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| Politics, PR and hack philosophy from A Guy Called Donald. But definitely no blogging. Probably. | |
31.10.05None of the aforementioned Canadians, thanksFrom Canada, now the world's most fertile electoral reform lab, a proposal to legitimize rejectionism:Manitoba Liberals are pushing for sweeping changes to the electoral system that would give voters the right... to cast ballots for "none of the above" on election day. Which is absolutely right: why should active abstainers (as opposed to lazy bastards) have their voices ignored on polling day? Just one proviso: they better have a plan for when None Of The Above wins a few seats. It might not be as rare as you think. 20.10.05Why don’t we use torture?Something new from me (with a little help from Phil) at The Sharpener.17.10.05David Cameron: my tuppenceI'm not a Tory, nor have I ever voted Tory, nor will I forseeably vote Tory. So, for an Officially Endorsed View of CameronThe offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel are abolished. Whether he'd duplicate that from the box-seat of the opposition benches, or Number 10, is a moot point. But an instinctively liberal Tory leader, on religion at least, would be a small step in the right direction. 14.10.05PR at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons, by the wrong personI'm off again today, but if you want to understand what's just happpened in Italy, six months ahead of a general election, go and read Paul's primer. Back here at the weekend.13.10.05Victimologists strike againOn a day when Indian troops are helping Pakistan's army rebuild quarters and hunt for survivors in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, this takes a special, twisted kind of individual:For the first time a woman has carried out a suicide attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, the police there say. What exactly is the justificatory thought process behind murdering people coming to help you? Doubtless the usual narrative of professional victimology — but how to remove yourself as agent from a (failed) assassination attempt whose strategy was to capitalise on the deaths of schoolchildren? And how long before a Kashmiri radical group gets the bright idea of abducting one of the European search-and-rescue teams working around Muzaffarabad? 12.10.05Iraq 2003-05, or how I learned to stop worrying and embrace repressionA shiny new nougat from me over at The Sharpener. Hatemail to the usual address.11.10.05Pro-PR Tories: officially a lost causePaul, in a fantastic piece at MMVC, is up to his old tricks again: trying to persude stubborn Turkeys that Christmas is a bad idea:Complaining about the boundaries is a pointless distraction from the real problems. Playing with boundaries will not, indeed cannot, solve the Conservatives' problems. The Tories have two far greater problems than one or two wonky boundaries. First, differential turnout between Labour and Conservative core support is always going to leave thousands more wasted Tory votes. Second, Conservative support is far too concentrated south of Birmingham or east of the A1. Labour uses its lumpy electorate more efficiently, picking up significant numbers of seats almost everywhere. And they always will. So, what's the solution for power-hungry Tories? Sit round and wait for the pendulum to swing their way again, as I've argued elsewhere? Or should they embrace electoral reform, even PR, as Paul suggests? Which is where the mischief comes in: none of Paul's proposed reforms would make the Tories situation any better. Only nationally-based proportional systems can make every vote 'count' to the same degree. Regional systems and large multi-member constituencies still punish concentrations of votes and differential turnout, and over-reward lumpy distributions. Even worse: Paul's favoured systems, STV and AV+, would actually make life worse for Conservatives. Preferential voting would punish them, in their current hated form anyway. Top-up seats awarded under AV+ would probably go to Liberal Democrats. This should leave Tory realpolitickers arguing with us sort-of-proportional reformers from the radical end of the reforming spectrum. "For St. George, David Cameron, and national list PR!" Which is about as likely as Bernard Matthews converting to Sikhism. 5.10.05I wanna thank my agentIt seems I'm now first up on Google for "bnp scum". Next stop the Pulitzer.4.10.05Germany and PR: and on, and on, and on...In the ongoing debate over PR and the German elections, pro-FPTPers (and none finer or more dogged than Brian B.) think they have three winning arguments:1. FPTP produces (or tends to produce) a clear winner, by the largest plurality method. It therefore favours stable, effective government. Note, this is an outcome rather than a process argument. 2. Governments formed under FPTP have a clear mandate, based on the manifesto. Coalition governments (almost inevitable under some forms of PR) have nothing more than the mandate of the "smoke-filled room". 3. FPTP governments have clear lines of accountability. We know who to blame when things go wrong, or when promises are broken. We can turf them out in four years' time. Unfortunately, none will do as defences of a decrepit system of government. I can answer all three: 1. What’s so precious about having an out-and-out winner to declare? After all, there are plenty of ways we could get a winner — like having a King, or tossing a coin — that few would recommend. Perhaps then the process is what counts, not the ability to declare a victor. So why choose a process that guarantees losers winning majorities and fails even to pass the basic representation test? One that can even hand a governing majority to second-placed parties. That doesn't pass democratic hurdle number one. 2. What’s the difference between allowing proxies (MPs) to negotiate a coalition agreement (unmandated), and allowing them to negotiate (unmandated) trade deals, war pacts, etc.? If we want a direct mandate/accountability between vote and policy, wouldn't referendum-based democracy, perhaps using demand-revealing referenda, be preferable? Then every major decision would be mandated. Of course, if you view MPs as proxies for the public mood, as representatives, then mandating them to negotiate a coalition agreement after the fact (as well as trade deals, declarations of war, and so on) is perfectly acceptable. 3. The ability to turf out elected representatives every four or five years sets up a very thin notion of accountability. Parties drop manifesto commitments (Blair's referendum on PR) or make up new ones (Bank of England independence) with impunity. There's no accountability in a House of Commons where just over a third of the vote gives unassailable, even authoritarian legislative power. Without a UK constitution, or a representative second chamber, nobody can challenge an electoral victor — even if that victor is declared on a tiny minority of the electorate. Even on an empirical level, majoritarian mass accountability is only theoretical. Hundreds of seats are decided before a ballot is marked. Accountability exists, perhaps, but under FPTP it's to a million median voters. Paul nails it: That isn't democracy — it's marketing. |
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