Tim Bale: PR Man? Why David Cameron might want to think about electoral reform

Tim Bale returned to the UK in 2003 after five years working in New Zealand in order to teach politics at Sussex University.  He specialises in British and comparative party politics.

David Cameron’s first few months at the helm suggest he is far from being ‘all spin and no substance’.  Distracting policies have been ditched, fresh faces introduced, commissions set up - all in order to demonstrate a new determination to fight Labour on the so-called centre ground.

It’s funny to think that before Blackpool some were suggesting the Tories not only needed a new leader but also some kind of ‘Clause Four moment’ in order to truly signal change.  Surely Dave is doing fine without one, right?  In fact, if the post May 5 hyperbole is to be believed, Tony (or should that be Gordon?) may as well hand him the keys to Downing Street right now and save us all the bother.

But perhaps we all need to calm down a little.  Sure, there are signs that Cameron could be the kind of Conservative leader that voters finally feel able to trust.  But the polling still suggests that he has some way to go to emulate Blair in 1994 and convince them that the party he leads has really changed.

And then there are the electoral technicalities.  Put bluntly, the Tories’ problem may not be simply what they’re trying to sell, but also the rigged market they are trying to sell it into. Their current edge would give them plenty of votes but not enough seats.

How much longer, then, will they go on supporting an electoral system that risks becoming, in effect, a self-denying ordinance?  While few Conservatives would relish the prospect of joining the high-minded moaning of the centre-left chattering classes, the time may have come to think seriously about electoral reform.

A more proportional system, after all, would increase the chance of converting Conservative votes into Conservative seats, as well as meaning that the party - like its continental counterparts - could form governments with around a third of the votes if necessary.   This may be distasteful - especially to those already preparing to trot out the tired ‘Italy and Israel’ critique.  But we may arrive at such a necessity sooner than we think.

The next election may well take us into hung parliament territory with the Conservatives as the biggest party.  Unless a semi-victorious Mr Cameron is prepared to test voters’ patience and precipitate fresh elections, he may have to do a deal with the LibDems, the price of which would presumably include PR.  Better perhaps to go into an election which may very well result in such a scenario having thought through the options in advance and pledged oneself - in apparently principled fashion -  to the one that seems to make the most sense, rather than appear to be dragged kicking and screaming into a cynical stitch-up. 

Just as importantly, pushing PR may not provide David Cameron with a fully-fledged ‘Clause Four moment’ but, given the Tories’ lack of similarly sacred cows, what better, bolder - and smarter - way to show that the party really has changed its tune?  Electoral reform may not be an argument many Conservatives want to have, but it may be worth having - and sooner rather than later.

This is an edited version of ‘PR Man? Cameron’s Conservatives and the symbolic politics of Electoral Reform’, published recently in the Political Quarterly.  Email Tim Bale if you would like a full copy of the PQ piece.

Comments

[Peter]

Tony Blair was presented with the very same argument in the 1990s, and rejected PR precisely because he saw it as a way for the party to return to government on its current low vote share, rather than by broadening its appeal. PR is therefore an alternative route to power to modernisation, and not a good one, because even if we did gain office sooner than under first past the post, it's almost inconceivable we'd be able to govern on our own ever again under PR. That's too high a price to pay for almost any electoral we might gain in the short-term.

Even in the short-term, I'm not convinced it would help us. How do we know PR for the UK wouldn't work as it does already in Scotland, keeping Labour and the Lib Dems in perpetual coalition because no one party can get a majority, and the two parties with the least ideological trouble with each other can ally so much more easily than the rest?

[Donal Blaney]

Surely if we are the biggest party in the Commons but in a hung parliament the better course would be to go to the country again and ask for a genuine mandate?

[James Burdett]

The obvious course would be to form a minority administration govern for a reasonable period and then seek a fresh election. This was in effect what Wilson did from 1964-1966, albeit he had a majority but it was tiny as the voting public had been reluctant to elect an untried Government in 1964. The 18 months from Oct. 64-Mar. 66 allowed Wilson to prove his credentials. He was subsequently rewarded with a sizeable majority.

[William]

PR is lovely in theory, especially when people start quoting figures as to how many votes it needs to get a Labour seat compared to a Conservative one. But there are downsides to the supposed 'fairness' of PR.

