Here’s a curious detail about the voting record of MPs on the alternative vote: before the general election, the House of Commons agreed to introduce elections for select committee chairs using the alternative vote (and the first set of these such elections have now been held).
Most of the Conservative and Labour MPs who have said they oppose AV for public elections were also MPs when this decision was taken – and not one of them forced a vote on the matter, let alone vote against introducing AV. Instead, they all let the introduction of AV go through.
Now of course that would be a reasonable approach, if – but only if – the reasons they use against using AV in general elections are all ones that don’t also apply to other sorts of elections. Because if they are general anti-AV arguments, then the question is – why didn’t they oppose AV for their own use?
So I’m 100% we’ll not see any of those Labour MPs use any of the arguments the No campaign has been pushing which apply to the voting system generally, such as how votes transfer at full value or how the person who comes first on first preferences might not win. After all, that then would be a matter of saying that a voting system that’s good enough for MPs to use somehow then isn’t good enough for the rest of us.
So I’m 100% sure, as I said. I’m sure you are too.
(Well, actually – make that 99% sure, because after roping in the views of a military dictatorship on the best voting system to use, who knows quite what No campaigners will do next?).
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54 Comments
MPs elected under FPTP – i.e. all of them – should declare an interest any time they offer a view in favour of FPTP and against AV.
We could also look at pledges? All politicians take the course that will benefit themselves most including Lib Dems. I am afraid that trust in all politicians is now at an all time low, can’t believe a word they say.
I completely agree with Anne; this blog is irony in it’s purest form.
@Anne & @James – all goes to show that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw the first stone.
Interestingly, one notable MP on this list is the MP for Great Grimsby (my own MP), Austin Mitchell, and Austin use to be Chair of Labour Party Campaign for Electoral Reform – just proves that he is breaking away from his own principles.
@Anne & @James, spot on I have to agree
The rest of us?
Just who is the rest of us?
Because there is a campaign for a no vote, so the rest of us are divided or did you mean by the rest of us the supporters of AV, just trying to be clear here
If you mean the public, the electorate of this country, the rest of us get our say in May which system we would like.
And the last thing I would like is AV or PR because it is already in use by MPs in house, it might be good enough for them, but I like most of the public would like to be asked after all it is our electoral system.
The rest of us have yet to have our say, and you know what, it might not be the same as what the “rest of us” you refer to.
It’s ‘fair’ and ‘progressive’ to say one thing before an election and do the exact opposite afterwards.
Welcome to a new era of politics and an end to broken promises…
Let’s not get rid of trident
Let’s have more nuclear power
Let’s sell off the forests
Let’s forget about having an inquiry into the energy market
I can’t wait for the control orders u-turn…
Stop the finger pointing. I don’t care what Labour did. I care what you are doing. At the moment all I see is attempts to distract people from how badly the LibDems are selling out for a sniff of power.
You’ll have to do much better than than that if you want to have any MPs in the next 60 years…
There is a notable difference in the two elections.
The party of Chairmen of select commitees is, I believe, chosen in advance. All candidates must have a set number of nominations. This means that MP’s are, in effect selecting the individual they believe is best for the job without having to consider party. It is therefore more plausible to rank these in some type of order. The best chairs are truly independant of their party leaders and often have good cross party relationships.
Although it is not meant to different in parliamentary elections, most people vote for the party of their choice regardless of the merits of the individual. Asking an MP to list candidates in order of preference to undertake a specific role having seen them operate over a period of time, and knowing their voting and campaigning records is different to AV at a a general election.
Whichever way you look at it, the election of a single individual to a single role, from a single group of voters, could not be achieved by true PR. It is realistically a choice of AV or FPTP. When it come to 10’s of millions of voters over an entire country neither AV or FPTP give a fair reflection of their views. True minority parties gain nothing.
Much as I abhor their views, UKIP should have a parliamentary presence in proportion to their votes. It’s a bit like giving the condemed man in Utah the choice between firing squad or lethal injection. Whichever is chosen the best option is not available.
Some of us don’t want the least worst option, in fact I remain to be convinced AV is even that.
I see only one party benefitting, and that is the party whose leadership have let me down badly since convincing me to lend them my vote in May.
