2 Must-Read Blog Posts
What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:
- The whole Isle of Dogs appears to have an opinion on Zac Goldsmith, at least if this entirely random and representative sample of two is to be believed. I wonder whether they’re for or against?
- Lynne Featherstone reminds us just why World AIDS Day is still so important.
UPDATE: Another must-read blog post: who wears the (frilly) knickers at Cowley Street?
Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.
2 Big Stories
Ever wondered how Cheryl Cole gets her big hair?
No, me neither – sorry Femail. So onto a story about wheelie bins (admit it, you’re getting excited already), and a nice one to highlight the problems local councils often face.
Most commentors jump on the over-bearing local authority bandwagon: how dare Salford Council fine this man simply for leaving his bins on the pavement! What about the real criminals!
But his neighbours didn’t feel the same, they’re a fire hazard and he ignored warnings over a period of several months, so what’s a council to do?
Labour offers electoral reform referendum, but no PR
The Guardian reports that Labour is to guarantee that, if elected, it would hold a vote on whether to replace the First Past the Post electoral system with the Alternative Vote (AV) system.
Keen-eyed observers will note that neither of these are proportional and neither transfers power from politicians to voters, but why would Labour want to do that, when you can switch to a system that locks out smaller parties even more effectively than the current one and produces results even less proportional than we have now.
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3 Comments
On the AV thing, can someone point me to the example of where it gave a worse result than FPTP ? As far as i can see, in the UK the likely effect would be to increase the number of Libdem MPs by between 50 & 100%, assuming people vote much the same way. Take Bedford as an example, our man picked up 2/3rds of the the secondary votes.
More important is the way that AV demolishes the wasted vote argument & allows voters to ask themselves what they want. Now this is a real possibility we need to stop sloganising & start thinking.
AV isn’t terrible, but it isn’t proportional – just depends what you want your voting system to achieve. It probably would be beneficial for the Lib Dems (compared to FPTP) so if we were to judge a system purely on the benefits it delivers to the party we support (I wouldn’t), we’d be reasonably happy with AV.
AV in 1997 would have elected more Lib Dem MPs, more Labour MPs and many fewer Conservative MPs, which would make the result even less proportional than it already was.
Exactly how much depends on your assumptions on second (third, etc) preferences, but on any reasonable assumptions, the Tories would get no extra seats and would lose seats where second-place Lib Dems and Labour candidates got close and there was a significant third-place vote.
If you choose a set of assumptions then I can calculate a result if I can find my 1997 spreadsheet (I’m sure I can).