Last week I posted to Lib Dem Voice what I thought to be an accurate list of the 100+ Labour MPs who had proudly announced they would be opposing electoral reform in the May referendum.
I assumed it must be accurate… after all, the list was taken directly from the No2AV campaign’s official website. Surely they would have checked with each MP before publishing their name, I thought. Not carefully enough, it turns out.
As Left Foot Forward has highlighted, five Labour MPs named by No2AV as opponents of electoral reform have been listed incorrectly — take a bow Barry Sheerman, Alun Michael, Ivan Lewis, Albert Owen and Meg Hillier.
Mind you, that does still leave 109 out of 257 Labour MPs publicly opposed to reforming the UK’s broken electoral system, which last May ensured 98.4% of the public’s votes made no difference to the result.
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31 Comments
I read the report by the IPPR and I have to say it is a very mediocre piece of work riddled with errors and assertions (indeed in the list of hung parliaments give HALF OF THEM WERE BEFORE THE INTRODUCTION OF UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE)! How can you possibly argue that 98.4% of the vote was wasted by just counting the votes that gave majorities? If so then that is a complete farse because had those other ‘wasted votes’ not voted in various proportions the results would have been different. It is one man, one vote and every vote in every constituency is worth the same.
This party has consistently u-turned on its beliefs and this is one of them – your MPs viewed AV as a useless system (take a bow Nick Clegg) and you beloved Mr Jenkins said that is was less proportionate the FPTP which surely defeats the wish for PR in your camp.
Then of course the trend talked about in the IPPR report is that the top 2 parties have had a steadily declining share of the vote (only about 65% at the last GE) and that will continue because? Well actually it won’t by looks of things (latest YouGov report puts top two parties on 82% of the vote. So that assertion is also flawed also. And then…well I could go on but it is supper time š
“ensured 98.4% of the publicās votes made no difference to the result”
This is a staggering statistic – does anyone know how it is calculated?
That’s farcical. The constituencies aren’t even the same size! A national popular vote (with the usual distribution) of 38% Labour, 39% Tory, is likely to give Labour a working majority. In no sense is every vote worth the same.
“Mind you, that does still leave 109 out of 257 Labour MPs publicly opposed to reforming the UKās broken electoral system, which last May ensured 98.4% of the publicās votes made no difference to the result.”
Does it ? Or does it show 109 Labour MP’s are opposed to AV…..
I don’t agree with AV but would vote for a decent PR system. Either every vote counts or it doesn’t, and under AV votes are still wasted.
@Conservative, the decline in the vote share of the Big 2 Parties has been steady over 60 years. Perhaps thats gone into reverse in the last 6 months but some actual evidence from real Elections would be nice, lets wait to see what May brings.
Anyone on the 98.4% statistic? Is it that the majorities of the 650 odd winning candidates over the 2nd place ones totalled 1.6% of the vote? Not sure that makes sense though as presumably the vote that drew the 1st place candidate level with the 2nd place one counted to offset the 2nd place candidate’s last vote, and so on down the line.
Presumably the 1.6% is the sum of the majorities in marginal seats?
Not a supporter of FPTP but the main argument against AV is that it only seems to help one party that is the Lib dems . there is little possibility that the smaller parties will make a brakethrough under AV . Their first preference vote may go up however because the vote is tranferable and this paradoxically will make the system even less proportional. It is possible the Nationalist parties e.g. The SNP may actually suffer as they perhaps hit the marmite factor in politics (you either love them or you hate them) . Roy jenkins indeed may well have a point.
Whilst in the pure sense an individuals vote is more liable to mean something .As in a practical sense only one party will truly benefit there is a grave danger that the referendum may start to look like a reward to the Lid dems for supporting this current Thatcherite government. If the referendum is going to have a chance of success I would advise that you stop slagging your opponents off and endulge in some positive campaigning .
@ Steve Way (and too many others)
“I donāt agree with AV but would vote for a decent PR system.”
In which parallel universe?
FPTP or AV. Stop day-dreaming and pick one.
@ John Fraser – there is absolutely no evidence that the Lib Dems would particularly benefit from AV. People’s first preferences would completely change as the need for tactical voting with the first pref would be removed. This could affect all parties, and we may find that plenty of ‘safe’ seats are, in reality, not.