Leviticus18_23, your remarks might be somewhat fairer if we had a Lib Dem Government. We don’t. The Lib Dems only got 57 seats. How do you expect them to force the other 300+ Government MPs to do everything their way?
When are Lib Dems going to stop this rubbish form of argument? There is nothing wrong with having different electoral systems for different purposes. The fact that someone may support STV for local elections does not mean they are being inconsistent if they support FPTP for Parliamentary elections, and so on. This post adds nothingness to the debate.
@Steve Beasant
Incorrect. Your MP is actually sticking to his principles. He proposed that a fuller range of PR choices should be offered to British voters, including STV. Unfortunately the proposal for a referendum on Proportional Representation was blocked by Lib Dem MPs in the House of Commons in October.
@Keith in Bristol.
While they can’t control policy or all the outcomes if votes, I would expect to see them upholding the things they stood for prior to the election.
I didn’t see ‘terms and conditions apply’ or ‘subject to fair usage policy’ at the bottom of any leaflets prior to re election.
If you expect people to vote for you because you promise to oppose tuition fees, you can’t then vote for or abstain. They promised to oppose.
If they choose to use the ‘well, it’s a coalition’ excuse, they should have got someone to negotiate in who knew what they were doing…
I guess I just feel really let down every time they open their mouths.
I’m still proud to have voted Liberal Democrat, and think this Government is hugely improved by having Lib Dems inside the tent, regardless of all the cheap shots you find on here. If the swathes of people claiming to have been ‘betrayed’ by the Liberal Democrats actually got out and voted Lib Dem in May we would perhaps have a very different Government to the one we have now…
But anyway… back to AV. Attacking the Liberal Democrats for any perceived wrongs does not shield MPs from accusations of duplicity. In this case it is particularly apparent.
If you expect people to vote for you because you promise to oppose tuition fees, you can’t then vote for or abstain. They promised to oppose.
When I voted Lib Dem it never occurred to me that this meant that they would oppose no-matter what the circumstances were. Such a dogmatic approach would seem to me to be profoundly illiberal and narrow-minded. I think the Liberal Democrats called the Tuition fees right, and the Coalition has finally introduced a graduate contribution scheme more akin to a Graduate Tax than fees, something that we should have had years ago.
@Mark Pack
Any chance of a list of LibDem MPs who defeated an amendment to add PR as an option to the referendum bill?
This is a nonsense post. Like I’ve said before, it isn’t inconsistent to support different voting systems for different purposes, any more than it is inconsistent to support different remedies for different illnesses. ‘Such and such used to support chemotherapy, so why is he choosing strepsils for his sore throat?!’
There is no need to worry about producing coalitions, for instance. These ‘basic’ criticisms of AV that you mention do not apply to select committees.
If you wanted to try a coherent post, you could actually have a look at their complaints and then decide if they fit select committees, rather than implying that they don’t without actually bothering to do any work to find out.
Any chance of a list of LibDem MPs who defeated an amendment to add PR as an option to the referendum bill?
You mean the amendment that would have killed off electoral reform for a generation by making the bill unacceptable to the Tories?
@Tom
So that’s the new test for LibDems is it? Support for a policy or position is dependent upon its acceptability to Tories?
And as for killing electoral reform for a generation, that is what a NO result will produce. Mainly as a response to the perceived betrayal by LibDem MPs.
@Tom
Not so. There are a number of Tories who support a PR referendum and the Tories only have 306 of the 650 seats.
Mark – an odd article considering this site hasn’t done something similar along the lines of:
“The xx Liberal Democrat MPs who signed a pledge to abolish tuition fees but then voted (or abstained) to triple them”.
High irony indeed…
@Steve Way
Posted 31st December 2010 at 12:19 pm
“I see only one party benefitting, and that is the party whose leadership have let me down badly since convincing me to lend them my vote in May.”
I agree wholeheartedly and I will vote against AV.
@ Tom
“If the swathes of people claiming to have been ‘betrayed’ by the Liberal Democrats actually got out and voted Lib Dem in May we would perhaps have a very different Government to the one we have now…”
…or of course, we might just have some more LD MP’s, and much the same train wreck we have now! The mindset of LD loyalists on this point interest me; they are totally convinced by the “there was no alternative” and “we did the best we could” narratives, and yet the LD’s basically rolled over for the Tories by accepting that what was important was not the relative % of the popular vote, but the number of MP’s gained in our gerrymandered parliament.