Because of FPTP, the Referendum Party was able to pressure the major parties into offering a referendum on the Euro. If we had had PR then, we would by now have the Euro in our wallets. Without the blocking device of the Referendum in place, who doubts that Blair would have signed up to the Euro in the first Labour Parliament or the second.

In PR countries they had similar anti-Euro minor parties, but the PR coalitions ignored them.

FPTP is known to bring more decisive government (Thatcher would never have happened in PR), but what people often fail to notice is that it also gives small parties huge impact if they threaten any of the big tents of the majors.

UKIP offered a referendum on the Constitution. Michael Howard had no choice but to make the same offer. From there, Labour had to copy, and amazingly so did Chirac. Our FPTP system offers small parties huge impact, while in PR they are blocked and ignored by coalitions, which trade them out of the picture.

Theories about future plays with the Lib Dems should be tempered with the realisation that as a Party they have peaked, and are now in decline. We could form a coalition with them if we want, but why change our electoral system which has worked superbly for us, all over the Liberal Democrats?

We see not just Italy unable to reform while their economy goes horrific, but most EU countries with PR cannot push through reforms which would enable their economies to grow. Do we really want to join them?

[Oberon Houston]

PR is a very very bad idea and once we return to our former strength, which doesn't look like being too far away, its the last thing we should consider. The only winners in this would be a Lib-Dem party that doesn't deserve any say on policy and it will lead to the fracturing of bi-partisan politics in UK which (although it may not seem like it) has served us very well for century's, and replacement with hung parliament after hung parliament and very little policy cohesion. Just look at the mess Italy is in.

Nope. Not for me, on any level.

[Margaret on the Guillotine]

It isn't the electoral system that works against us, it's the boundaries. If the Electoral Commission would stop using old census data to create seats of 80000 in the southern counties (where there'll be a 70% turnout anyway), then seats of 50000 in the inner cities where turnout is lower, there would be less of a democratic deficit and more Tory MPs.

[Serf]

Once the lib dems have gone into a coalition with either Labour or Us, they will lose their "other party" image and suffer.

PR leads to private deals that stitch up the public rather than public campaigning. It leads to non accountable government. It will inevitably lead to a political elite that is even more cut off than today.

No thanks.

[Ted]

As a conservative - so starting from if it ain't broke why fix it - I'm against most forms of PR as it loses the strengths of FPTP & constituency MPs without providing much additional benefit. I do recognise though that there is a problem when a government can have a big majority with around a third of the votes.

The strength of the British system is local representation - it is at its base a form of federalism recognising borough, regional diversity and making each MP dependent on the result of his party's policies on the people of a particular area and (though declining) on his/her performance.

Purest forms of PR lose this important feature - parties have lists, policies are discussed on national/supra national basis. Smaller parties are advantaged as their support needs to be bought by adopting their key policies. More importantly key regional / local issues are ignored. Because FTTP means each seat counts Governments are concerned if they start to lose support over local issues - so car workers losing jobs in Merseyside matter.

Of the alternative systems the Australian method retains much of the strength of FTTP without getting too much of the weaknesses of pure PR. The differential voting methods between representative election to lower house and a more proportional upper house seems to work.

It has also resulted in a de facto two party system with a basically conservative coalition and an opposing labour one.

The question though is the way the Electoral Commission (or the Boundary Commission part of it) approaches boundaries and constituency disibution. There needs to be a bigger part in trying to ensure boundary changes take into account regional or sub regional voting so that a group of seats better reflects the voting preferences (a sort of gerrymandering for fairness)

[Chad]

PR could work well for candidate selection in open primaries but for the election itself, FPTP is the only way to ensure that MP's are the person chosen by the people in their constituency, not some detached person who has benefitted from the sum of tiny vote shares across the country without ever gaining any real local support.

I must be one of the only small parties not to support PR and did used to be tempted by its benefits.

So it is an absolute no for me too.

However, I don't doubt that Cameron would adopt it if he needed secure election victory in coalition with the LibDems if that is their unbending condition as Ming has clearly said it would be.

What are the chances of Cameron ruling it out completely?

[DavidB]

PR = permenant Lib-Lab coalition

No way.

[Yet Another Anon]

The very concept of Proportional Representation as a term is a nonsense because obviously in a chamber of hundreds there is no way that every strand of opinion of millions is going to be represented, in fact if they were then all the current parties would have vastly fewer representation and it would be impossible to form a government.

