Paddy Ashdown

Paddy Ashdown writes… Why Vote Yes: Take Courage – make change

By | Mon 21st March 2011 - 11:55 am

This is the second in our series, Why Vote Yes, where prominent Liberal Democrats explain the importance of voting Yes in May’s referendum on the UK Parliamentary voting system.

Yesterday, Charles Kennedy described A chance for change we cannot miss. Today, Paddy Ashdown writes:

Fellow Liberal Democrats – I’ve been in politics for a long time. There’s nothing wrong with people of any age getting involved, from a teenager to a centenarian. We can all make a difference.

But when almost every politician at the top of the “No” campaign was already a dinosaur by the time I was first elected to Parliament in 1983, you have to wonder about the freshness of their arguments.

Think of the changes Britain has seen during my lifetime – and theirs:

We’ve joined the European Union. We’ve established a Parliament in Scotland and an Assembly for Wales. We’ve voted in proportional representation elections for both – a far bigger change than AV – and the sky hasn’t fallen in.

And government, always the last to change under Tory and Labour alike, has often been the last to wake up to the incredible social changes that have changed Britain for the better.

So when those old Labour and Tory hacks gang up to tell you to be afraid of a long-overdue but frankly much smaller change, it tells you far more about their fears than those of the British public. Of course they’re against change. They want to hang on to the present system because it makes life easier for politicians. Well I am more interested in a system that makes life better for the voters!

I have always tried to appeal to the politics of hope. But too many votes have been decided by fear – and that’s all that the “No” campaign dinosaurs can offer.

Not one of them can stand up to say “Vote positively for First Past the Post – we know it’s a wonderful system!” They know it’s broken – but they also know it gave them unbroken power – and that’s why they want to hang on to it.

What could they say? “First Past the Post gives you strong government.” Like that of John Major or Gordon Brown, then? “First Past the Post protects you from coalition governments.” Will I happen to think that coalition Government s are not bad for the country – they’re good for it. But if you disagree then think of this: Australia has had this system for 70 years and has had fewer hung parliaments than Britain has?

The “Yes” campaign has a powerful message of hope – yes, the current system is broken. But you don’t have to be afraid that nothing can change, and you don’t have to be afraid of that change – take courage! We’re offering a change for the better.

Here are some facts: in the last twenty years, the governments elected in British General Elections under First Past the Post have had the smallest shares of the vote in our nation’s history, down as far as absolute power on just 35% of the vote. That’s not a popular mandate, when two-thirds of the people voting vote against you.

The Alternative Vote would make sure that every MP has the support of a majority of their voters. It wouldn’t make every government perfect. But it would give every MP at least the firm democratic basis that so many of them lack today.

No wonder people are so turned off by politics, when most of them get MPs they voted against.

At last, the Liberal Democrats in government are delivering a referendum to let the people – no that politicians – decide on making a positive change to a system we’ve said is broken for decades.

The power for change is in your hands. Will you have the courage to take it?

Don’t let old fears decide your vote. With the Alternative Vote, there’s hope that things can be better.

Take courage. Make that change.

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18 Comments

  • BlahBlah 21st Mar '11 - 1:50pm

    @jedibeeftrix

    Please. Westminister government is stale, inefficient and anything but radical, quite a lot of our legislation is pretty hideously out of date and even mundane (but big) changes are left to rot. Usually, what a government does is undergo some big seeming grandiose plan which is watered down before it even leaves the drawing board and somehow manages to not actually change anything. The next government will then usually gently take the policy around the back and shoot it while drawing up their own hairbrained scheme that will also only last fifteen minutes (figuratively). No lasting change, no radical policy, just short-lived cock-up after short-lived cock-up dressed up as radical policy while the important work is left to collect dust.

    The governments that actually achieved long-term radical change were Attlee’s government and Thatcher’s first government – one with a landslide and one with a fairly modest majority. No other governments had truly radical policy – Blair’s first government could have been but it hit the ground limping. Devolution was their only truly radical change but even that was a half-finished job as they never got the English regional assemblies off the ground.

    Ultimately, the major parties are coalitions in themselves – say that a Blairite and an Old Labour supporter would take the same positions on most issues and I’ll be very sceptical. Coalition government just allows more mixing and matching of the clans and I don’t really see it being inherently any more or less radical.