Why the supine acceptance that this was in any way a “fair” outcome in the coalition negotiations? You came out with NO major cabinet posts, not a single ministry in LD hands!!
The way to ensure people on the centre-left continue to vote for you isn’t by pursuing the policies and programme you are now! the deal that was struck after the GE was weak, flawed, and pathetically unrepresentative of what your membership, voters, and the country as a whole wanted.
You have simply allowed Cameron to use you as a way to neutralise the carpet biters on the Tory right, and to put into practice policies you could have done more to stop and/or ameliorate if you had had refused to go into Coalition, or at least negotiated more intelligently for a stronger LD element.
I don’t really care whether your party faces electoral oblivion, as it will have been self inflicted. I do care if your crass actions lead to the failure of the AV vote largely due to voters giving you a bloody nose for unrelated reasons, and I do care that your support of the Coalition allows the Tories to enact most of the programme that your party attacked so strongly.
What you have achieved is too slight, what you have risked is too important.
@Galen10 – if there had been more Lib Dem MPs, it would likely have been in Tory / Lib Dem marginals like Richmond, so would have made a Labour / Lib Dem coalition even more likely….
“You came out with NO major cabinet posts, not a single ministry in LD hands!!” So the Chief Secretary isn’t significant? Nor is the Business Secretary (formerly Trade & Industry)?
“accepting that what was important was not the relative % of the popular vote, but the number of MP’s gained in our gerrymandered parliament” – last time I checked, the Tories had the highest votes and number of seats, so the debate was a non-starter.
If the Lib Dems had gone into a “supply and confidence” deal and rejected outright the immigration cap (instead of limiting its bite,) tuition fees and much of the spending cuts in the budget, do you think we’d have got this far without an election – something which I don’t think the public really wanted?
@jayu – no, the AV referendum is what Bismarck would have called “realpolitik” – the ability to do what you can when you can’t do what you want. The Tories would never have supported a bill with STV in it, and along with (probably) the NI Unionists would have been able to scupper the whole plan. Instead, we have the opportunity to change the system to one which – in Nick Clegg’s words – is a “baby step” in the right direction (and the move from AV to STV isn’t as huge a leap.)
Douglas Carswell MP (Con) has argued for PR for sometime. At the Conservative Party Conference earlier this year, he said voters should be given the “fullest range of options possible” in the referendum:
Keeping First-Past-the-Post system
The Alternative Vote system
The Single Transferable Vote system
The Additional Member system.
I believe the Lib Dem MPs who rejected giving voters the full referendum choices will come to regret it. This wouldn’t be the first time. When in power, David Lloyd George rejected Proportional Representation and subsequently regretted it. Seems to be a case of history repeating itself.
@KL
Why then did the LibDem leadership call AV a miserable little reform, that was not proportional, and say that they would fight to make changes to Labour’s proposals to that effect? But once in government decided against doing so? It’s example like this, that explain the plummeting of trust in the LibDems, and the leadership in particular.
@KL
“The Tories would never have supported a bill with STV in it, and along with (probably) the NI Unionists would have been able to scupper the whole plan.”
You’re making too many assumptions. The issue cuts across both Conservative and Labour parties. The Tories only have 306 seats and, I seem to recall, were offered a ‘free vote’ anyway.
The Daily Telegraph assessed the situation earlier in the year. They concluded that even if all the Tories voted against, though some support electoral reform, the LibDems, the Scottish and Welsh nationalists, the unionists, the green, and a big chunk of Labour MPs would outvote them.
For me, a better argument would be to term-limit MPs. Say no one can serve in the Commons (Lords to be different) for more than three terms. That would give some freedom from the party whips, but would still prevent the free-for-alls that can be a problem with PR.
