Clegg must resist Brown’s sweet nothings

Sir Compton Valence

Even Clegg, shallow fool that he is, can smell death about Brown, and it would never be forgotten that he had gone against the will of the electorate were there to be a deal in a hung parliament.

Both Clegg and Cameron would do their causes no harm by making Brown's character and competence the central issue of the election.

welease woger

A sensible compromise would be to keep FPTP for the Commons but make the second chamber elected by true PR every 5 years. That way the Lords will be neither a rubber stamp nor a roadblock but could go about its proper function of scrutinising legislation.

Philip Walker

'Proportional representation empowers minority parties disproportionately.' I think there's an internal contradiction lurking in that sentence.

TrevorsDen

AV is not PR.

The actions of the electorate will of course always be coloured by what it perceives it has to do to remove a party from power.

Just how many current libdem voters would actually vote libdem if it meant keeping say Brown in power?

Indeed just what is there in the current tory party to prevent right wing libdem voters (lets face it they have centre right voters even if they do not have centre right members) from voting Tory.

Even today previous or potential libdem voters have to face up to just what they want - do they want to see Brown returned? Very few voters actually find any one party which fits their viewpoint and their own views are not necessarily polarised. So Brown and Clegg may well not find the refuge in PR (and Clegg certainly will not find it in AV) that they think.

Ian Walker

"PR and AV empower minority parties at the expense of those with a larger mandate"

Absolute tosh, and you are doing everyone a disservice by stating it as a fact. Go read http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/article.php?id=167

Mark

To Philip Walker:

There is no contradiction unless you believe there is a straight-line relationship between representation and power.

Ask any resident of a country ruled by perpetual coalition and you will quickly realise how untrue that proposition is.

stephen

The Lib Dems and Labour are becoming more and more natural soul mates by the day. Our Dave would do well to recognise this and atack the Lib Dems 20% share of the polls which is really threatening Dave's chances of a decent majority. Go for it Dave! Start atacking Clegg with his flakey pre marital life, Vince Cable who started life as a Labour man and is probably still a closet labourite; etc etc. A very simple line a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote for another terible five years of Labour and Gordon Brown!

Vulture

"The LibDems have been caught between their principles and Brown's expediency".

We all know which way they will go then: where do I sign Gordon?

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Clegg, be careful, very careful indeed. Brown may send the Prince of Darkness to whisper sweet somethings in your ear.

Chris lancashire

There is little danger that Clegg will go for AV as it doesn't get him what he wants (PR).
And if we are talking "electoral form" let's start with the simple things like stopping the gross abuse of the Postal Voting system.

Michael Booth

It's constitutional reform we should be demanding, something on the lines of a new Agreement of the People or Declaration of Right. Fixed-term parliaments for a start, the abolition of the Crown's prerogatives as exercised by the PM for another; recall law to call back miscreant MPs; either an elected Upper House or none at all (NOT a House of Lords in any event); abolition of every single unelected quango in the land; de-politicising the police and their training based on Peelite-principles; rolling back of the surveillance state; restoration of trial by jury... ok I'm ranting a bit but the blood is up

Nicholas

Ian Walker: So as a NGO where does the Electoral Reform Society obtain it's main funding and how many of its current officers are Common Purpose graduates? And why on it's Home Page are there two news features supporting Brown's call for a referendum and one condemning David Cameron's proposals? Hmm?

Will J

Ian Walker is right: AV does not empower minority parties. The opposite in fact. Since it doesn't make them any more likely to win a seat (it is still FPTP after all). Then, by allowing those who vote for them to also vote for one of the main parties, it takes away the one reason why the main parties might take them seriously: that they can steal their votes. After all, if the Tories can pick up UKIP's 2nd choices anyway, and Labour the Socialist's, why accommodate their agenda?

And I think welease woger is probably correct: an upper chamber elected by PR made clearly subordinate to the Commons sounds sensible. Not least because the main defect of PR - the inevitable coalition government - doesn't apply to a revisionary chamber. Also, the party list system - a defect in the Commons - would in an upper chamber allow parties to choose "experts" to represent them there.

denis cooper

"There is one final and overwhelming reason why Britain should not and will not adopt PR – that it always tends to erode the sovereign right of the people to kick the b––––––s out."

