« An area the size of Wales is covered in bitter, angry nonsense every 30 seconds | Main | Meanwhile, back in Communist Italy »
January 11, 2006
"Never smarten up a chump"? Okay, maybe just this once
"Nature abhors a moron" —H.L. Mencken
Normally, when my eyes have the misfortune to fall across something truly stupendously ridiculous, my mind invokes Zarathustra, and is thus guided by his maxim:
"Flee, my friend, into your solitude and to where the raw, rough breeze blows! It is not your fate to be a fly-swat."
This has served me well, and saved many a slice of my soul from being scorched while setting upon sick, specious gibberish like a rabid dog on an especially appetising child.
However, I'm also a professional. And as First-Past-the-Post is shit, it inevitably attracts flies. And if the noble name of electoral reform is going to win the ultimate Battle of Westminster, it's going to need some professional fly swatters.
Thus like an attacking baddie minion in an old kung fu flick, my arms are flailing, my mouth is screaming and the taste of studio blood is tantalisingly intoxicating my thoughts. The only difference, in fact, is that I'm going to trample on through victorious, rather than be kicked through a door and off a balsa-wood balcony by a man with a big sword and an enviable ability to fly.
My target today may not be able to fly, but he does have his head in the clouds, and his hand on his GCSE History textbook.
I don't honestly know if Andrew Todd, for he be the infidel, is actually a child in the middle of some dumbed-down excuse for examinations, although the location and the solecistic nature of his nonsense would imply that he is. Some people may argue that it's mean to pick on children, but our education system refuses to teach the little buggers, thus someone has to. And mockery is a great teacher; I'm performing a public service.
But enough of this pretentious preamble; step forward Andrew and let the world hear your wisdom. Unfortunately, we do take marks off for poor spelling and grammar.
In recent years many have questioned the existence of the First Past The Post system as the UK's major electoral system. They say 'How can Labour have won a decisive majority in the last election with only 35% of the vote?'. Many question why the Liberal Democrats only won 62 seats in comparison to Labour's 356 with only 13% less votes? Yes, these are the quirks of a flawed system. However, behind them we have a strong, reliable system that produces a strong single party government. The winning party is able to implement their manifesto, the public gets what they vote for.
Fewer votes dear boy, fewer. But I didn't quote that big chunk just to be able to unleash the pedantry. It is an important passage that sums up the main 'means to an end' argument that First-Past-the-Posters fall back on when they tacitly acknowledge that they've got little else in the arsenal. 'We got what we voted for, and the winning party can twirl towards freedom with our full backing, happy as a penguin in a microwave'.
If only. Let's harbour the delusion no longer: a strong government is not synonymous with a good government. Clearly no other definable definition of government is analogous with good governance either, but with so many of today's (and yesterday's) ills bearing direct relation to the excessive majorities produced by FPTP, there is a strong case for us, the opposition.
Let's also quash that other party-political sin: that we vote for a clear, unambiguous manifesto and the governing party then works to implement its promises, if not exactly, then at least in the general spirit. Indeed, readers: as a brush.
Once you remove the racists, the congenitally stupid and the loons (Lembit aside), party manifestos are pretty much indistinguishable (especially if you factor out the policies that stand a chance of being implemented). But ignore that; your average manifesto claim, like your average voter, doesn't matter. The voters don't actually know what's in a given manifesto anyway, or if they know something about it, they can never be sure which party what they know belongs to. (An 'unknown known' in Rumsfeld speak?)
This is a consequence of a system that deems only certain geographically fortunate souls worthy of being bribed and then tries its best not to offend them in any way.
Moving on, in the cut-and-paste warts-and-all style that further indicts our privately-educated scamp:
Take a look at the alternative. The Independent newspaper, the Electoral Reform Society and, rather unsurprisingly, the Liberal Democrats have been lobbying hard for introduction of Proportional Representation at general elections. What sort of electoral impact would this have? With a PR system we would quite probably end up with a coalition government. It would be equally possible that a minority party such as the Lib Dems (with only 22% of the vote) would hold the balance of power. God forbid it might even be possible that parties such as the Democratic Unionists or Scottish Nationalists might wield some kind of influence as the bigger parties scramble around for votes in the chamber.
