Cameron’s Democracy Light (Less Fat, More Spin)
Friday, 12 February 2010
We don’t know the true motives behind Gordon Brown giving MPs a vote for a referendum on electoral reform. We don’t think the proposal for an AV system goes anywhere near far enough down the road towards change. We’re just glad that, at long last, the issue of electoral reform has got beyond the talking stage. Take the Red Pill is strongly in favour of radical reform of our voting system. Unlike the Tory leader, David Cameron, who is strongly opposed to proportional representation but, like Blackadder’s Baldrick, has a cunning plan……
The Dish and Dishonesty episode of Blackadder the Third is hilarious. In it, Baldrick is elected as a turnip-loving MP for a rotten borough, Dunny-on-the-Wold, described by Edmund Blackadder as “a tuppenny-ha'penny place. Half an acre of sodden marshland in the Suffolk Fens with an empty town hall on it. Population: three rather mangy cows, a dachshund named Colin, and a small hen in its late forties.” Somehow Baldrick wins with a majority of 16,472…..
We can laugh at this clever lampooning of politics past, but we should ask ourselves how far true democracy has progressed in this country. Although we no longer have rotten boroughs where victory can be bought, our current system has plenty of faults. Like safe seats.
if the Tories selected a goat in Kensington & Chelsea, it would romp home as long as it was wearing a blue rosette
SAFE SEATS, FAT CATS AND USELESS VOTES
The first-past-the-post system means that we have loads of safe seats in constituencies where there is a large majority for one party. These safe seats can give MPs a job for life (not an option for most of us mere mortals) unless they do something really stupid like fiddle their expenses above the acceptable limit or appear on YouTube in a compromising situation with an animal. Worse than that, safe seats rob the vast majority of the electorate of a meaningful vote.
Voting against the incumbent MP in a safe seat is a wasted vote. It counts for nothing. It has zero effect on representation in the House of Commons. This works against both Labour and Conservative voters. If Labour chose a donkey as its candidate in some towns in the North East, it would be elected by a vast majority if it wore a red rosette. Tory voters would be wasting their time leaving their homes. Likewise, if the Tories selected a goat in Kensington & Chelsea, it would romp home as long as it was wearing a blue rosette. Labour voters might as well stay at home too. So why don’t the parties want to change things?
Crucially, while reducing voter power, the system works for the parties themselves. That way Labour and Conservative hold onto power, alternating depending on just how badly they’ve performed while in government. The Conservatives are likely to win the next election, not because of their vast array of stunning and carefully costed policies, but because people are fed up of Labour after 12 years. It’s a system where people like Thatcher and Blair can win huge parliamentary majorities while getting less than half the vote. It’s also a system where, it is estimated, the election of the government depends on the votes of approximately 250,000 people in the more marginal seats. That’s 250,000 out of a registered electorate of about 45 million (around 0.5%). It’s clear that the system is at least partly to blame for the current poor state of politics in the UK.
This means that a party could win the election with the support of 20% - or one in five – of the electorate. Read that again in case you missed it. A party governing our country when four out of five voters didn’t choose them. Hello??
APATHY RULES (IF NO-ONE MINDS TOO MUCH)
So what is the current situation? The ongoing expenses scandal has removed the last scraps of trust which ordinary people may have had in MPs. Voters in the UK are so apathetic that politicians have considered making it a crime not to vote. The number of us who think we have a duty to vote has dropped from 68% to 56% since 1991. This year it is estimated that the voter turnout may be below 50% (compared with 61% in 2005, 59% in 2001 and 71.4% in 1997). This means that a party could win the election with the support of 20% - or one in five – of the electorate. Read that again in case you missed it. A party governing our country when four out of five voters didn’t choose them. Hello??
That’s why it’s important to take note of the different policies on electoral reform before this year’s General Election. The Liberal Democrats are hungry for it because they always get a much smaller number of MPs than their share of the national vote warrants. The smaller parties like the Greens are for it because it gives them a better chance of at least some representation at Westminster. Labour is showing a lukewarm interest although Foreign Secretary David Miliband is pushing for even more reform and may use this as part of his pitch when he inevitably mounts a challenge for the Labour leadership. Only the Conservatives seem completely opposed to change. This is where Cameron uses spin to such a good effect that he puts Alastair Campbell and Shane Warne well and truly in the shade.
CAMERON’S CUNNING PLAN – TALKING COMPLETE BOLLOCKS…
He wants to increase people power through – wait for it – online petitions. He is promising that if a petition gets 100,000 electronic signatures, it will be debated in parliament. Beyond that, if a petition attracts a million signatures, the public will be able to table legislation to be debated and voted on by MPs. Wow – sounds great, eh? I do like the idea of a million of us signing up to a spoof petition demanding that all MPs found fiddling their expenses have to drop their trousers in the House of Commons and get beaten with a rancid kipper while singing the French national anthem. Even if they’re only forced to debate it! If you think that’s stupid, check this out - almost 50,000 people signed up to a petition to make Jeremy Clarkson prime minister. God / alternative secular saviour figure (delete according to taste) help us……
But can any eagle-eyed readers spot the weakness in Cameron’s plan? Ordinary people are allowed to use the power of technology to harness democratic power to force debate on hot issues which will then be voted on by…..a few hundred MPs, the vast majority of whom have been elected in seats where many of the votes are worthless. Basically a democratic system for choosing the subject of debate but killed off by a blatantly undemocratic system for choosing the people who actually vote on those issues……
WHAT CAN WE DO?
Within the current system, we should be pushing our candidates to declare their stance on electoral reform. One of the Tories’ few rationales for keeping the current system is that it brings stability to government. Roughly translated, this means that the two big parties will always be in power and will rip up their manifestoes and treat us like shit once elected, hoping that we all have short memories or get distracted by B list celebrities showing that they can’t skate very well.
Most if not all good political and social change has come from the people, even if it has often finally been enacted by politicians. If the main parties fail to reform the system, we may have to do it for them or even start a new system of our own. Just like the boys in blue are in danger of losing the consent to police us, politicians risk losing the consent to represent us in government.
In terms of a personal response, a good start could be to sign up to the Vote for a Change Coalition (see link below) and join the thousands demanding real electoral reform. Some MPs might think that big change is something you get from your expenses claim but to us at Take the Red Pill it means something very different. The Suffragettes didn’t fight for universal suffrage so that millions of women in safe seats could be robbed of a real vote. It’s time for proper change and, to be honest, we’re not sure if Cameron can even spell the word. Anyway, it’s late so we’ll finish with an excerpt from the Vote for a Change Coalition website which highlights just how out of touch some MPs are:
Roughly translated, this means that the two big parties will always be in power and will rip up their manifestoes and treat us like shit once elected, hoping that we all have short memories or get distracted by B list celebrities showing that they can’t skate very well
“The House of Commons has just passed a Money Resolution authorising the government to spend public funds on a referendum to decide the voting system, by 357 votes to 180. The Commons will now debate the substance of the issue as government moves an amendment to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill.
Ironically, the Money Resolution was opposed by Douglas Hogg, the MP who leapt to fame for his extraordinary abuse of parliamentary expenses. He attacked spending any money on giving the public a choice on how they elect MPs, saying it was a wantonly profligate waste of public funds and an act of political cynicism - this from the man who used taxpayers' money to pay for his moat to be cleaned!”
Online petition for Hogg Roast anyone…….?
LINKS
David Cameron article on Electoral Reform (The Guardian 25 May 2009)
