Politicomaniac

Archive for the ‘Constitutional Reform’ Category

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Party Funding

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

A fundamental part of any constitution must be the funding mechanism for political activity. Such laws must protect free speech, but prevent those with the deepest pockets having the loudest voices.

I believe that two simple principals must be satisfied for these objectives to be realised.

Firstly, only registered voters should be allowed to donate. No “organisations,” whether trade unions or companies, should be able to donate (although they should be allowed, even encouraged, to circulate details of how to donate among their members, for example.) There could even be a “loophole” for trade unions whereby they can collect & deliver donations for a party; as long as the donations are recorded as from the individual members, counting against their individual allowances.

The second prong must be a limit on the amount an individual can donate per year. This should be enough that parties can actually fund themselves, i.e. in the UK several thousand or even ten thousand pounds, but low enough that an excessively wealthy individual cannot pour millions into a party campaign.

Those with plenty of money may use it to communicate and advertise in favour of their own interests directly; political parties should not be tied up with the interests of the rich through party funding too.

Until these conditions are met, I don’t believe voices of equal merit are guaranteed an equal hearing, and that doesn’t sound like democracy to me.

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Posted in Constitutional Reform, Social Justice | 2 Comments »

Make it matter where you put your cross: my entry

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011

So, this other blog had an awesome idea – find a way to explain AV so that it’s so simple even children understand. Now, my entry is not that good…but I’ve posting it up here nice and early to raise people’s attention to the competition – Design your own! Surely you can do better than stick figures and overused internet memes!

Anyway, here it is (click on it to enlarge…), shamelessly plagiarised from a video I can no longer find that was called “first past the post ice cream,” and recast in a different format.

EDIT: see below for the FPTP ice cream video by Paul Perrin.

Posted in Constitutional Reform, Current Affairs | 4 Comments »

Lord Prescott opposes AV because it is bad for his party (even though it isn’t)

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

Well, at least he’s honest about it! Prescott on Newsnight was destroyed by Paddy Ashdown where he dedicated his No2AV airtime on explaining why the new electoral system is bad for the Labour Party. He didn’t do it very well, of course, because here’s the truth; AV is worse for all three of the big westminster parties under one measure (proportion of first preference votes), and the same under the other (the number of seats parties will actually win.)

For a start, Prescott’s arguments were aimed at the Electoral Reform Bill itself, not the proposed new electoral system; he is cross that Labour aren’t in government (sore loser) and is opposing this bill because he doesn’t like who’s proposing it. Ad Hominem woot.

Next, he said that not having a turnout threshold was undemocratic, despite the fact that Labour have never implemented any such measure when drafting similar constitutional legislation for devolution in both Scotland and Wales.

He went on to claim that AV will deliver more coalitions which is false; it is not any more proportional than FPTP (although it does allow more accurate measurement of what the proportions of votes actually are; since it allows people to express a first preference for the first time.) His parting shot was to claim that the current AV coalition in Australia is evidence that AV delivers coalitions, forgetting that FPTP gave us this one, our current government.

The utter ridiculousness of his partisan and embittered position shocks me, since in the past I have looked on him with mild favour; a politician of the people. Either the unelected chamber has changed him, or he was always this partisan and I didn’t notice.

AV is bad for Labour, as I’ve said, in exactly the same way that it’s bad for the other large parties. The red and blue teams have held on to people’s votes for many years by presenting themselves as the only two options. The rise of the Lib Dems (6.8 million votes in 2010 compared to Labour’s 8.6 million and the Tories’ 10.7 million,) arguably and the Green Party (0.28 million votes) for sure has been artificially reduced by this effect; “so-and-so can’t win here” is shamefully common to all the parties’ campaigning strategies.

Under AV we will see the share of the Green Party and the other small national parties go up, since people will be able to express their first preference support for them while still voting for a candidate who can actually win in their area*; this could well (“accidentally”) see many formerly safe seats come into play, as people’s real first preferences are finally revealed, and tactical voting is finally dead and buried.

Thus, Lord Prescott, while one third of the commons currently gives 50% of votes to a single MP, this is much less likely under AV since people will have much more diverse choice of “viable” candidates to receive their vote; the squeeze tactics which might deliver second preferences and seats will not deliver first preferences any more, and so the under-duress 50% of many MPs will go down the plughole.