First up, I'm glad he's mentioned ERS. That means he's arguing against STV. Brave man. I'm also glad (if a little struck by 'oh-no-not-again-ness') that he mentioned the Lib Dems holding the balance of power and (God forbid!) that the more incendiary ends of the political whacking stick might have their flames unwittingly fanned by the poor suckers championing democracy.
Does anyone really think that if the Lib Dems were seen to hold the country to ransom for a few unentitled bites of the political pie, that people would continue to vote for them above and beyond their core? Of course they would have a bigger say on a few policies – but if we take a people's votes as an indication of what they want to see (a bit of a leap I know, but work with me here) then what's so wrong about that? It's surely no more wrong than giving a big chunk of extra power that nobody voted for to the 'winning' party, so that it can get away with whatever it likes. Andrew disagrees. He thinks that those mandates are more important, and compromise in government is just plain wrong.
A coalition government would also means that there could be no mandate. As the coalition parties would have to compromise for one another, therefore the voters don't have what they vote for. For example, the Lib Dems had to compromise on their policy to abolish tuition fees in Scotland when they had to share power with Labour in the Scottish Assembly.
To be fair to the lad, it is a big ask requesting politicians to act like grown-ups, and you are flirting with trouble in doing so. However, to politicians, self-interest is stronger than the need to engage in childish posturing, and sooner or later, they'll realise, (especially if they're forced into it) that talking gets one further than bickering.
As for the extremists… if they get the support, they deserve a say, and damn us all for being so evolution-defyingly stupid. Aside from that, under FPTP, the natural policy to deal with extremists is that of a middle-class Englishman sat in a train carriage with some rowdy youths: ignore them and hope they get off soon. It does nothing to discourage them, or potential others like them. It foments discord and disharmony and social polarisation, and for all the chat about the consequent problems, you can't kill a root cause by replacing hoods with ASBOs and misunderstandings with platitudinal tat.
Speaking of tat:
We would also lose the strong link that the local community has with its MP. With FPTP the MP has sole responsibility of that area and he represents all within the community, not just those who voted for him. This and other functions such as parliament and the House of Lords are fundamental parts of the jigsaw that have shaped and formed British history and tradition and could be lost or changed if we change to PR.
What strong link is that again? The constituency link, as it exists, is something that all MPs publicly love, privately resent, and are at all times glad that it doesn't actually count for anything unless they're in a marginal seat. This mythical connection can logically only become reality if voters have a choice between candidates of the same party, otherwise there's as much an MP-constituency link under FPTP as there is under a party-list system; for when it comes to safe seats, MPs are more appointed than they are elected. It would also demand that MPs did more work for their community. This is one of the reasons MPs in Ireland have tried to get rid of STV in the past – they don't want strong links with – and reliance on – their local people; it's harder to butter up a whole town than it is one influential party potentate.
By lodging all the power at the top, parliament suffers and the people suffer. In recent years, the House of Lords has suffered too. Andrew doesn't appear to want this "fundamental part of the jigsaw" to be damaged or go missing. Nor do I: incomplete jigsaws piss everyone off. But what is one of the main reasons the Lords is losing its power? Is it that the ruling government has so much of the stuff that they're trapped in a vicious circle of forever demanding more more MORE? In a camp Hong-Kong-Phooey stylee… "could be".
Being scared of change is nothing new, and it's certainly nothing special, but it's also no good as an argument for not doing something, in the same way that changing stuff for the hell of it is also foolish.
Another one of the main criticisms of FPTP is that it is a two or three party system and therefore discriminates against smaller parties. I believe that this is not necessarily a flaw. Because this stops extreme parties winning power at times of crisis such as the Nazis in a PR system getting into government in Germany in 1933. In the UK if there was an election just after the July bombings and we were using a PR system there may have been a significant rise in the extreme vote such as the BNP.
