Author Archives: Simon Read

Simon Read

Opinion: Proportional voting

By Simon Read | Mon 10th May 2010 - 9:20 am

I propose a method of voting in the House of Commons which has the effect of proportional representation without any of the complexity.

There are two possible sacred principles in British democracy:

1) A Member of Parliament has one vote;
2) A party’s voting strength in the house should match its share of the countrywide vote.

Each principle has its adherents. Principle (1) seems to be assumed by everyone but never mentioned.

These principles are in fact contradictory, leading to much complexity, so I propose to abandon principle (1) above, leaving us with principle (2).

The mechanism is simple: take the number of votes cast at …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 38 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Steve Trevethan
    Thank you for the “data backbone” of your article!...
  • Jack
    This is devastating. Christine Jardine is my kind of Lib Dem. There's a left-right element to that comment, but it's not just that. I worry about a liberal part...
  • Graham Evans
    Surely the wider party membership and Liberal Democrats voters in Edinburgh West are entitled to know what has been going on in the local party. All we know is ...
  • Ruth Bright
    Supreme irony that one of the commenters here about diversity at conference mortified me at a conference of yore by drawing attention to the fact that I was alw...
  • Rebecca Taylor
    @Anne - biological sex based exclusions were always permitted under the Equality Act (before the Supreme Court ruling) in limited and defined circumstances like...