Mike(The Labour one): I’m puzzled by the second sentence of your comment, as that’s exactly the point I addressed in the second half of the post. Given the way you’ve written your comment, it’s almost as if you didn’t read that far down in the post 🙂
David: ditto, though in your case it’s your whole comment that puzzles me 🙂
Jim: Why do you think MPs should judge voting system changes only on the basis of how many seats they would get under them? Of course I have some interest in how many seats a party might get under a different system, but for me what really matters is how well or badly the system works for the voters, not for MPs. Democracy is something for all of us, not just for elected politicians.
@Mark Pack
“…but for me what really matters is how well or badly the system works for the voters, not for MPs. Democracy is something for all of us, not just for elected politicians.”
Quite – which is why I was puzzled when Lib Dem MPs blocked giving the electorate a proper choice. It goes beyond party interests, but they chose to put party before country.
@Tom
“You mean the amendment that would have killed off electoral reform for a generation by making the bill unacceptable to the Tories?”
Yes, Tom, God forbid the Lib Dems should vote for something they really believed in even it would be “unacceptable to the Tories”, No problem chucking in seat reductions & boundary changes to make it unacceptable to Labour. No wonder over half of your support has evaporated in less than 6 months
The lib dems were very foolish to agree to a conditional referendum on AV and instead should have demanded STV for local gvt like they did in Scotland.
That might have led to a trickle down effect of more people campaigning for electoral reform after seeing it work at a local level and would have fitted in with the lib dems ‘so called localism agenda’
@Mark Pack
I Don’t think they should, I am saying most will follow party loyalty because they are MPs, they are politicians, and in my life not once have any political party been truthful, even when speaking to the wider public in a general election broadcasts, MPs, leaders of those MPs and the support party to those MPs have been shy at being open and honest, or short with the whole truth and some even lied to gain power knowing they could not or would not deliver on what they promised or pledged.
The Liberal Democrats see AV and PR as a means to more power; the main parties know that the only way for Liberal Democrats to gain more power is for them to lose that power…
The public have now had a taste of coalition government, so now it is up to them, I personally don’t think they will vote for AV, I don’t even think it will be close… but I may be wrong I cannot see into the future.
jayu
“Any chance of a list of LibDem MPs who defeated an amendment to add PR as an option to the referendum bill?”
My understanding was that, for the most part, that was a classic “wrecking amendment”.
Are you saying otherwise?
I was in favour of AV as I thought Coalition governments were a good thing.
However, now I’ve seen a Coalition in action, I’m 100% against.
I want MPs to be accountable for their actions.
@Mark Pack: Maybe you should read the rest of *my* comment.
‘There is no need to worry about producing coalitions, for instance. These ‘basic’ criticisms of AV that you mention do not apply to select committees.
If you wanted to try a coherent post, you could actually have a look at their complaints and then decide if they fit select committees, rather than implying that they don’t without actually bothering to do any work to find out’
Instead of making the assumption that they are ‘general’ AV complaints that would apply to both, you could actually find out couldn’t you? Do you think it’s enough to say ‘maybe their complaints aren’t valid. I’m not going to bother finding out what they are, but it’s possible that they’re invalid. Vote Yes’? Because no is the answer, it very much is not.
And what about the famous case of a Party Leader who was against AV before he was for it ?
We are of course talking about Nick “miserable little reform”, who by his actions couldn’t care less if this historic chance to change the voting system is lost for another generation.
He has his nice ministerial job and when he’s finally booted out as Leader he’ll get a nice Europe or Banking job so why should he care that the only chance of changing the voting system for decades is sinking faster than his own poll ratings ?
Nice to see that the draconian measures against free speech on this site are still being carried on into the new year.
Mike: Actually, I have looked at what people are saying – and there are plenty of general anti-AV comments being made, which should apply just as much to select committees (and, in Labour’s case, their own leadership election too). The assumptions all seem to be in your comment, that I’ve not looked, not been bothered etc – and of course the risk with leaping to assumptions like that is sometimes it turns out they’re wrong 🙂
“Mark Pack”
How I agree with you. AV is for voters, not for politicians. Although I must say that – speaking personally as someone who would have been an MP in the 1970s with AV – once elected I would never have voted in Parliament for STV since I was too fond of my own consituency! STV of course means much larger multi-member consituencies and an end to the MP/constituency link, with no more single MPs for constituencies.