However, AV would change campaigning, slowly but surely, as candidates would need to rely on reaching out to more than just their core vote. “Extreme” candidates from any party would be largely unappealing.
Whether this is a good thing or not depends on your view.
One thing I am sure of is that a “no” vote means we’re stuck with FPTP for another generation, as “there is no appetite for change”.
āI donāt agree with AV but would vote for a decent PR system.ā
Ah, the morning call of the lesser spotted Labour sophist. That’s the songbird that wants electoral reform but wants to hit the Lib Dems more.
@Paul Griffiths
“In which parallel universe?
FPTP or AV. Stop day-dreaming and pick one.”
In the parallel universe that managed to get it for Scottish and Welsh and even euro elections. you know the one where Lib Dem MP’s didn’t vote against it being on the referendum paper. Take a look at the IPRR report you will see how many voting systems have been used in the UK (figure 12), to greater or lesser success. If the lure of power hadn’t been so strong one of those may have made it onto the ballot paper.
@MBoy
“Ah, the morning call of the lesser spotted Labour sophist. Thatās the songbird that wants electoral reform but wants to hit the Lib Dems more.”
What rubbish, I am no fan of Labour as I believe my previous posts have proven. Just because I prefer facts to Stephens spin and do not like AV. In his last piece on this the names of no vote Labour MP’s were not the only error. He misquoted the Labour Manifesto and Milliband.
There is no golden rule that says that if you want electoral reform you must support AV. I do not believe it is any more fair to most minority parties than FPTP.
If you take a look on the post regarding Oldham you’d see I am hoping for Labour to lose (even though I feel let down by the current Lib Dem leadership and understand some people’s wish to register a typical by election protest vote). I have voted Labour in the past but vowed not to do so again (unless there is a truly massive change) due to their blatant lies to get elected. I’m halfway there with the Lib dems who have had my vote in all local, eyropean and general elections for some years but hold out hope that the party will change direction and make the coalition work as it should. As someone who actually believes in thoughtful politics I will lend my vote to the party that most represents my views and proves themselves to have integrity.
Still, I suppose that’s the standard of your intellectual debate, someone disagrees with me therefore they must be a Labour sophist. Obviously not the type of Labour sophist to follow their leader though.
Just remember whilst insulting people like me that it is the floating voters that win seats for Lib Dems. You members alone will win you nothing.
Good luck using your approach to convince wavering voters.
Good spot Stephen. In addition to the ‘No’ campaign’s lack of research into the views of their Labour supporting MPs they haven’t even done any basic check on their records. With supporters like these who needs opponents?
http://livingonwords.blogspot.com/2011/01/expenses-shame-of-111-no-to-av-labour.html
Would rather see proper PR, which would give the Greens about 7 or 8 seats, UKIP about 8 or 9 seats and the Lib Dems about 90 seats – all traditionally muted voices under FPTP but voices with considerable support nonetheless.
PR isn’t on the ballot paper though – so I’ll have to vote for AV. There are 2 stages to real fair votes – proportionality and preferential voting. AV at least gets us half way there.
Names out of a hat would be a fairer system than first past the post – anyone who believes in PR or STV or AV+ or AMS etc.. would be mad to vote no in this referendum.
Every other assembly in the country will soon have a more democratic voting system, even the house of lords. To think that the Lords will modernise before the Commons sounds pretty mad, but even then Conservatives are signed up to a PR-elected lords. Just leaving a few Labour dinosaurs to oppose it.
@Grammar Police
One thing I am sure of is that a ānoā vote means weāre stuck with FPTP for another generation, as āthere is no appetite for changeā.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
This seems to be a common ‘psychical’ prediction that is used perhaps for properganda purposes. There is no real evidence for this at all. I remember the same sort of ‘psychic’ certainty along the lines of ‘if we dont have a proper coalition with the Tories they will be so far ahead by October they will simply call another election’ . There is never an appetite for change per se but an appetite for improvement . The failure of a poorishelectoral system will not necesserily prevent the introduction of a good one. As for the Lid dems not benititing from AV … you well know that few people will put Con Lab Lib as their preferences and until recently at least few would have put Lab Con Lib. I am not going to pretend to be psychic but with all other things remaining equal AV has an undoubted tendancy to assist a centre or even a centre right party such as the Lib dems currently are.
