« 7,500 voters to determine the next General Election | Main | Repentent sinners welcomed »
March 26, 2008
The Guardian talks constitutional reform / renewal
The verdict in The Guardian is clear - the Government must go now for AV if they want to do it all.
Jonathan Freedland - 'pursue one radical change':
Brown could make a direct splash, by reforming the electoral system for the Commons. A debate is under way among ministers, kicking around the alternative vote (AV) system, which allows voters to name their second as well as first choice. It's not perfect or even properly proportional, but it would be an improvement on first past the post. Better still, it actually has a chance of winning the approval of MPs who refuse to countenance any system that breaks the constituency link. Some say Brown should promise AV now, with a view to delivering it after the next election. I say do it now.
There is an electoral calculation in going bold. The AV system, if implemented, might help Labour hold on to a few seats (though no one can quite tell). The mere promise of electoral reform of the Commons will make it hard for the Lib Dems to throatily oppose Brown or join the Tories in fuelling an anti-Labour mood in the country. Above all, the decisive pursuit of a risky goal will banish the talk of bottler Brown.
Martin Kettle - 'Gently does it'
what was once called constitutional reform has now become "constitutional renewal". ... Constitutional reform worthy of the name would also be the product of a wider and more authoritative process than the one that the justice ministry has controlled over the past few months.
Letters in The Guardian- by Ken Ritchie (ERS), Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative MP), Andy Roberts, Simon Gazeley, John Thomson.
Maybe there really is a case for encouraging the Government to go for broke - the Butch and the Sundance Kid option as Freedland puts it -
and set in train now (before the next election) the process for introducing a proportional voting system for the Commons.
Posted by malcolmclark on March 26, 2008
Comments
"A debate is under way among ministers, kicking around the alternative vote (AV) system, which ALLOWS VOTERS TO NAME THEIR SECOND AS WELL AS THEIR FIRST CHOICE".
Are we talking about AV (the Alternative Vote) or SV (the Supplementary Vote) If we are talking about AV then there is not just a second preference but as many preferences as there are candidates.If we are talking about SV - which God forbid - we are talking about a system where the choice between the top two candidates, in an FPTP contest , is determined by a second vote (which is cast "blind" since the voters do not know who the top two are!) This could well mean that the candidate who is voted third in the first vote might, under true AV, be the overall preferred candidate but , under SV, is shut out.
One is reminded of the 2002 French presidentielle where the French voters, in the second round of their "double tour" system, were presented willy-nilly with a choice between Chirac and Le Pen, while Jospin, with a few less first round votes than Le Pen was shut out even though he could well have been the overall favourite. (But at least the French voters could SEE for whom they were forced to cast their second vote )
Posted by: Joe Patterson at March 26, 2008 11:11 AM
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.