It has to be said though that from 1910 onwards the First Past the Post system has mostly favoured the Conservative Party and might well generally do so in the future, even if the Conservative Party loses another few elections it does not neccessarily mean automatically that it will continue to be disadvantaged, in the 19th century at one point the Liberal Party won several elections in a row and yet from the First World War onwards the 20th century was mainly dominated by the Conservative Party notably in the 1920's, 1930's, 1950's, 1980's and most of the 1990's.

I rather favour the Alternative Vote system because it punishes unpopular parties while favouring the least unpopular and yet results in majority governments far more often than systems descibed as "PR" do, in fact it can result in parties gaining majorities in situations where they would not have done so in a First Past the Post election or getting even a larger majority, Labour in 1983 would have been virtually wiped out if Alternative Vote had been the system used and the Alliance would have held most of the seats that the Conservative Party didn't win, in fact it is an easier system on voters because their 2nd vote can be their tactical vote and so they don't end up in a conflict wondering if they should vote for the candidate they most want or an acceptable alternative that they might think was more likely to win.

Surely other modifications might include requiring runoffs between the candidates with the 2 highest votes in seats where a candidate fails to get 50% of those turning out to vote, or granting an extra vote to candidates winning above a certain proportion of the vote to reflect the extra vote that occurs in safe seats - maybe for example candidates could get one vote for every third of the vote they get, thus in some seats 2 candidates would be elected and in others one candidate could end up getting 2 or 3 votes in House of Commons votes because of the proportion of the vote they got.

Ultimately though strong preferably one party government has to be the ideal - if the UK is at war then what is neccessary is a strong leader who can face up to the decisions without bickering of smaller parties in a coalition.

[Yet Another Anon]

>>>>I must be one of the only small parties not to support PR and did used to be tempted by its benefits.<<<<
UKIP used to support FPTP and only recently changed it's position to favouring STV, the Alliance were split over what system to use (although the Liberal Democrats favour STV) as David Owen favoured Multi-Member constituencies rather than top up or transferable vote systems, Liberal advocacy of PR was only adopted when under David Lloyd George the party had slipped to being a third party and he then decided to make it a condition of a deal to support Ramsay McDonald as Labour Prime Minister for the 2nd time (the Labour government of 1929-31 was a minority government but never honoured the agreement and of course was then succeeded by the National Government), if the Liberal Democrats ever emerge as one of the main 2 parties then PR could well be abandoned by them over time as a policy.

[TC]

DavidB is absolutely right. The conservatives might get more seats with a PR system, but it is unlikely they would ever get an overall majority in Parliament. Labour and the Lib Dems have more in common with each other than with us. They are both centre-left social democrat parties, and their combined share of the vote in 2005 was 64%. Even in coalition with UKIP and the Ulster Unionists the centre-right would not make it past 50%. Proportional Representation is thus a thoroughly bad idea, which would lead to weak, indecisive and perpetually left of center government. I've looked at the other possible electoral systems, and FPTP post is undoubtedly the best of a bad bunch.

[Yet Another Anon]

>>>>it's almost inconceivable we'd be able to govern on our own ever again under PR<<<<
Even in PR systems usually when one of the main parties starts going over 45% of the vote then this ends up being enough for a party to gain an overall majority, most PR systems usually have a 5% minimum requirement for parties to get seats and in multiple constituency based systems there are still many parties that don't get enough votes to get a seat. If there had been say the STV system in place I am sure that in 1924 (2nd election), 1931, 1935, 1955, 1959, 1983 and 1987 that the Conservative Party would still have won majorities because especially in 1983 many did not turn out to vote Conservative because they were worried about what might happen if the Conservative Party ended up with no opposition.

[South Londoner]

Well, there is one potential scenario which has few advantages other than punishing the LD’s. Under PR, a perfectly possible political breakdown might be, a socialist party, a Blairite modernising party, a wet Tory Party and a Thatcherite party. Each of these parties would have a definite political outlook, and LD voters would undoubtedly be quite comfortable finding a new home, as would many LD MPs. Before the LDs push for PR, they might want to consider how they will present themselves in such a scenario.