    Also, in the UK FPTP since WWII has delivered hung parliaments four times (twice at the election and twice when a majority was lost due to by-elections) out of eighteen parliaments and three more with very fragile majorities (which, imo are much worse than either landslides or NOC situations) – excluding the governments which later lost their fragile majority. As well as giving a majority to the party which lost the popular vote twice. This works out to around 60% “strong” majoritarian governments and around 40% “weak” governments. While it’s true that that is technically most of the time I don’t think it’s a good enough success rate to warrant advocating it if you’re a fan of majoritarian government. The best system for that would be a party list system with a large winner’s bonus – far more reliable.

  • BlahBlah 21st Mar '11 - 5:30pm

    @jedibeeftrix

    This has nothing to do with priorities – you made an unevidenced assertion that FPTP leads to radical policy. I’ve suggested that it hasn’t, on the grounds that most UK governments have consistently failed to enact any significant or lasting radical policy. I’ve also shown that it has not been the best system for producing strong majoritarian governments. Your response is that you like majority government and that you think that FPTP leads to radical policy, which is singularly unilluminating, and I would really like the reasoning behind those points fleshed out.

    I’ve shown that FPTP is not actually very good at providing strong majoritarian government (for more examples look at Canada’s last three parliaments) and you state you like FPTP because “you like majoritarian government” – without even attempting to refute my (evidenced) assertion – rather just attacking party list PR.

    You also state that you think FPTP is best suited to deliver radical policy without evidencing it or even stating why in depth aside from your view that Australia doesn’t enact radical policy. To be honest, I also find your use of Australia to be a bit odd also. It’s had fewer NOC situations than the UK for one thing! I’m also having to just take you on your word that its policy is not radical, which is obviously quite critical for your argument.

    Regarding my winner’s bonus comment – you can chuck a winner’s bonus on any system, there’s not really much point in arguing against the party list system. Personally I dislike it for the reason that it gives the parties too much power in drawing up the lists. FPTP is pretty much on par though, given that they have the power to select the only choice for a party in a particular seat, I don’t really see how “taking power from the parties” can be an argument FOR FPTP. It’s really more an argument for open primaries/open lists. What you’re arguing for is in fact pretty much independent of the actual voting system altogether, at least on these two points, and more to do with methods of selection and bonuses.

    And regarding the constituency link – plenty of systems that aren’t FPTP have this. AMS, AV+, STV are three proportional systems that do – there are a whole plethora of semi-proportional or non-proportional systems which aren’t FPTP which also have it. The constituency link is not an argument for FPTP specifically. To be honest I’d also argue that the link is pretty pointless unless the constituency happens to represent a coherent community in the first place, though that’s a whole different kettle of fish.

    I have other things I need to do so I’ll try and zip through the rest of your first post.

    “AV in Britain will increase the chance of NOC” Insignificantly. Given that 35% of voters didn’t vote for Con or Lab NOC’s probably going to happen more often regardless of the voting system anyway.
    “I like broad parties (coalitions as you note) as it prevents ideological ‘purity’.” It restricts voter choice and coarsens how they can express their opinion as they can’t freely vote for the faction in the party they like unless a PPC from that particular faction happens to be standing where they are. Ideological purity is rife even with broad parties, namely because it’s the case that one faction’s usually dominant in a party.
    “pandering the ‘needs’ of idiots is not something my government should wasting its time with.” I have no idea what you’re referring to, but it sounds nasty.
    “I dislike unpredictable outcomes” then you should only like party list systems, all other systems have unpredictable outcomes. Especially non-proportional single-member constituency based systems.
    “AV is both unpredictable and encourages people to game the system by providing vote-lists” No more than any other system with single-member consituencies and “no” respectively.
    “I don’t like systems that overly punish unpopular ruling parties” Then you should dislike all non-proportional single-member constituency based systems. Particularly FPTP as AV only produces a bigger swing against EXTREMELY unpopular ruling parties, in 9/10 elections FPTP produces larger swings.
    “Your priorities may lead you to a different conclusion, mine leads me to FPTP.” Your priorities don’t logically lead to FPTP from what you’ve said at all. FPTP fails at providing consistent majorities, which is supposedly the main benefit of the system.

