14 november 2009, real reform

Saturday 14th November 2009

I was on a stage when gordon brown became pm, and in an impromptu reply told the audience I thought that just like on day 1 as chancellor he’d made the bank of England independent, on day 1 as pm he’d announce electoral reform. In my mind was a powerful speech I’d heard by someone from charter 88 just before labour came to power, which ran the figures of all 20th century elections and showed that despite the conservatives being utterly dominant, in every single election a majority of voters had always voted for the two “progressive” parties. Therefore, all labour needed was one big win and and to bring in proportional representation, and there'd never be a conservative government again. I was always sure this was blair’s plan, inevitably blown off course by the massive size of the 1997 win, though "the blair years" suggests he thought of the same end but by the means of a lib-lab merger. Brown has no such majority prospects, and electoral reform is probably the only way open to stop the progressive century dying less than a decade in. Fallability and life with liberals, greens, nationalists and other political strangers though is still perhaps too alien. Here’s a novel reason though why the first past the post (constituencies) system is bad. I find in my work an attitude in certain areas that if a person does well, gets a great job, and then moves away, this is seen as a loss, as not something policy should strive for. In a deep, deep way, the origins of this are the electoral system, as local councillors, mps and everyone in between are elected by, and so fixated by, a place, rather than by people. Would certain places lose out in an alternative system ? Probably yes, but is that a price worth paying for more people prospering ? Again, yes: when the ship’s going down, do you save the boat or the passengers ?