I am a Liberal and these days don’t like the LibDems’ fanatical enthusiasm for all things EU, but I am amazed at how unfair people are being to the LibDems now, given the position they are in. A LibDem coalition was the only possible stable government in the difficult financial situation given the election results of the General Election. Had there been AV there would have been more LibDems and fewer Conservatives and fewer Labour. A stable coalition with either Labour or Conservative might then have been possible, instead of Hobson’s Choice with the Conservatives only.
Are opponents of AV either just political activist opponents of LibDems and Liberals or otherwise LibDem and Liberal political activists who are prepared to wreck the one MP per constituency link?
Mark Pack, apologies for accidental inverted commas!
AV will only really favour the Liberal Democrat party, in my opinion.
AV will also, more than likely lead to more hung parliaments and coalition governments.
Plural Politics is not working in my opinion, The Coalition is refusing to be transparent in it’s negotiations on policies, And whilst there is no transparency, It is impossible to judge whether the junior party is having any influence on Policy.
The Junior Party, or in this case, The Liberal Democrats, Constantly use the excuse, “we only have 57 MP’s” or “We are the Junior Party and we Can’t…..” so whilst a junior party does not wan’t to be transparent and accountable in government, plural politics can never work.
That’s why we should vote NO to AV
“matt”
So you oppose AV just because you oppose the LibDems.
You would like the LibDems to continue to be under-represented in relation to votes cast for them. Do you have any conception of fairness in representation?
Which other parties would you like to see under-represented? Which parties would you like to see over-represented?
@Dane
No I do not oppose AV just because I Oppose Liberal Democrats, I have indeed voted Liberal Democrat in some elections.
I oppose AV as it is not a fairer system than FPTP.
I Also oppose AV as it does not make smaller parties more accountable in government,
As I have stated previously, unless coalition governments can work transparently on policies, then plural politics do not work and AV will more than likely give us more coalition governments.
I do not believe that somebody’s second preference should equal weight to someone else’s first choice.
And I do not believe a voting system that can be used by the current coalition partners, to encourage it’s members to tactically vote and rank the current coalition parties as 1 & 2 insuring another term in office. AV does not come close to full PR and STV and therefore I believe it should be voted down.
The only party that really stands to gain from AV are the Liberal Democrats, And in my opinion, so far, The Liberal Democrats have not proved themselves as credible and worthy of Government, And that is coming from the mouth of someone, who has genuinely voted for them in the past.
@Dane
“You would like the LibDems to continue to be under-represented in relation to votes cast for them. Do you have any conception of fairness in representation?”
So how will AV give smaller parties such as UKIP or the Greens better representation? AV isn’t proportional therefore does not produce fairness in representation. It does appear to only benefit one party.
I don’t want the Lib dems under-represented, but I don’t believe that fixing the problem only for the third party is the answer.
Steve Way
AV will give smaller parties such as Greens or UKIP better representation where there are good local candidates for those parties. Voters can put them as their first preferences without worrying that they will let in another party they do not like.
@Dane Clouston
“AV will give smaller parties such as Greens or UKIP better representation where there are good local candidates for those parties. Voters can put them as their first preferences without worrying that they will let in another party they do not like.”
FPTP gives the greens, UKIP etc a chance of representing their constituency if they put forward a good local Candidate, Like Caroline Lucas for the Green Party.
AV is not anything like Proportional Representation, AV is not fairer than FPTP.
And Somebody second choice should not carry as much weight as someone’s first choice. That is not more democratic in my opinion.
We either stick with 1 man 1 vote and first past the Post, or we change to, Full PR and STV. There should be no miserable little compromises in between that is no more democratic than FPTP.
“matt”
(Drafted before your last post, to which I might return!)
AV is a fairer system for voters in Parliamentary consitutuencies than FPTP.
Why is making smaller parties more accountable in government so important to you? If they are found to have failed in a coalition, the voters will turn against them next time.
Why is it so important to you for coalition governments to work transparently on policies? Any government is a coalition in which there are confidential discussions and arguments about the pros and cons of arguments.
What do you mean by saying that plural politics do not work? Are not all politics plural?
AV will give us more coalition governments only if that is the result of voters’ expressed preferences, which they can change next time if they don’t like the result this time.
