tamashi

http://www.politicalbetting.com

There is said to be information coming out of the Brown camp that one of first acts he is considering as Prime Minister will be to abolish first-past-the-post for Westminster seats and replace it with the alternative vote system of proportional representation.

Under this voters rank the candidates in order of preference. If no candidate in a constituency gets more than half the votes cast, the one who has fewest first preference votes has his or her votes reallocated, according to voters’ second preferences. This process continues until one candidate has more than half.

The great argument in favour of this approach is that it keeps the constituency link - unlike the system that is used for election UK MEPs where everything operates on a regional list.


From the Brown perspective such a move would immediately build bridges with the Liberal Democrats and could arguably make it very hard for the Tories ever to win power again.
There’s little doubt that the Brown team has been working on a series of eye-catching initiatives along the lines of the devolving of interest rate policy to the Bank of England that Gordon introduced within days of arrive at Number 11 in 1997.

All of this is being designed to break the link with the past and the Blair years thus blunting the “it’s time for change” sentiment that’s almost inevitable when one party has been in power for so long.

So what would be the impact of such a change? This was looked at by the Commission under Roy Jenkins set up by Tony Blair after the 1997 General Election. This found that of all the options for changing the voting system the Alternative Vote - or AV as it is known - would be the one that would, at the 1997 General Election, have produced the most favourable result for Labour. A majority of 231 was projected.

Whether a similar benefit to Brown’s party would emerge in today’s environment when Labour is nothing like as popular is hard to predict but it is nothing like as certain that Labour would be the main beneficiary.

Given that ultimately through their choices with AV voters in LAB>CON marginals would have to choose between the two parties a good indicator might be YouGov’s monthly“would you prefer to see after the next election, a Conservative Government led by Cameron or a Labour Government led by Brown” question. In December this produced a split of Conservative 45% to Labour’s 32%. In February 2006 Labour enjoyed a 9% lead.

Another piece of recent polling evidence comes from last month’s ICM survey for the Guardian which asked “Which of these parties might you consider switching your vote to at the next election, please choose as many or as few as you like?”. This was the outcome: CON 17%: LAB 16%: LD 26%: UKIP 10%: GR 19%: BNP 7%: OTH 13%.

If I was David Cameron I would support such a proposal. It would certainly add a lot of excitement to those like me who have won and lost a lot of money spread betting in the Commons seats markets

harryaldridge

I read the Jenkins report (skim read it!). I did not like their conclusions. They appeared to keep a narrow imagination and rejected some more interesting ideas, such as the total representation advcated by UKIP.

I think the only way is to have 500 or so (80% of current seats) as FPTP with slightly bigger constituencies. The remaining 20% would be used to bring some proportionality to the final total.

Fiddling witht the system of sleecting the MP is not particularly groundbreaking in my view. It is confusing for one (well for some people) which is not good for democracy. Most people can hande a single cross by the person you want.

Anthony Butcher

I feel for the counters... can you imagine trying to tie up second preference votes as well? What a nightmare.

This system might make it impossible for the Tories to ever get back in, because the 'anything but the Tories' vote is powerful, with many people picking Lib Dems and Labour as their first two.

I am not sure that the description of the system given above is accurate though... that's not proportional representation, it's just the alternative vote system. It forgot to mention that the AV+ system does use regional top-ups as well, and is the closest system to the TR system that UKIP endorses.

This would be fantastic for UKIP and the other small parties, and would probably see a rise of other parties as well... given that it gives smaller groups a realistic chance of getting someone elected across a region.

Britannist

Alternative Vote (listing candidates on the ballot paper in order of preference) is not a proportional voting system (as Anthony has already stated a little earlier in this thread).

Alternative Vote is disliked by campaigners for proportional representation (PR) because they do not believe it to be proportional.

Indeed, had Alternative Vote being used in the constituencies of this country at the last General Election - it would have made the Labour majority in the House of Commons even bigger than it is now. I understand that the Conservatives would have won about 160 seats (not the 198 they actually secured in May 2005) and the europhile Liberal Dims would have got about the number of seats (in the Commons) they have now under First Past The Post voting.

Under normal circumstances, the pro-PR Liberal Dims would not support Alternative Vote - but the huge gains made by UKIP under the PR ('regional' list) voting system used at the last EU Election has concentrated minds in the Liberal Dim Party. The Liberal Dims now fear any PR system under which UKIP could push them out of their position as 'third party' - as UKIP managed to do (in votes received) in the 2004 EU Election.

Alternative Vote (used in Australia for national elections) would work over here in favour of Labour and the europhile Liberal Dims (LD)only as long as both of those parties were not nationally unpopular.

Once Labour and the Dim Liberals became unpopular (perhaps after a period as a coalition Government at Westminster) anti-Conservative voting under Alternative Voting (AV) would be replaced by anti-Labour and anti-LD voting - leading to a probable Conservative win at a General Election under AV voting at a General Election.

If the LD party was unpopular it could even suddenly lose most of its seats in the Commons under LD with most going to the Conseratives and UKIP.

There is a 'tipping point' in AV voting whereby the LD MPs risk all being thrown out in one go.

In other words, AV might initially benefit Labour and the Liberal Dims but only until the public mood changes and voters seek two new coalition parties (possibly the Conservatives and UKIP) to replace a failed Lab-Lib Dim Government.