“there is absolutely no evidence that the Lib Dems would particularly benefit from AV”
Apart from every single study that’s ever been done, that is.
Obviously AV benefits centre parties, or parties perceived as such. Of course, there may come a time when the Lib Dems have crawled so far up the arse of the Tory party that they will no longer benefit from AV, but I suspect that’s not what you were getting at …
Citation needed.
(I’ve seen quite a few and they all said very different things to this)
That is neither obvious nor correct. Overall it tends to benefit centre voters (the same as FPTP, because they both drop votes from outliers), but for parties it tends to benefit the largest party that isn’t hated by most of the voters.
That’s pretty similar to the status quo, except that it becomes much easier to unelect an unpopular MP even if they have an FPTP “majority” of some 30% of the voters.
I think we shouldn’t be thinking short-term party advantage with AV. The real winner under it is the individual elector who can both show his/her real preference among the parties/candidates and maximise his/her effect on the outcome at the same time. It will, of course, take some time for the full effect to be felt.
If it makes life a bit more difficult for party managers who yearn for two-horse races and winning by negative campaigning, isn’t that a good thing in itself?
The point which is missed in most analysis of the effect of AV is that it changes voting behaviour, as does any electoral system. Liberal Democrats are doing consistently worse in PR Party list systems as used in Euro elections and for the GLA in London, than in any other system. This is probably because the party list system is less influenced by the popularity of local candidates of ward based Focus campaigns.
In most of the South West the Lib Dem vote has been boosted by anti-Tory tactical voting, yet under AV people could vote Labour or Green for first preference and Lib Dem second or third. If thy do, the ‘Lib Dem vote’ could fall. (Equally right wing nationalist voters might vote UKIP first and Tory second.)
Its also not true to say that smaller parties would always lose out, the SNP for instance could well gain seats if Labour voters pefer them to Tories and vice versa, they just need to start in second place. Like the Lib Dems the SNP are basically a centre-left party, and SNP & Lib Dems have worked in coalition together at Council level. Why this doesn’t happen at Holyrood I don’t know, it seems Scottish Lib Dems prefer being part of a unionist consensus with Labour and the Tories. But remember AV will empower VOTERS not party leaders. I could forsee the SNP and the Greens winning a few more seats under AV, though under a PR system that would be a certainlty.
The Jenkins commission said AV+ was th best system for the UK, I prefer STV, but at least if we get AV its a first step, it gets people used to preference voting, and we argue about how we do the ‘+’ bit later.
“Iāve seen quite a few and they all said very different things to this”
Is there no limit to the idiotic things people will say?
You’re really claiming that you’ve seen studies showing that AV WOULDN’T benefit the Lib Dems??? You think the Lib Dem campaign for a “yes” vote is an act of noble self-sacrifice?
And how can anyone dispute that AV tends to benefit centre parties rather than parties of the right or left? It’s so obvious.
@Dan Falchikov
Posted 5th January 2011 at 11:31 pm | Permalink
Good spot Stephen. In addition to the āNoā campaignās lack of research into the views of their Labour supporting MPs they havenāt even done any basic check on their records. With supporters like these who needs opponents?
Lets not forget that Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are not clean from the expenses scandal.
In Fact David Laws still has his expenses scandal hanging over him {Anybody know why the Parliamentary standards. have still not made a ruling on this 9 months later}
Lets also not forget that Coalition MP’s are not happy with how IPSA {Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority} are ruling, and dealing, on their expenses claims, led by Cameron, They are looking into getting rid of IPSA, after just 1 year.
And what is one of the coalitions complaints regarding the new expenses system you wonder?
Apparently it is not family friendly enough, and MP’s are not able to claim travel costs for their families between their constituencies and Westminster.
Well why the heck should they be able to claim travel costs for their partners and kids?
A basic MP’s salary is Ā£65,738. as well as certain expenses. Are they really suggesting the tax payer should foot the cost of transporting their children back and forth? Can they really not afford this out of their own income?
When the cost of fuel has gone up along with VAT and the cost of Rail Travel has soared, Many ordinary families across the country are having to swallow these increases.