But let me be clear, I am not in favour of such a system. PR almost invariably produces bad government after bad government and leads to even greater voter disaffection with politicians. As others have said, we never would have had Mrs T under a PR system, which would have meant either we would now be as rich and successful as Portugal (no offence to the Portuguese), or we would have had a revolution. PR is a system which only works tolerably well so long as you never need to face political or economic challenges: what a great system to adopt when we face the challenges of the modern world.

What those who oppose PR must do is press for a referendum on any change to the electoral system. The endemic corruption that accompanies all forms of PR, as well as the inability of the voters to throw the government out of office will undoubtedly triumph.

[EML]

I dislike all the various forms of PR because they will take us away (to various extents) from the constituency-based system that I know and love.

Using regional lists, multiple choice and backstage haggling over coalitions is just so abhorrent to me.

[Yet Another Anon]

>>>>As others have said, we never would have had Mrs T under a PR system, which would have meant either we would now be as rich and successful as Portugal (no offence to the Portuguese), or we would have had a revolution.<<<<
Israel's somewhat chaotic system didn't stop Ariel Sharon from being elected and he had undoubtedly been probably Israel's best leader so far.

[Yet Another Anon]

That said though, I favour Alternative Vote not any of the so called "Proportional" systems.

[Yet Another Anon]

That said though, I favour Alternative Vote not any of the so called "Proportional" systems.

[Yet Another Anon]

Something went wrong with the system there, I had assumed the first time that it hadn't posted, in fact I got an error message the 2nd time around as well and hadn't realised either attempt had posted there until now.

[Yet Another Anon]

Julie Kirkbride on the Simon Mayo Programme on Radio 5 Live has just said that she personally believes that new nuclear power generation has to be brought online.

If there are weekly power cuts as had been occurring in California and recently had been happening in India then people will be demanding to know why something wasn't done about it - there is a need not only for nuclear and further development and deployment of renewables, but also increases in power capacity in reserve which although in a better situation than in California is still in a bad state in this country because it hasn't been planned for. I actually rather favour Private Companies Limited by Guarantee as the best form to run Utility services and indeed most strategically important public services - also a good means of dismantling the Civil Service through decentralisation of most non-Security areas of the state.

[Yet Another Anon]

Oh, just realised I've posted the power related posts in the wrong thread - sorry about that, part of the problem of having multiple things open in different tabs.

[wasp]

PR has a huge failing which means I will never support it.

In PR politicians have no connection with the electorate, corrupt individuals such as Hamilton cannot be removed, nor can local people have their say though people like Peter Law & Richard Taylor.

This democratic disconnect puts more power in the backrooms of political parties and less in the hands of the electors - its oligarchy not democracy.

I also think the democratic defecit means corruption is more likely, eg France, Italy, EU.

[Tom Greeves]

Vewry well said Wasp.

Anyone who is concerned that politicians are too remote from the electorate should oppose PR.

Think of the literature that was put out by the Labour Party in 1999 when we had PR in the euro elections for the first time. "So and so likes Star Trek" etc.

We should be looking at making the boundary drawing process less corrupt first.

[J.W.Tozer]

Before the PR option is considered, lets reduce the number of MP's do we need 600+

Could we get away with 500? There are MP's elected with less than 30,000 votes this is absurd. Combine constituencies! any constituency with less than 50,000 votes not voters, would be abolished, and added to another to bring the votes up. So that at every GE those constituencies that are just above the 50,000, the voters would be warned that if they do not turn out their constituency would be abolished and combined. If they do not turn out, it shows they don't care.

[Yet Another Anon]

Before the PR option is considered, lets reduce the number of MP's do we need 600+
The country could run quite adequately with a third of that number, maybe even fewer - it's really a seperate issue though from the system of election used.
A national one party executive elected on a single seat executive with 100 seats of course would mean that the party getting the most votes would get everything - that could be on Alternative Vote or First Past The Post, if on the latter then it would be a simple matter of win one vote more than anyone else and you would run the government on that basis the next election would be wide open with the only certainty being that there would either be a majority Labour or a majority Conservative Government.

[Chris Palmer]

If the Lib Dems want it, generally it must be a bad idea.

[Deputy Editor]

I'm sure the CP will continue to oppose PR - it's not in the business of taking choice over candidates out of the hands of local people in favour of a centralised list :)

[Penultimate Guy]

I am astonished at the ignorance shown in this thread. Half the contributors seem to think that PR is synonymous with closed regional lists, and the other half know even less than that.

