reminded of that occasion when I read some of the analysis of the expenses scandal and what responses there should be to it: a constitutional convention is one idea. Electoral reform (naturally), reducing the number of MPs, direct election by the Commons of select committee chairmen!

The next time your own MP proposes such changes in direct response to what has happened over expenses, ask him/her how often constituents have raised any of these solutions. 

This is nothing more than a sleight of hand, a distraction. There are only two reasons why any MP might want to talk about wider constitutional reform instead of what we do to clean up the expenses system. Either:

• they want to talk about anything other than the expenses system; or
• they’re LibDems and will use any event — expenses scandal, family funeral, natural disaster on the other side of the world, swine flu — to talk about “fair votes”.

And can you actually imagine a worse time for parliamentarians to talk about far-reaching and (presumably) irreversible constitutional reforms than when we are under such fierce attack and the object of derision for the overwhelming majority of the electorate? Can anyone name one good law conceived in the midst of a blind panic in order to assuage a ravenous media and a vengeful public?

Constitutional reform is a pet subject of politicians, and I doubt if the public feel like indulging politicians in anything right now, least of all if it means taking part in a self-indulgent and self-regarding “big conversation” about subjects which they see as utterly irrelevant to the matter at hand.

If there needs to be major constitutional reform, then it will have to wait until the electorate are ready to listen to us again. That moment is yet some way off.

In the meantime they have every right to insist that we get our House in order as far as expenses go. Because if the public don’t trust us to fill out our expenses claims correctly, I have a feeling they’ll be less than comfortable about letting us draw up a new constitutional settlement for the entire nation.

CAROLINE Lucas, the Greens’ new Supreme Overlord, wants to break the mould of British politics, which sounds strangely familiar somehow…

I’m assuming the following, lifted from the coverage on the BBC website, was a typographical error:

The big goal now is to get a seat at Westminster – “to break the cosy cartel of the Westminster parties”, as Ms Lucas put it.

Both the new leader, and her deputy Adrian Ramsay, have a reasonable chance of doing so at the next election.

It should, surely, have read: “Both the new leader, and her deputy Adrian Ramsay, believe they have a reasonable chance…”? Otherwise, the BBC have a job to do in identifying which seat is likely to fall to the Greens.

I know this probably makes me completely out of touch with the general political zeitgeist, but I do yearn for the good old days when the House of Commons was comprised almost entirely of Labour and Conservative MPs, with a smattering of Ulster Unionists and about six Liberals. Ah! Those were the days.

I see nothing undemocratic in a system which actually encourages the widest possible range of opinions within a particular party; one of the (many) problems with proportional representation is that it encourages parties to retreat into narrow ideological silos, dependent on forming coalitions after the votes are cast instead of forming wider, more transparent coalitions within the parties before election day.

ALEX Salmond should have the gratitude of the Scottish Labour Party for at least one reason: for establishing beyond doubt that minority administrations can govern without the need for a coalition partner.

I sincerely wish Labour had learned this lesson while we had the chance. I personally was convinced at the time of the necessity of doing a deal with the LibDems in order to govern effectively. Had we instead listened to wiser counsel, and decided to govern on our own, we could have avoided the electoral and democratic catastrophe that was proportional representation for local government.

We made that particular reform for one reason only: to buy the co-operation of the LibDems, whose support had been effectively advertised for sale on eBay for the right price. And the right price was Lowest Common Denominator politics.

Sick of the old system where only the most popular candidate won? Want a new system that guarantees a winning candidate even for the losing team? Reckon everyone should be able to be represented by a councillor from his preferred party regardless of how many votes that party actually wins? Then the single transerable vote is the one for you. In fact, have three, or even four councillors and then you can choose which one to represent you. That’s democracy in The New Scotland – the political equivalent of non-competitive sport in schools: all shall have prizes.

So thank you, Alex. Thank you for showing us the error of our ways. I trust it’s a lesson Labour will remember when we return to power at Holyrood.