Told you he had his hand on his GCSE History textbook. The Nazis! Using the Nazis as an example in the PR debate is like using the words "15 per cent interest rates" as a reason to keep the Tories out of power. It's heartening in a way; I thought that the waterheads that used to use the Nazi argument had all moved on to citing Israel instead, crawling out of the stupid-argument swamp one misconceived piece of spittle at a time. People don't tend to not vote for the BNP because they're not going to get into power (of any sort), therefore prophesising a 'significant rise' in their vote, had there been a PR election after the July bombings, is tosh. Any increase in their vote would've been attributable to mass hysteria, not PR.
Also, with a PR system the turnout would be lower as not only would there be political apathy but also people wouldn't understand the system and there would be no quick decisive result like we have at the moment. Take, for instance, the chaos in Germany. A close election results in both main party leaders claiming the Chancellorship as the horse trading begins to form a coalition. The whole concept of manifesto and mandate goes out the window.
Oh hush now with the manifesto and mandate nonsense. That's almost as laughable as invoking the spirit of Hitler. And he clearly didn't read much around the German result. Otherwise he would've seen this.
The turnout question is always a toughie, simply because so many factors affect it, from the chance of one's vote counting to the clemency of the weather on polling day. But just as people may be put off by something they don't understand (and if they can't count to five, we should probably be actively encouraging them not to vote) they may be encouraged to turn out in higher numbers if they could vote for a candidate they came close to liking or thought that their vote would actually contribute something to the result.
Ack, this is getting tiring. Thankfully, we're almost there. Indeed, we get a 'therefore' and an 'in conclusion'. Woo yeah.
Therefore, in conclusion, the First Past The Post system clearly has flaws. The alternatives, however, are equally flawed, if not more so. The one huge point in favour of FPTP is that it works and has done for a very long time. We have been provided with largely strong, stable government that works roughly along the lines of the manifesto that it was elected on. And as the old saying goes 'If it ain't broke...'
Nothing much said here that hasn't already been covered, but I was a little puzzled by the second sentence. It's a bit tame for the conclusion to the strongly-expressed views earlier on. Perhaps it's just piss-poor writing failing to get the passion across. That, or in trying to actually come up with points in favour of FPTP, the poor fool got a bit stuck. Hell, it's probably both. In encapsulating both the fear of change, cliché-as-argument and yet more derisory grammar, the last sentence serves as a perfect summary of the whole argument: worthless.
Posted by pauldavies on January 11, 2006
Comments
Less votes, fewer voters, surely?
I don't think the attempts to get rid of STV in Ireland had any motivation other than partisan advantage for Fianna Fáil. A reminder that once PR is won, it needs to be defended constantly.
Posted by: Kevin L at January 11, 2006 04:40 PM
Less of it, fewer of them... less of the vote, fewer votes... etc etc (best rule with any English construction: say it in a posh southern accent and see which sounds more sensible...)
But you're right on STV in Ireland, partisan advantage and a wanting of the MPs to do less work... (or to try to butter up a smaller bunch of peeps - party heads, not people...)
Posted by: Paul Davies at January 12, 2006 09:27 AM
To adopt the same condescending manner as Paul:
It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.
H. L. Mencken
Posted by: Tim Oilet at January 13, 2006 01:30 PM
Bravo for quoting Mencken, the world always needs more of him.
But on a semantic point, was I really lowering myself to another level to make the relevant points? If anything, it was more supercilious than condescending... :) Although I rather thought that the tone was more playful, in the way a lion with a formerly bouncy piece of prey is playful...
And in this ego-centric episode, I entertained myself muchly, thus accusations of dullness are not wholly warranted ;)
(Okay, I'll stop now. Sorry.)
Posted by: Paul Davies at January 13, 2006 02:20 PM
Paul,
Give poor Toddy a break. In this day and age its rare to find a kid willing to stick his head over the parapet, if only to get it shot off. True, he's not quite as sesquipedalian as some but some of his points make sense.
Posted by: Andy at January 13, 2006 04:52 PM
As I said, I was playing :)
Out of interest, which points were the sensible ones?
Posted by: Paul at January 16, 2006 02:05 PM
We're democrats and believe in free speech, but we're also committed to civil and rational debate. We reserve the right to delete material posted to our site, but we hope and expect to exercise this right rarely if at all.