Everyone has a first preference. Not all first preferences have equal weight. Second preferences only have an equal weight to others’ first preferences if the first preference had no weight at all.
AV does not come close to full PR, so you want to vote it down. But with full PR there would be even more coalitions. Your arguments seem to be self contradictory and based upon some sort of prejudice.
It is not true that the only party that really stands to gain from AV are the Liberal Democrats. Other smaller parties will gain in constituencies where there are good local candidates.
Have you genuinely voted for Liberal Democrats in Parliamentary elections, or just in local elections where there are good local candidates? I, incidentally, do not vote LibDem these days because of their EU-fanaticism – I am an EU-sceptic Liberal who would like to be able to vote Liberal as first preference while still being able to choose between whoever the two eventual front runners are. Greens, UKIP and Labour would also be higher on my list of preferences than Conservatives or LibDems, for different reasons.
How do you support your opinion that the Liberal Democrats have “not proved themselves as credible and worthy of Government”? I think they are doing pretty well, myself, tempering the instincts of the Conservative Party, although of course I do not like any hobbling of the Conservatives’ EU-sceptic instincts and policies that may be going on behind the scenes!
Roll on AV so that we the voters can express our personal preferences without worrying about letting in a candidate we do not like! Never mind abstruse political activist arguments to the contrary!
“matt”
What a laugh! “FPTP gives the greens, UKIP etc a chance of representing their constituency if they put forward a good local candidate, like Caroline Lucas for the Green Party”!
Caroline Lucas is the exception that proves the rule that FPTP does NOT give the greens, UKIP, etc that chance. But AV would do so! What prejudice is it that drives your self-contradictory arguments?
The Greens and UKIP may be small now, but they will not always be, if the LibDems go on being identified with EU and Euro-fanaticism. It is the Greens and UKIP and EU-sceptic Liberals who will benefit more than LibDems unless the latter change their EU and Euro tunes.
AV normally gives more proportional representation than FPTP, unless people vote for both extremes in preference to compromise.
Second preferences only count as much as first preferences if a first preference has not counted at all. That is perfectly democratic.
AV is not a miserable little compromise. It is a huge improvement on FPTP for voters, if not, perhaps, for political activists. Keep Single Member consituencies for the Commons. Keep STV in Multi-member consitutencies for a fully elected Senate/ House of Lords! Don’t go on making your best be the enemy of the good!
I will never put the three ‘main’ parties in any ‘preference’. I don’t want any of you. So, unless there is a candidate from another party or Independent that appeals, I shall not be voting at all. Will the coalition try to bring in compulsory voting as well if AV is won? This is an important issue and the question needs to be addressed now. Many now want FPTP back in Australia. Is that because they are forced to put candidates in preference even when they do not want to? I would just have to pay the fine except I will not have the money (prison?).
there will be people who will vote against AV just becouse the lib dems want it and for no other reason than that, it kind of goes wioth the terriotory when you are umpopular it is a bit like being moderated of the board becouse people don’t like what you say.
@Dane Clouston
“Why is it so important to you for coalition governments to work transparently on policies”
Because how are the electorate able to asses the influence of the smaller party if their is no transparency on negotiations?
If we do not know where Liberal Democrats started from as a point of negotiations on policy, And what was the final outcome of the Policy, It is impossible to judge the influence of the Junior Party.
All we end up with, is the same whining, we only have 57 MP’s.
without transparency the public have no way of assessing whether Liberal Democrats have sold their principles in return for power and ministerial cars.
“What do you mean by saying that plural politics do not work? Are not all politics plural?”
Plural Politics is not working whilst there is no transparency between the parties and negotiations. Liberal Democrats are making U-Turn after U-Turn on their Core Party Policies, Clegg and co are being ushered out in Public, to trumpet Right Wing Tory Policies as being the best and only alternatives available, even though these policies are a total contradiction to the Liberal Democrats Party Policies.
And No not all Politics are plural, Government is only Plural when you have a coalition between 2 parties or more.
“AV does not come close to full PR, so you want to vote it down. But with full PR there would be even more coalitions. Your arguments seem to be self contradictory and based upon some sort of prejudice”
I want to vote AV down as I do not believe it so be fairer than FPTP. I do not believe someone should be given multiple chances to back a winning candidate, where somebody’s 2nd and even 3rd preference carries as much weight as someone’s 1st preference. And I never actually said I was in favour of full PR and STV, I said we should have 1 or the other, their is a difference.