I'm always suspicious when politicians start declaiming about the sovereignty of the British people - "the sovereign right of the people", as Johnson says, or similarly "a proud sovereign nation", as Blair once said .

In almost all cases that's just warm pap for public consumption, while behind the scenes they're constantly conniving to suppress the exercise of that popular, national, sovereignty in every possible way.

It's stating the obvious that we, the British people, can't "kick the b––––––s out" if they've been elected by the people of another country, or they've been appointed in another country - the heads of state or government of 26 other countries who vote on our laws in the European Council, plus their officials, and the ministers from those 26 countries who vote on our laws in the Council of Ministers, plus their officials, and the MEPs elected in 26 other countries who vote on our laws in the EU Parliament, and the local and regional representatives from 26 other countries who sit on the Committee of the Regions and solemnly opine about what our laws should be - or if they're EU Commissioners appointed by a process which involves politicians from 26 other countries.

But even within the domestic context, how could the people of Henley have exercised their "sovereign right" to kick out Boris Johnson, if they had felt that way inclined?

At any time Johnson could decide for himself that he'd cease to be their MP, as indeed he did; or he could decide not to stand at the next election; or those controlling the local Conservative Association could have decided not to re-select him as the official Conservative candidate for the next election, and could even have put him under pressure to resign immediately, but without being able to force him to do so; or Conservative national HQ could have taken him off the list of those approved to be candidates, now solely at the behest of the national party leader.

On the other hand the people of Henley couldn't force him to resign as the MP for that constituency, and nor could they prevent him from being selected as the official Conservative candidate for the next election, and what then? Their choice would be very much circumscribed: they could either keep Johnson as their MP, or have a Liberal Democrat as their MP.

Even with one of the much-vaunted "open primaries", if the local Association wanted to keep Johnson as the official Conservative candidate they could have made sure of that by selecting a couple of completely hopeless alternatives to put on the ballot sheet alongside him. In a truly "open" primary constituents would not just be allowed to choose between the candidates selected by the local party, they'd also be able to nominate additional candidates.

Our sovereign right "to kick the b––––––s out" has always been largely a comforting illusion promoted by the political class, with limited practical application even when we actually elected all the b––––––s in the first place.

Like gangs of bandits, three main political parties have sat themselves astride the road linking the "sovereign" people and the House of Commons, and between them they have almost complete control over passage along that road in both directions, and over what tolls they will exact; they in turn are controlled by small internal cabals, and in practice it's those people who come closest to being "sovereign".

Ian Walker

Nicholas, I'm not certain if Common Purpose were around in 1884, but perhaps John Lubbock was a member of Opus Dei, the Masons or the Illuminati if it cheers up the tinfoil-hat-wearers?

I've corresponded with them about their support of Brown's call for AV. Their opinion is that because it is a form of preference voting, and a change in the electoral system, it removes two of the main complaints against a switch to STV (their avowed aim for over a century) - that preference voting is "too complicated" (meaning that the British public is the most stupid in Europe?) and that FPTP is "traditional" and therefore better in some nebulous way.

Very specifically, they would welcome the change for the reasons above, but would continue to campaign for a change to multi-member STV.

Nicholas

Ian Walker: "Nicholas, I'm not certain if Common Purpose were around in 1884, but perhaps John Lubbock was a member of Opus Dei, the Masons or the Illuminati if it cheers up the tinfoil-hat-wearers?"

Ah, but that's a cheap shot. Of course they weren't. That doesn't mean the present day Society can't be infiltrated and subverted as many other long standing organisations have been. Or do you really believe that the age of an organisation confers some special invulnerability?

And poo-pooing concern with pejoratives about conspiracy delusions does not answer the questions I asked. Your arrogant and dismissive reply is typical of the complacent and the naive who will aid these people in their designs.

I have a whole host of concerns about voting, very few of which come down to the method, but many of which focus on constituency boundaries and Labour's built-in advantage. ERS concerned about that?