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October 05, 2006
A mythical introduction
There are arguably more people that only know the Single Transferable Vote (STV), or more accurately proportional representation in general, as the butt of a series of political jokes than there are those who understand how the different systems work, or even what the term 'proportional representation' means.
Those at the top of the political tree have long treated proportional representation patronisingly, and it is an attitude that has spread rather successfully. Take, for example, the prime minister's response to being asked about the electoral system on 22nd June 2005, when he deemed the case for changing First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) a "pretty odd" topic to bring up in Prime Minister's Questions.
That the topic of voting reform is still so easily side-stepped is due in large part to the persistence of a number of myths about proportional representation, which, despite their intellectual emptiness, remain rather popular among everyone from everyday voters to high-profile members of the government.
A lot of these myths are based on examples from systems that no sane people are advocating for the various UK governments, and thus should be still-born. Unfortunately, they're not, and it seems that there will always be people that think that shouting 'look at Israel', 'look at Italy' or 'PR gave us Hitler' are valid arguments against electoral reform.
Thus over the next ten days, I shall be posting up a common calumny uttered against STV or proportional representation, and explaining why anyone using such an argument should be first mocked, and then educated.
Myth 1: Proportional representation means we'd end up with the same daft system as Israel/Italy/Weimar Germany.
This is simply not true. The foremost advocate of changing the voting system, the Electoral Reform Society, is unequivocal in its support of STV. Other people and other organisations support different systems, none of which resembles the scare-systems of the countries mentioned above. To cite Israel, Italy, or if you're really crazy, Weimar Germany, marks one down as desperate fool. Use Ireland if you must, only that works quite well.
But always remember that different systems work differently with different political cultures, so the whole idea of international comparison is, even in the case of Ireland, only an add-on, a point which has little strength or relevance when used on its own.
Posted by pauldavies on October 05, 2006
Comments
The myth that Chris Betts MP tried when we were both on 5live a couple of weeks ago was that if we had PR then MPs would all represent a single, UK-wide constituency.
Simon Hughes was a bit less silly at the ERS fringe at Lib Dem Conference, arguing merely that multi-member constituencies would be too large to represent, but he did try to have it both ways by ALSO trotting out the line about TDs in Ireland being too parochial because of STV.
Posted by: James Graham at October 5, 2006 05:25 PM
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