“Have you genuinely voted for Liberal Democrats in Parliamentary elections, or just in local elections where there are good local candidates?”
I actually Voted for Simon Wrighte Liberal Democrat MP for Norwich South at the last General Election. Before that, I had previously voted Charles Clarke {Labour} until in my opinion he started doing damage to Labour Party and losing touch with his constituents who put him in office. I have always voted Labour in Local Elections.
“How do you support your opinion that the Liberal Democrats have “not proved themselves as credible and worthy of Government”?
I judge the Liberal Democrats by it’s actions. It’s U-Turn on tuition fee’s and abandoning the Pledges that they signed.
Ministers Voting for the increase in fee’s when they could have abstained as was allowed for in the coalition agreement, then being caught out saying they voted for the policy when they don’t actually agree with it.
Nick Clegg Campaigning on a set of Policies and a Deficit reduction plan, from which he had already changed his mind on, he just failed to tell the public before they went to the ballot box.
“Caroline Lucas is the exception that proves the rule that FPTP does NOT give the greens, UKIP, etc that chance”
Didn’t Caroline Lucas win her seat via the FPTP method?
Please explain why you believe in the current system that we have, as a single member constituency, That 1 voter may get 2, 3 or maybe even 4 chances of picking a winning candidate, compared to another voter who may only get 1 or 2? How is that more democratic?
.
“matt”
The electorate will assess the infuence of the smaller party when the next General Election comes along. Coalitions and governments are all coalitions between different factions. We have a free press, which gets to the bottom of most things in the end.
All politics is plural – not straightforward. That is just life. You are defining plural as when there are two parties in government. I define plural to include numrerous factions within parties.
AV is fairer to voters than FPTP. With AV, all voters can make a difference, which is not the case with FPTP. Voters’ second or third preferences only count if the first preference does not. Why is that not fair?
I understood that you wanted Full PR with STV or less than full PR with FPTP, but not AV. Why not? There would be coalitions, to which you object so much when they are caused by AV, but not, apparently, when they are even more likely to be caused by Full PR with STV. That is why I said I thought your arguments are self-contradictory.
Thanks for clarifying your voting. Very clear and understandable.
There are ways of making tuition fees fairer, some of which are part of the Coalition programme, which is why some of them supported it and some voted for it.
Incidentally, what do you think of every young adult getting £10,000 UK Universal Inheritance? See http://www.universal-inheritance.org – hopefully about to be brought up to date very soon – I am not internet savvy – with the help of Compass Oxford friends. Let’s look forward, not backwards.
What I mean by saying that Caroline Lucas is the exception that proves the rule that FPTP does NOT give the greens, UKIP, etc that chance – is that with AV there would be many more good candidates who would come through. Just to blow my own trumpet, I stood for Parliament in Newbury in 1970 and 1974. It had been a safe Conservative seat, but in 1974 the Conservative got 24,000 votes, I as a Liberal got 23,000 votes having built up support and representation on local councils and Labour got 10,000 votes. The Liberal share was about 40 per cent when the national average was about 20 per cent. With AV I would have been MP for Newbury, twice, in 1974. No doubt they would have booted me out after a while, but it would have stopped it from being a safe seat 20 years before it eventually fell to a LibDem (who, incidentally, I went down to help get out again at a later General Election, because he was so very much in favour of our membership of the EU, which since 1989 I have wanted the UK to leave as soon as possible – it’s taking a while, I must say!).
Once again, to answer your last point again, the second and third preferences only count if earlier preferences have not counted. That seems very fair to me. And certainly more democratic and fair than one’s only X vote not counting at all! So we have to differ on the meaning of democratic and fair, I think, in this respect. Unless you come round to my point of view, of course!
Anyway, many thanks for all your stimulating thoughts. I do hope you will decide to support AV.
@Dane Clouston
Appreciate your response, and of course we are all entitled to our opinion and what we deem to be more democratic or fair.
Personally mine differs to yours somewhat, but that’s life.
I won’t be able to support AV though.