    Incidentally, I completely disagree with your “spread-bet” assertion – maybe you’re one of the lucky people who likes one party and only one party. Many voters are not though. With preferential voting they can express their opinion in full – without it they can just pick a random choice of the party they like (trivialising their decision), go for whichever one is doing the best in that seat (“gaming” the decision) or just not vote. Forcing voters to only have one option is trivialising their opinions. Calling it a spread-bet is quite frankly just insulting.

  • Roger R 21st Mar '11 - 6:07pm

    THE ALTERNATIVE VOTE _ UK’s PRO DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT !

  • Old Codger Chris 21st Mar '11 - 11:13pm

    I don’t see much wrong with multi-member constituencies, or top-ups, provided they’re not ridiculously huge in area or population.

    As a constituent I can choose which of my MPs to approach with a problem, and under PR there’s a fair chance that one of them will represent the party I voted for. Also, an MP who isn’t very conscientious in dealing with constituency matters will be shown up by his fellow MPs.

  • Paul Kennedy 22nd Mar '11 - 5:26pm

    Lots of countries and organisations – including the Conservative Party in selecting its own election candidates – use a system of run-offs culminating in a contest between the two leading candidates if nobody wins more than 50% on the first round.

    There would be outrage if the Conservatives organised their internal elections any other way, but for some reason – presumably just self-interest – they don’t want to extend this right to ordinary voters.

    AV is just a means of achieving an instant run-off between the leading candidates (and avoiding the cost of multiple run-off elections) by asking voters to rank the candidates so we know who they would vote for in a run-off if their first choice candidate is eliminated. So it is basically the same thing.

    I appreciate that AV doesn’t lead to a proportional result (unless you introduce multi-member constituencies), but the arguments for retaining the arbitrary first-past-the-non-existent-post system are simply not there.

  • Matthew Huntbach 23rd Mar '11 - 11:38am

    jedibeeftrix

    “Vote positively for First Past the Post – we know it’s a wonderful system!”

    I can.

    I like the fact it delivers parliamentary majorities most of the time, as it allows radical policy to be formulated, and punished.

    I do not know whether you are a Tory, jedibeeftrix, so the line below does not necessarily apply to you. It is aimed at Labour people who oppose AV.

    I will accept the line “AV is wrong because it leads to more coalitions and watered down policy” ONLY if it is accompanied by acceptance of the corollary in the present situation. That is, any supporter of Labour who says this should drop any criticism of Nick Clegg for being weak in negotiation with David Cameron. Rather they should say “As we oppose AV on the grounds we want one-party government, our main issue with Nick Clegg is that he is stopping that now by insisting on putting through a few Liberal Democrat ideas. We think Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats should recognise our ideal of one-party government by just supporting whatever policies David Cameron and the Conservatives propose”. I will applaud as honest any Labour opponent of AV who openly admits that a 100% Conservative government is what we shoud have now, as the proper consequence of their line of electoral systems. I despise as the dirtiest and most disgusting hypocrite any Labour opponent of AV who is not willing to say this.

    The fact that the Parliamentary Labour Party has over half its members who are just such dirty and disgusting hypocrites is one big reason why I could never join that party. I think Nick Clegg has done an appalling job as Liberal Democrat leader, I hate what the coalition is doing, and yet looking at Labour reminds me why I have not left the Liberal Democrats and joined them. My membership renewal cheque to the Liberal Democrats was put in the post this morning.

  • Matthew Huntbach 23rd Mar '11 - 12:21pm

    jedibeeftrix

    I should add to the above; what differentiates FPTP from AV, rather than plurality from PR, is the ability to rate vote preferences.

    I understand that those who feel strongly about wasted votes appreciate this feature, but i do not, and tend to regard it as a ‘spread-bet’ that trivialises what’s should remain a serious and consequential decision; who you authorise to act in you name.

    Again, I would be happier with those who use this argument if they were more honest about what it really means. Or, scrap that “more”, because so far I have never heard anyone who uses it show ANY honesty about what it really means.

