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June 22, 2005
Conservatives condemn PR
It's opposition day in the Commons today and the Tories have the big hitters out in force to talk about:
ELECTORAL INTEGRITY AND DEMOCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY
Mr Michael Howard
Mr Francis Maude
Mr Oliver Heald
Mr Dominic Grieve
Mr Jonathan Djanogly
David Maclean
That this House believes that the Government should rule out future use of all-postal voting and that any pilot schemes should be subject to explicit parliamentary ratification; regrets the unwillingness of the Government to adopt in mainland Britain the tried and tested Northern Ireland system of individual voter registration; condemns the Government's constitutional changes which have undermined democratic accountability, such as the introduction of proportional representation; and further believes that urgent steps are needed to restore public confidence and integrity in the electoral system and to increase the accountability of government.
But hey, at least they've recognised it. [Sigh].
Posted by pauldavies on June 22, 2005
Comments
The Conservatives will not back PR until it is clearly of benefit to their electoral chances.
Why should a self interested party change to a more proportional system when they already get a proportional amount of seats and with boundary changes are promised many more?
We should concentrate our campaign on the Labour government. It is in Labour's self interest to prevent the Tories gaining power and making the boundary and voter registration changes the Tories are proposing.
Labour are the only party capable and likely to give us PR. They already have over 100 pro-reform MPs. We should make it clear it is also in their interest to do so.
Posted by: Neil at June 22, 2005 06:14 PM
"self interested party"
just out of interest, is there another type? :)
"and with boundary changes are promised many more?"
We could do well not to peddle this dubious statement. As Lewis has shown numerous times, the boundary changes will only make a small difference - in the order of about a dozen seats. That's not "many more". However, the Tories like to use it as a tool for agreeing that the system doesn't like them, but failing to note the other, more important, factors
Posted by: Paul Davies at June 22, 2005 08:55 PM
You are right and that was my point. All parties are self interested. That is why we have to appeal to the self interest of the Labour party, who are in a position to change the electoral system.
The boundary changes this time might only give the Tories a dozen or so seats BUT the Tory proposals to cut the number of constituencies will increase their proportion of seats a lot more if they get in.
This is the point we need to get over to Labour. Are they willing to risk the Tories getting in with a third of the vote just like they got in, because the Tories will change the boundaries to their advantage if they get in.
Labour might have to wait a very long time indeed before they get this big an opportunity to give us a fairer voting system. Nearly a third of Labour MPs realise this, we need to work on the rest.
Labour are the only party that will give us PR!
Posted by: Neil at June 22, 2005 10:22 PM
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