“AV is fairer to voters than FPTP. With AV, all voters can make a difference, which is not the case with FPTP. Voters’ second or third preferences only count if the first preference does not. Why is that not fair?”
Quite simply, it is not fair in my opinion because….
As an Example. A election has 6 candidates and goes into 4 Rounds
Voter A Ranks all the Candidates. His 1st Preference Candidate has led in the first 3 Rounds, but gets knocked out in the 4th Round.
Since there are no more Rounds, Voter A’s 2nd and 3rd preferences carried no weight in the results.
Voter B Ranks all his Candidates, His 1st preference goes out in the 1st round, Those Votes are redistributed amongst the remaining candidates, His 2nd preference goes out in the 2nd round, His 3rd preference, then goes on to win the seat in the 4th Round.
Voter B has had 3 attempts at picking “different” Candidates to win the Seat, Where as
Voter A has only got to use 1 candidate.
How is that fairer?
With regards to Universal Inheritance. I am not sure, I do not know enough about it, to form an opinion. Maybe you should write an article about it for LDV, where we can debate the issue. Maybe include what the £10k can be use for. Surly it is not a case of everyone gets 10k to do with as they please.
@Leviticus18_23
“While they can’t control policy or all the outcomes if votes, I would expect to see them upholding the things they stood for prior to the election.”
I agree, and I agree with you especially on the point of tuition fees – though perhaps I disagree with much of the party in that, in my view, those pledges on tuition fees were a mistake to begin with and are clearly no less so now, the fact is that you had individual MPs making personal pledges and their electorates had a reasonable expectation that such personal pledges would be upheld.
But on your earlier list: let’s face it, we had the Lib Dems who had a policy of not renewing Trident on a like-for-like basis, and the Tories who were for renewal. Either one of the parties or both had to give ground. As it happened, they both did: what we got was renewal kicked into the long grass, to be dealt with by a subsequent Government. The Tory Right are not exactly happy about it.
As for the comment “I didn’t see ‘terms and conditions apply’ or ‘subject to fair usage policy’ at the bottom of any leaflets prior to re election”, if there’s to be a coalition at all (granted, some believe there should not have been – fair enough) then it has to be a coherent Government and not a pushmepullyou. The Lib-Con coalition could not deliver that without a lot of inter-party compromise – which entails that some of the things one hoped to deliver during an election campaign, one cannot deliver after the event. No coalition could form without some promises being broken, IMO.
Sure, that means quite a few people will be unhappy with the result. A lot of people who voted Lib Dem in 2010 clearly aren’t. Nor, for that matter, are many on what one might call the ‘Tory Right’.
“matt”
What makes a voter’s vote count is that it makes a difference in the final round, whatever earlier preferences have been.
Both Voter A and Voter B make a once-only freely chosen preferential vote.
Voter A’s first preference makes a difference in the 4th and final round, but was on the losing side.
Voter B’s vote makes a difference in the 4th and final round, even though his first and second preferences were for other candidates. His third preference makes a difference on the 4th round, and he was on the winning side.
Each only made one preferential vote. Both of them made a difference to the eventual result. For the life of me I cannot see what is unfair or undemocratic about that!
With Universal Inheritance every UK-born UK citizen would receive £10,000 at the age of 25. It could be introduced gradually over five years, from £2,000 to £10,000, so that no one year group would lose out by more than £2,000. It is important that it is financed by inheritance taxes, to help spread more widely the inheritance of wealth in each new generation. Liberal Popular Capitalism in each new generation instead of Conservative Dynastic Capitalism cascading down the generations. It was, incidentally, adopted as party policy by the EU-sceptic continuation Liberal Party (www.liberal.org.uk) at its 120th Annual Liberal Assembly in 2005.
Also incidentally, I heard today that there is to be a doubling of a grant to some unemployed people to help them to start a business, from £2,000 to £4,000. Why just them? I would like all to receive a basic minimum inheritance of capital at 25. Why not?
The idea was first proposed by Thomas Paine in “Agrarian Justice” in 1797, in an amount of £15 at 18 financed by an inheritance tax of 10 per cent. Another idea which is taking its time coming about! I will write an article for LDV in due course. Good idea, thanks!