I think the difference between AV and FPTP is the same as that between a free and whipped vote in the House of Commons. Under AV, you are free to vote for whomever you like, while still influencing the result; under first past the post you can vote for a longshot candidate but you won’t get anywhere doing so, i.e. by exercising your democratic right you are stripped of it, just as minister who privately opposes a bill has to decide whether to give up their position of power in exchange for trying to block a piece of legislation they oppose.

Come on Lord Prescott, put your partisan hat over there and help give the British Public a free vote on election day. You’ll still win as many seats, and you’ll be able to beat Tories in places you never dreamed before, in exchange for letting people declare that “no, in fact, I am not a Labour Party loyalist, but they can have my 2nd preference, because I prefer them to the Tories.”

* Note that the argument that the Green Party will be able to win more first preference votes doesn’t translate into seats; this isn’t proportional representation. The same goes for the other national small parties; the BNP, UKIP, etc won’t win seats under AV unless lots more people vote for them in one constituency together. This isn’t true for the Welsh and Scottish nationalist parties, nor for Northern Irish politics, where the sheer concentration of votes for parties that are small on a national scale makes seats winnable; this is why they have many more seats (than the Green Party, for example) in the first place, and this won’t change under AV.

Posted in Constitutional Reform, Current Affairs, Party Politics | 1 Comment »

X Factor Government

Tuesday, December 28th, 2010

This grauniad article had me in a small fit this morning. I shall quote from the unchanging print edition:

"The government is to follow the lead of the television programme The X Factor and allow the public to decide on legislation to be put before MPs."

EXCUSE ME?! The government is not going to try and make a profit by setting up a pay-per-vote system judging a pointless talent contest! Nor is the X Factor the first opportunity the British People have had to vote, which is something that’s been going on for a long time, started by…let me see… Elections! Sorry, but the government got there first again.

This is an important news story about procedure; it’s true the public have never had so much power over what parliamentary time is devoted to (a set of decisions hoarded by parliamentarians for too long) and that’s thanks to the new Liberal Principals guiding this coalition.

Don’t let the Guardian fool you; this isn’t a trivial New Labour gimmick but a serious increment in a set of constitutional reforms designed to make our government work better by being more accountable and democratic.

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Posted in Constitutional Reform, Current Affairs | No Comments »

Is AV such a let down?

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

It is not proportional, so the government drawn from the commons will still not reflect the will of the people. But, even if a majority, the government elected in 2015 will not have impunity to pass legislation without some measure of compromise and consensus: we need to look at the package of reforms, not just the individual measures. Taking the voting system first:

AV is better, freer and fairer than first past the rest

It is funny that we call our existing voting system first past the post when in fact it has no finishing post, an MP can be elected by a mere 5% of the vote under FPTP if there are 20 equally popular candidates and they happen to get one more vote than the other 19.

Under the Alternative Vote, a term which has been shown to confuse the hell out of voters, there is a fixed post for victory; 50%. More than half of your constituents will have put a mark by your name if you’re elected under AV, whether that was a 1, 2, 3 or even 4.

So in fact, it is AV that has a finish post, and FPTP that is wishy washy and unclear. Thus, we should really call our current voting system “first past the rest”, and what will hopefully become our new one “first past the post”.

Now it isn’t perfect; the government is determined by the commons, and AV is not proportional, which means we will have non-mandated majority governments.

But that’s not where this coalitions constitutional reform agenda finishes!

If we look at Clegg’s constitutional reforms as a package, they actually massively redistribute power away from the commons’ leadership, making either these broken voting systems less of an eyesore.

Remember that, even if AV falls we will still have an MMC STV House of Lords. Now there is no reason not to repeal the Parliament Act once the Lords is elected; and that means the executive is truly accountable to an (almost certainly) balanced chamber.

In this AV-PR system, we have a achieved step one of true pluralist government; requirement of the government to get a 50%+1 vote in a proportional chamber.

Now, we may or may not win the AV referendum (although we need to if we ever want to see PR in the commons,) but either way we are still having the most important change in this parliament; a proportionally elected Lords.

Step two of a truly pluralist government, one required to command a proportional house even to form, is a battle for another day.

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Posted in Constitutional Reform | 1 Comment »

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