Liberal Vision

A miserable night for little compromises

The counting is ongoing, but early election results seem to indicate a bad night for the Liberal Democrats, modest success for Labour, and a good result for Conservatives, holding their own on an already high base. The AV referendum will likely be lost. Not much has changed in Wales, bar a small and anticipated Labour advance.

In Scotland the success of the SNP against everyone, potentially securing a small majority under a proportional voting system, is extraordinary and could be game-changing. Either it will give them the momentum they need for a proper debate about independence. Or it will be a bubble akin to Cleggmania, popped rapidly when they find they cannot possibly deliver pre-election promises made without concession to economics.

The biggest loser tonight though would appear to be coalition politics. The retention of the bipolar first past the post system aside, third parties, the Liberal Democrats in particular, will find little in these outcomes to encourage future collaboration.

Governing alone the SNP have advanced, where Labour and the Liberal Democrats fell back after their coalition government. In Wales Plaid have fallen after co-operating with Labour, and Labour have not advanced much. The Liberal Democrats, across the country, have suffered after co-operating with the Conservatives. In the Council elections smaller parties across the board have lost ground to the two big beasts.

As Lord Ashdown noted last night:

“We believed, perhaps a little over-optimistically, that the British people would understand the difference between compromise and betrayal.”

The party case, ‘we had to do this because of the economic situation’, has received a resounding raspberry in response. Would a future Liberal Democrat leader be quite so keen to do a deal for government, with any party, on this result?

It is important to conclude, that the liberal left preference for a deal with Labour, should not be seen as more attractive by this result. There is no reason to believe that the party’s “first mid-term for 80 years” would have been less painful as junior partners to Miliband and Balls, let alone an ongoing Brown premiership. It would quite likely have been worse, the party is far more exposed to advances by the Conservatives than Labour.

It does though merit some soul-searching as to how the party prepares for and engages in future opportunities like 2010. Are there examples of coalition relationships that have boosted the junior party, and what can we learn from that? Or are we better off on the sidelines until the day one of the major parties faces the kind of collapse that demolished the Liberals in the 1920s?

Economist captures national mood

The Economist Magazine, in a rather shameless piece of ‘decision-making following the polls’ has plumped for ‘No‘ in the AV referendum, promoting instead a hybrid FPTP+. Something that’s not an option in the referendum and would be supported by even fewer people.

More refreshingly in other news they note…

“A young man and his fiancée were expected to get married in central London on April 29th. Millions of Britons took advantage of the opportunity to take a foreign holiday.”

Meanwhile, we strongly urge those remaining, to spend, spend, spend, on wedding tat, we need the VAT to meet the £39m bill.

Coalition would benefit from AV

Channel 4  have an interesting report based on a YouGov poll showing that AV would benefit Liberal Democrats and Conservatives at the expense of Labour.

The analysis is that Liberal Democrat second preferences have shifted (since the last Parliament) from favouring Labour to favouring Conservatives. This would benefit the Conservatives in the Labour/Conservative marginals, perhaps to the tune of 30 seats.

This should not surprise. The Liberal Democrat first preference vote is now down to around 10-12%. The major losses will be from voters who treat the party as an alternative to Labour. The fiction of a progressive majority has again been shown to be a fiction. There are more than two tribes in British politics.

It is also no cause for complacency. Current national polls would still give Labour a majority under either voting system.

It does though beg the question why the Conservatives are so hostile to change.

I meet few Conservatives who make a principled case for defending FPTP.

It’s all either ‘I like what I know’; fabricated nonsense, like the No Campaign’s BNP claims; or most commonly tribal advantage (they think they win more under FPTP). If this poll is correct they could be making an historic mistake.

Vote Yes on May 5th

The Yes to fairer votes campaign launched yesterday with over a hundred events around the country.

Many of the arguments for and against electoral reform are well understood by our readers.

The current first past the post system tends towards majority for the largest minority. AV tends towards more representative results.

FPTP is fair where there are only two parties. AV and other preference systems reflect pluralism.

It is easier to elect extremists and re-elect the corrupt under FPTP. AV cannot elect people detested by over 50% of the electorate.

And so on.

The change is small, but important.

The current coalition is the only UK Government with majority support delivered by FPTP since the end of WWII.

The opportunity for change has come after decades of unrepresentative results like 1983 where a difference of 2.2% of the vote meant Labour got 209 seats and the Alliance 23.

The last Labour government had 55% of the seats with 35% of the vote.

The No2AV coalition is an establishment campaign allying William Hague and John Prescott in self interest for the status quo.

Many of their arguments are plain silly such as a claim that AV gives more votes to supporter of smaller parties (it doesn’t), and a list of AV myths that describe problems all worse with FPTP.

The Yes to fairer votes campaign’s best arguments are ending the jobs for life culture and having a meaningful vote.

The referendum when it comes on May 5th will be on paper about a technical change. Much of the noise around it will be unedifying hysteria.

When people walk into the polling station what will sway many is their instinctive reaction to whether our system is basically good, or needs to change.

That gives me really hope for a Yes.

BBC ban on term “electoral reform” even more preposterous

As recently noted, the BBC powers-that-be have decided to ban the term “electoral reform” being used by its correspondents because the word “reform” sounds too positive (see previous post on why this in itself is preposterous).

But now it looks even more absurd!

The Prime Minister – who is standing with the NO campaign is still using that self-same term.  In his speech on Friday (and i will say this again!), arguing against AV, David Cameron himself uses the term “electoral reform” again and actually defines AV as a type of reform …quoted on the BBC website…

“(David Cameron) said he believed the Alternative Vote was “completely the wrong reform” and would be “bad for our democracy” – leading to unfair results and an unaccountable political system” (source bbc website)

If AV is -according to the PM – the “wrong sort of reform” ..then definition-ally it is “reform”. Any reason why we can ALL agree that this vote is about ELECTORAL REFORM – except the BBC? 

Surely there is something very odd going on…The Prime Minister of this country can make a speech against electoral reform in which he uses – once again –  the term ”electoral reform” … and in that speech define  AV as a type of reform (if the wrong one). That the BBC can report that speech, quoting the PM using the term “electoral reform” and showing the highlights of the speech in its website. BUT the BBC journalists are banned from using the term themselves? 

The dictat looks more preposterous and untenable with every day that passes. 

On a related issue – any reason why the main BBC News political story on AV runs with the title “Votes referendum: Cameron rejects Clegg AV call” . Is that really fair? to headline the story with reference to Cameron’s view (what’s wrong with “Clegg and Cameron go head to head over…..”) …. is it really impartial to list the PMs objections extensively at the top of the article and drop in Nick ’s arguments much further down the piece?  Maybe it doesn’t matter – but for a BBC that appears obsessive about impartiality this seems a tad..oh how can I say this…biased?