Such a Conservative-UKIP coalition would then, if it had sense, vote to abolish the AV system and replace it with a voting system not gerrymandered and skewed against eurosceptic and anti-EU parties.

Sadly, the europhiles in the Conservative Party would try to stop a coalition with UKIP (preferring one with their pro-EU friends in the Liberal Dim party). Division could open up in both the Labour and the Conservative parties among members angry at those at the top of their parties perhaps doing electoral deals with such a vile party as the Liberal Dims in order to secure power.

Implementation of the use of AV at UK General Elections is not going to end the debate about PR. There are those in UKIP who remain against PR (party conference rejected it the last time it was debated) and others in favour.

Total Representation (which keeps the present constituencies; which does not require placing candidates in order of preference and which eliminates the need to vote tactically in the constituencies) is a superior voting system to AV. Small parties such as UKIP would get seats in the Commons from a top up list for those who performed well in the constituencies but who did not win any constituency seats.

And because Total Representation (devised by former UKIP leader Roger Knapman MEP) is fairer and would give UKIP some representation in the Commons (maybe not as much as it deserves but obviously more than UKIP has now) it will almost certainly NOT be a system recommended by this Government and its Liberal Dim hangers on for use at a UK General Election.

As I have written before, the aim of the europhile political establishment in this country is to bring in a voting system which helps pro-EU Labour and the europhile Liberal Dims - but one which keeps out anti-EU UKIP.

No one who is against the EU and who favours equality for the English in the UK should back any campaign for proportional representation because these campaigns are run by europhiles (often Liberal Dim supporters) whose main aim is to keep out UKIP and find a different voting system to the one we have now which does this.

Martin Harvey

In the late 1990's there was the Jenkins Report, I believe that it was crafted by Woy Jenkins. The report was commissioned to come up with a form of PR to be used in the future. Jenkins concluded that a system which he called AV Plus, was the prefered choice. It is a complex system which would probably deter many from voting at all, or at least confuse many in the polling booth. Briefly an elector has two ballot papers. The first ballot paper is used to place all the candidates in a Constituency in order of preference, and from this the Constituency MP is determined as above by transferring votes if neccessary. to reach the 50% mark.
The second ballot paper is used to vote for your Party of choice, and then for a candidate who you choose from a list.
This second ballot paper is used to determine around 20% of the total MPs, so that the numbers at Westminster reflect as near as possible, the relative Party proportions.
Of course it is probable that the EU would accept this sort of system, bearing in mind the decreasing relevance of Westminster, and the fact that the EU would ban Parties like UKIP anyway. This just shows that we in UKIP must get cracking before it is too late.

Martin Harvey.

Britannist

AV plus is a ridiculous voting 'system' - a dog's dinner of some of the worst systems of proportional voting rolled into one. I'm just surprised that the extreme europhile and 'champagne socialist' Woy Jenkins didn't throw in a bit of Single Transferable Voting in multi-member constituencies into his recommendations (just about the worst PR system of all), too.

Of course, Blair never had any intention of bringing in proportional voting (not of a proper kind anyway) -but the fool Jenkins (who always seemed to have a high opinion of himself) - couldn't see that Blair was just wasting his time by telling him to spend two years on writing his daft report on so-called electoral reform. I doubt if anyone - apart from Jenkins and a few PR 'anoraks'- even bothered to read the Jenkins report.

The Jenkins proposals for the voting system in UK General Elections would result in a worse election system than even the one used in Germany.

Not even in New Zealand (where PR voting for national elections was introduced about a decade ago) have they gone as far as the absurd Jenkins proposed in his irrelevant and boring report.

But as Martin implies (in the last posting to this thread) - the EU takes the view that whoever is in Government in the UK (and however they got there - i.e. by whichever electoral system) they are bound by EU rules and regulations passed years ago anyway.

SGK

The Jenkins report recommended AV Top up, (not AV). I found it to be a remarkably informative, neutral and valuable report which did not return the conclusions the government presumably wanted to hear and was ignored.
We've been over this many times and I am still convinced that PR would be an unmittigated disaster.

The Report of the Independent Commission on the Voting System

Click on 'full text' bottom left.

Britannist

Anti-EU MPs can be elected to Westminster using the present First Past The Post electoral system. UKIP needs to target seats to maximise its chances of winning representation in the Commons.

What Jenkins proposed was a ridiculous dog's dinner of a voting so-called system which would have led (if implemented) to a highly volatile voting system in which stale coalitions would grind political progress at national level to a halt.

As I wrote a little earlier - Jenkins (an ex-EU Commissioner) was a fool. He was sent a on wild-goose chase by Blair in writing his dreary report - Labour had no intention (and still has no intention) of bringing in any electoral system for the Commons which would result in more seats for its arch-rival the Scottish National Party and seatse for UKIP.

g hall

Can anyone think of anything good woy did, no times up.

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TANSTAAFL TANJ

Britannist

He (the extreme europhile Jenkins) showed more than any other politician 'on the broad left' (i.e. Labour/Liberal Dims/Social Democrats) that they are the party of 'champagne socialists' who couldn't care less about the patriotic anti-EU working class :evil: .

An English working class which people like Jenkins and Labour have claimed to represent - but whose real aim is to harm (just as it is the intention of Labour and the europhile 'champagne socialists' to wreck our country by putting it under the control of the EU).