These ordinary working families are not able to claim ” travel costs” for transporting their entire family, so why should MP’s be any different?
The MP’s are also arguing that IPSA is to costly and full of to much Bureaucracy. Well I rubbish that, if the extra expense, stops the kind of abuses we saw in the past then it’s worth it.
And whilst those reliant on welfare are having to jump through hopes, and fill in form, after form after form, and go through, unfit for purpose medical assessments, in order to get benefit. Then as far as I am concerned. MP’s should have to go through just as much in order to claim expenses at the cost to the tax payer.
If the coalition does get rid of IPSA already, supported by Liberal Democrats, it will be an outrage, especially when at the same time, The rest of the country is feeling the pinch from the cuts and the increases in tax
disregarding matt’s waaayyyy off-topic posting above this, i think that everyone interested in the debate around electoral reform should keep in mind the following sentence when thinking about May’s vote:
Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
AV isn’t great, but it’s an improvement on FPTP. It will make MPs work harder as they’ll need support of more than 50% of their voters. It will reduce the number of safe seats, where most of the dodgy expenses claims took place. It will show the Daily Mail-reading Tory buffoons that there is a progressive voice in this country, and that we won’t accept their crap any longer. How’s that for starters?
Dominic Curran
Posted 6th January 2011 at 10:30 am | Permalink
“disregarding mattās waaayyyy off-topic posting above this”
I was responding to @Dan Falchikov Post, who used Labour’s MP’s Expenses, who are supporting the NO to AV Campaign.
As somehow suggesting that they have no credibility for the argument.
My post was in response to that š
AV is,I suppose a start, but why oh why is it not being proposed for local elections as well? If we are to adopt such a system,then logic would dictate surely that all elections,National and LOcal use the same procedure. The electoral law reformers must have been napping when the terms of this proposed legislation were drawn up.
What I cannot tolerate though is the reduction in number of constituencies. If any change is deemed necessary then perhaps we need more,particularly so if A.V is to be adopted. It makes a mockery of the localism agenda, and what is more,the gerrymandering that will result from the planned reduction in constituencies can only benefit the Tories at the expense of the Lib Dems.
The point of linking to the report is that you can read it. The 1.6% of voters – termed “decisive” in the report – are the sum of the majorities in seats that changed hands to Lib Dems and Tories.
The Liberal Democrat party hasn’t u-turned on this. We want STV, which requires two changes. The first change is to preference voting. The second change is to multi-member constituencies. Alternative Vote uses preference voting in single member constituencies. So, AV achieves the first, but not the second change.
It’s hard to know whether AV will produce more proportional, or less proportional results in parliament. That depends entirely on the distribution of voters, what their second preferences are, and so on. You can’t work that out by looking at past voting results. However, at least one large relevant opinion poll (asking how people would have voted with AV in May 2010) suggests the results would have been more proportional.
However, proportionality isn’t the only benefit. My view is that the main benefit is that preference voting means that voters can be more expressive in the ballot box. Also, MPs will know to what extent they’re reliant on tactical votes. After an election, we’ll know the true level of support for each party, without having to guess whether votes were first or second preferences.
Matt – my point which you conveniently ignore is that one of the arguments in favout of AV is that it makes MPs work harder (as they require a higher threshold of votes to get elected) and it is significant that the declared Labour opponents are some of the worst abusers of the expenses system – they clearly want to be able to carry on as they are. ‘No to AV’ haven’t published a similar list of Tories (yet) – but I’d bet my shirt that it will be the useless, greedy and venal Tories who are defending the status quo.
David Laws is supporting the yes campaign as I understand it.
@Dan Falchikov
Posted 6th January 2011 at 12:35 pm | Permalink
“Matt ā my point which you conveniently ignore is that one of the arguments in favout of AV is that it makes MPs work harder”
I never Ignored anything, you made no such point in your original post about MP’s working harder.
All you said was
“Good spot Stephen. In addition to the āNoā campaignās lack of research into the views of their Labour supporting MPs they havenāt even done any basic check on their records. With supporters like these who needs opponents?
http://livingonwords.blogspot.com/2011/01/expenses-shame-of-111-no-to-av-labour.html”
My post in response was, that Conservatives and Liberal Democrats where not untarnished in the Expenses Scandal, and the Coalition Government is now wanting to scrap IPSA after 6 short months, because they don’t like the bureaucracy or the fact that they are unable to claim for certain things.