    What those who oppose AV and support FPTP instead are really saying is that an advantage of FPTP is that it FORCES people to vote for a party which may not be their first choice in a way which gives them no ability to register that fact. FPTP has the factor that voting for the candidate you think is ideal means your second placed candidate does not get your vote and therefore advantages a candidate who would not be your preference at all. AV removes this “don’t split the vote” fear, that really is all it has as a difference from FPTP.

    So, FPTP supporters are saying there SHOULD be a penalty coming from voting for a candidate who may have little support, with that penalty being you may contribute to the loss of the election by the candidate you would settle for as your second or third choice. As a consequence of this penalty, electors need a way of second-guessing who their fellow electors will go for in order to maximise the power of their vote. The mechanism that is used for this is the party label. In most constituencies, people to the left politically will guess the Labour candidate is the one most others to the left will vote for, so a Labour vote is the safest option, people to the right will similarly feel it best to vote Conservative as the Conservative label serves as the way to indicate the safest right-wing option. In a few constituencies, it is obvious the led candidates are others, so there are parts of the country where it’s a a Conservative-LibDem fight, others (though few) where it’s a Labour-LibDem fight.

    FPTP forces people to stick to the established party labels for fear that doing anything else will “split the vote” and “let in” you least favoured major party candidate. One reason FPTP leads mostly to one-party majorities in Parliament is because it distorts from proportional representation, but another is because of this way it forces people to use their votes for the major parties only.

    So, I would be happy with the supporters of FPTP if they would say something like “We support FPTP because it forces you to restrict your vote to just the big parties, at least if you want it to be effective. Being forced to vote for the party which may not be your first choice is good, because it generally leads to one-party government”. That is really the honest and true argument against AV, why is it that we never hear it put that way?

  • Matthew Huntbach 23rd Mar '11 - 3:32pm

    jedibeeftrix

    I see the point you are trying to make, and broadly agree, but while I approve of majoritarian government and electoral systems that encourage it, I do not disapprove of coalitions if that is the result the electorate gives.

    Then your position is illogical, because previously you were saying you supported an electoral system which distorted representation in order not to have coalitions. Is distortion to rule out coalitions good or bad? Now you say it is good but sometimes not good, just when precisely does it change from one to the other?


    I accept the point, but the corollary to this is that FPTP forces parties to broaden their appeal, in doing so they inevitably water down their ideology. An acceptable compromise I believe

    This is precisely the opposite to the argument against AV I have heard many opponents give, including one I was involved with in a long thread on LibDem Voice only recently. The person I was arguing with then was adamant that AV was bad because it forces parties to water down their ideology in order to get the transfer votes.


    Politics, to me, is the battle of national ideas, or ideas that must be nationally accepted if they are to be successful. It is not that I seek to penalise the voter, but I do wish to force political parties to consider their role in broader society, not merely their narrow ideological interest.

    So how does a system which forces people to choose between just a very limited range of options whether or not they really like them help with that? FPTP means that if political party A pursues one narrow ideological interest and political party B pursues another narrow ideological interest, and they are the leading political parties, I must vote for A if I hate B’s narrow ideology and I must vote for B if I hate A’s narrow ideology. It prevents me from expressing my disgust for both by voting for C, unless it so happens that I find both equally disgusting that I don’t mind “wasting” my vote on C. I would much prefer a system which at least lets me show I find C better, even if I then have to transfer to the least worst of A and B.

  • Matthew Huntbach 25th Mar '11 - 10:48am

    jedibeeftrix

    In fact, I rather resent all the time wasted on it. The time and effort spent on this referendum would be more understandable if the choice was between FPTP and PR,

    Well, I agree with you on that. It’s another example of Clegg and the Cleggies massively exaggerating some small concession they’ve been able to get from the Tories. It’s been their tactic since the coalition was formed, and it’s been enormously damaging to the Liberal Democrats. In this, as in much else, the better line would have been to have said “It’s something quite small, AV isn’t a massive difference from FPTP, it isn’t the proportional representation we would really like to see, but it’s a slight improvement and it’s all the Tories would give in to, so on that basis we support it – better than no change at all (or, as we previously said ‘a miserable little compromise’)”.

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