[matt wright]

I think the boundary commission have to start doing their job and get the boundaries fair. That is the key. PR is somewhat of a distraction,

Matt

[Tom Greeves]

Educate us penultimate guy.

If you can show me a system of PR that also prioritises individual accountability, but does not involve a transferable vote, I'll be genuinely interested.

[Penultimate Guy]

Tom, I find it interesting that you want to close down the debate before it even starts. What have you got against transferable votes?

[Chris Palmer]

Penultimate Guy, what have you got against using your real name?

[Penultimate Guy]

I have an irrational fear of spam.

[Chris Palmer]

Having an "irrational fear of spam" doesn't stop you using your real name and a fake email address.

[Deputy Editor]

Tim Bale:

"Thanks for the comments. I thought that some of you would be so pumped by
recent events that you wouldn't even bother posting - even if it was to
register your opposition - though I note that most of the posts have been
on the merits (or otherwise) of PR rather on the change-signal that
suggesting a referendum on it might send. I'll try and deal with some of
the points below.

I'd have to start by saying that there really is no relationship
established in research between electoral systems and government
effectiveness or economic performance: we can all come up with individual
basket cases in proportional (and plurality) systems, but when you crunch
the numbers cross-nationally, believe me guys, you don't find what you're
looking for. Nor for that matter does Euroscepticism wither and die in PR
systems - just look at Denmark or Sweden or Norway.

Secondly, there is PR and then there is PR: those looking to retain a
personalised constituency link might consider MMP (which is why NZ plumped
for it when it changed from its Westminister system) or STV (which,
strictly speaking, isn't PR but don't let's get into anorak territory just
yet!).

Thirdly, I wouldn't bank on the Lib Dems imploding just yet (especially if
they screw up their courage and ditch their new leader). But nor would I
bet on them being the ultimate beneficiaries of any move to a more
proportional system. If and when you make the change, you'll find the
party system may well be transformed. This country might get a Green Party
and/or some kind of Left party that takes votes from Labour. And it would
almost certainly get a right-wing populist party (more UKIP than BNP) that
the Tories could cooperate with. We might still have the Lib Dems, but
note that liberal parties aren't particularly powerful in PR systems. The
point is that, in planning for a post-PR scenario, you have to consider a
range of options far wider than the ones on offer (at least nationwide)
right now.

Fourthly, there are a few comments implying that you wouldn't have been
able to do such and such (go to war or gung-ho neo-liberal) without a
single-party majority government. There may be something to that but there
are a couple of qualifiers. One is that ideological climates can be more
powerful than individual parties and coalitions often take radical steps
egged on by a lead-party with the ideological wind in its sails. Another
is that what goes around comes around: Mrs Thatcher did a lot that needed
doing, for sure, but I hope that we can acknowledge that she also made some
serious mistakes that may have been avoided had she been obliged to take
the balance of opinion into account - and the same could be said of Mr
Blair, in spades!

Fifthly - and you'll be relieved to know finally - I don't think Harold
Wilson hanging on to a minority for a few months before going to the
country and getting what turned out to be a totally inadequate majority is
a precedent Mr Cameron would be well advised to follow."

[Yet Another Anon]

>>>>I wouldn't bank on the Lib Dems imploding just yet (especially if
they screw up their courage and ditch their new leader)<<<<
Actually I rather think that if they had another leadership wrangle that that might well finish them off rather than gain them any ground. If Meinzes Campbell went the most likely successor would be Vincent Cable who's views aren't much different and they would have gained nothing and lost a lot, Meinzes Campbell is probably the best known candidate available and one problem the Liberal Democrats have always had is maintaining a public profile.

>>>>Fifthly - and you'll be relieved to know finally - I don't think Harold
Wilson hanging on to a minority for a few months before going to the
country and getting what turned out to be a totally inadequate majority is
a precedent Mr Cameron would be well advised to follow."<<<<
I think that rather that the situation in the 1960's where Labour won a majority of 4 and then 2 years later increased it to 98 was the one being put forward, although there is no reason to suppose it would neccessarily repeat and if anything it reflected more on the poor leadership qualities of Edward Heath more than anything else - and by February 1974 Heath was more of a joke than ever and even more so in October 1974, although the 2nd election in 1974 did advance Labour's position in that they went from having no majority to having a small majority so it was still an advance for them, no doubt otherwise their troubles would actually have been greater than they were and they would have had to compromise more on their legislative programme.