You where trying to make the point the Labour MP’s Supporters of the No Campaign had no credibility, I was making the point that Liberal Democrat MP’s Supporters of the yes campaign are no more credible.
I am still of the opinion that AV only really benefits the Liberal Democrat Party, and no more fairer or democratic than FPTP.
I am also of the opinion that Liberal Democrats have proven themselves thus far as being a party of self interest, unreliable, no integrity and at present unfit for government. In my opinion
@ matt
thanks for clarifying your post. it made more sense once i realised that i should have read more clearly what it was in response to!
however, i must agree with dan – while your point that no one is entirely clean is quite true, from the reading that i’ve done it does seem that those with safer seats appear to have been more willing to abuse the expenses system. i think that AV will reduce the ‘safeness’ of seats, which to me is a good argument (but by no means the decisive one) in favour of the change.
it is a valid debating point to note that supporters of the status quo also seem to have been disproportionately the worst expenses abusers. it is less of a point that some who have also fiddled expenses are in favour of a system that makes it harder for them to do so with impunity. in fact i think it’s a feather in their cap that they want to make life harder for them (in that sense)!
I don’t think the expenses scandal should even come into the argument on AV, as I said, members of all parties where caught up in it, and are still caught up in it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12117939
Tensions over the future of MPs’ expenses body Ipsa
“One of those who thinks the system needs a complete overhaul is the Liberal Democrat MP Bob Russell.
“”I think in its present form it should be scrapped frankly because it is not fit for purpose. In fact I’d go as far as to say it is the worst organisation I have had to deal with in 40 years of public life.””
The Conservative MP Roger Gale echoes this sentiment, saying that the system implemented by Ipsa “”does not work and those responsible have got to be replaced”..”
This Suggests to me that there are some Liberal Democrats who want to remove the bureaucracy and the scrutiny of Expenses from IPSA.
Therefore if Liberal Democrats are party to removing “expenses” from the watchdog, control and scrutiny of the “Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority” And back into the control of Parliament, how does that make their argument for a Yes Vote to AV more credible?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11998741
“Last month, Prime Minister David Cameron told a meeting of the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs the parliamentary expenses system was “not acceptable” and must change”
The Vote for AV should be about what is right for the Voters, not what is right for MP’s and if it will or will not make them work harder for the Vote.
In My opinion AV is not what is right and fairer to the voter, in my opinion
“98.4% of the publicās votes made no difference to the result.”
What an utterly ridiculous thing to say, you might as well claim that only one voter needed to turn up in each constituency and vote for whoever won.
Under any system a large number of votes will always, in effect, cancel each other out leaving only a minority of the votes cast actually leading to a change between the various alternate outcomes. That however doesn’t mean the other votes have no value, since it doesn’t matter who casts the votes that change the outcome and we cannot predict said outcome in advance. These are the very principles of electoral democracy, why is it a reason against FPTP and for AV?
@Steve Way
“@Paul Griffiths
āIn which parallel universe?
FPTP or AV. Stop day-dreaming and pick one.ā
In the parallel universe that managed to get it for Scottish and Welsh and even euro elections. you know the one where Lib Dem MPās didnāt vote against it being on the referendum paper.”
It’s hard to fault Lib Dem MPs for voting against what would have been a wrecking amendment. Had the referendum paper included the STV option, Tory MPs and Peers would justifiably have been able to vote down the entire Bill – with a little help from the Opposition – on the grounds that it was not what they’d agreed to in the coalition agreement document.
And it’s not really comparing apples with apples when you talk about Scottish, Welsh and EP elections – for the simple reason that Governments and Parliaments are far keener on reforming institutions external to themselves than exercising introspection. That’s why Lords reform is resisted most strongly by the Lords – and why reform of the Commons has been no better than “slow and incremental change” over the last 180 years or so. To top it off, with Scotland and Wales, they had a blank sheet. (And people don’t really get excited about the EP, for all that it’s a terrible voting system we use for electing MEPs.)
That’s politics for you.