[Tom Greeves]

I don't want to close down the debate in the sense of stopping you from talking, but I accept entirely that my post gave that impression - sorry.

I am opposed to the transferable vote as it favours centrists, because I don't like the fact that the second preferences for the lowest scoring candidate get transferred ahead of others, and because it seems weird to support someone less than wholeheartedly.

Are there forms of PR that do not rely on a closed list or transferable votes? When I said I'm not interested, I meant I wouldn't be likely to support it, which is not the same thing - it was inelegantly phrased!

I would genuinely be interested to hear your defence of PR. Sorry to give a contrary impression.

[William]

The majority of Germans did not want the Euro. The majority view however, was barred by the PR system, where the coalitions only needed to stick together and provide no alternative, for the people to be disenfranchised.

Under FPTP, once a small party offers a programme with a unique selling point which attracts substantial following, the big parties have to stem the tide by offering the same programme. The Referendum offer on the Euro from The Referendum Party was a noticeable example of this happening.

Under PR Britain would have had the Euro by now with all the attendant high inflation, ludicrously expensive houses (which are bad enough already) and no doubt an even bigger consumer boom and balance of payments deficit.

Thank God we didn't do that. Thank God for First Past The Post....and thanks to Jimmy Goldsmith and the Referendum Party.

Under PR small parties have to be bigger to get leverage than with FPTP, and they have to wait until the coalition formation process happens to need them, which is rarely. I know where people matter more - FIrst Past The Post - and where an elite can form a strong unassailable position - PR.

That said our electoral system is currently suffering from an unaudited and out of control postal voting system and other unchecked abuses. For confirmation of this aspect, see the report from the Office for Democratic Institutions (ODIHR) in Warsaw.

http://rightlinks.co.uk/linked/modules/wiwimod/index.php?page=Postal+Voting

[Penultimate Guy]

Chris: Well, I said it was irrational!

Tom: The AMS system used in Wales and Scotland currently has closed lists, but there’s no reason I can see why they couldn’t be open. I think that would fit your criteria.

It’s ironic that you accuse transferable vote systems of producing centrist results, as one of the common criticisms is that PR is said to allow extreme candidates to get a foothold. I would reply that if PR favours the centre, then that is because that’s where most voters are. I wonder if at the heart of your view is the prejudice that the votes of people who favour “fringe” parties are somehow worth less than those who favour mainstream parties. But in fact everyone’s vote is equal. These votes tend to get transferred because the preferred candidate cannot get elected. Remember, too, that under STV surplus votes, typically for mainstream candidates, also get redistributed. Finally, to the sort of people who post in this forum, I suppose that less-than-pure-support for a party may seem weird, but actually I suspect that we are the weird ones.

William: I find your analysis of the effect of small parties under FPTP totally unconvincing. Why, for example, hasn’t the existence of UKIP prompted a mainstream party to support withdrawal from the EU? Indeed, your argument is counter-intuitive. If mainstream parties are supposed to fear the rise of small parties under FPTP, surely the fear would be much greater under PR, where smaller parties have a better chance of actually taking seats from them? I think Tim Bale was closer to the truth when he talked about changes in the “ideological climate” shaping all the parties’ policies. Finally, your assertion that “people matter more” under FPTP is simply incredible, given that thousands of people are effectively disenfranchised by not living in a marginal seat, or not fitting the target demographic.

[William]

Penultimate Guy - says
Why, for example, hasn’t the existence of UKIP prompted a mainstream party to support withdrawal from the EU?

Thank you for taking an interest in my theory. UKIP did exactly that in 2004. They lauched a campaign for a Referendum on the EU Constitution. Michael Howard realised that this was attracting Conservative voters so he copied it, and launched a Conservatibe equivalent.

That in turn began to pull votes from Labour, and Blair shocked the EU by offering a British referendum on the EU Constitution as well.

If we had had PR, UKIP's refendum offer may very well have been ignored by a ruling coalition. Only if UKIP had held the balance of power between two blocks of party coalitions, would they have been invited to the table and given any influence. Because under FPTP UKIP threatened Howard's big tent, the policy was adopted and adopted quickly.

[Deputy Editor]

From Tim Roll-Pickering (if anyone has trouble commenting let me know)....

"Being realistic if "PR" ever does get introduced in this country because of
Lib Dem pressure and/or that of the Electoral Reform Society, I susect it
would be the Single Transferable Vote as used in both Irelands as well as
Malta and soon Scottish local elections. (At the risk of sweeping
generalisations, the Additional Member System experience in the Scottish
Parliament and Welsh Assembly is not attractive given the disputes between
constituency and top-up MSPs as well as crap MSPs and MWAs getting elected
by virtue of their place on the list and others pushing up the list vote;
the closed party lists in the Euros generate enthusiasm only amongst control
freak party managers, the open list system is difficult to justify as an
alternative and can lead to voters who like, say, Tony Blair electing Dennis
Skinner; the Alternative Vote is a single member system that simply isn't
PR; and the Supplementary Vote is a bastardisation of AV.)

STV in the Republic of Ireland (and its predecessors) offers some
interesting results, some of which confirm the usual arguments, others of
which offer alternatives.

First off for nearly 82 out of 86 years there has been a clear division of
government. One can break them into two categories:

1). Based around Fianna Fáil. Formed single party governments (some
minority, some majority) 1932-1948, 1951-1954, 1957-1973, 1977-1981, 1982,
1987-9189. Then formed coalitions with the Progressive Democrats (who had
broken away from FF in the first place) 198-1992, 1997-date.

2). Anti-Fianna Fáil. A single party "Cumann na nGaedhael" 1922-1932. (In
1933 that absorbs the Centre Party and the Blueshirts to become Fine Gael.)
Then coalition as follows: Fine Gael-Labour-National Labour-Clann na
Poblachta-Clann na Talmhan 1948-1951, Fine Gael-(reunified) Labour-Clann na
Talmhan 1954-1957, Fine Gael (by now having absorbed Clann na
Talmhan)-Labour 1973-1977, 1981-1982, 1982-1987; Fine Gael-Labour-Democratic
Left 1994-1997. At the moment Fine Gael and Labour (who absorbed Democratic
Left) are offering a coalition for the next election.

So in general there has been a two option system, with several
smaller parties eventually being absorbed into the larger ones. The one
abberation was the Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition of 1992-1994, for which the
latter party got slaughtered at the polls. One can also point to the strong
level of constituency representation. As for good government, the economy is
not one that can be ridiculed.

On the other hand it's not entirely clear what some of the parties stand
for. One online "what party are you?" questionnaire I took on the Republic
resorted to "do you think Charles Haughey was a good Taoiseach? - when has a
UK poll ever resorted to people's views on Thatcher to determine parties for
them? And for all the vaunted choice some voters aren't actually offered
what would be their most natural coalition - if I were a voter there the
coalition I would probably want would be Fine Gael-Progressive Democrats.
TDs are often accused of being too parochial, with national strategies
weakened because of the need to keep the peace in one's own seat. Plus some
of the Oireachtas horsetrading isn't a good advert for the system - Haughey
once brought an Independent TD's vote by pumping masses of public spending
into the relevant constituency, whilst in 1994 the government changed
basically because of the whim of Labour, with no election until 1997
(although by-elections had given the resulting coalition a majority).

Whilst the Irish model offers some benefits - for example having multiple
TDs for constituencies isn't necessarily a bad thing or out of step with UK
traditions (the single member seat is a comparitively recent innovation in
the UK, only becoming the primary unit in 1885 and not the sole unit until
1950; and most councils are multi member wards), whilst there are many cases
of bad individual TDs losing their seats to others in their parties,
removing the safe seats for individuals (I think there will still be
safe seats for parties in areas where they have a concentration of
core vote) point and ultimately making all MPs vulnerable. I don't think
government will automatically be a confusion of parties and backroom deals
(Malta is another example of this not happening). However the lack of clear
ideology and a parliament of parish pump politicians are scarey. The likes
of Eric Forth would be even rarer if not non-existant in such a system.

As for the point about forming a minority government in a hung parliament
and seeking an early election does anyone think that a) party finances can
cope with two general election campaigns close to each other (that is one of
the reasons why the Liberals were originally wiped out) and b) the voters
will appreciate being asked to vote again because they didn't "get it right"
first time?"