The General Election Thread

[Pford75]

I believe that any party will naturally perceive 'electoral reform' as anything which increases their potential power base. For Labour, it was the redefinition of constituency boundaries, for Conservatives it will be the reduction in MP's (most likely from inner cities) and for LibDems it is PR. All can argue that their version is 'fairer'.

I would just say that if the general public felt PR was such a key election and constitutional issue, then why did the LibDems vote decrease in the recent election?

If the current 'deal' fails to materialise or post-deal things quickly collapse into a messy squabble, I think that is the best demonstration possible of the challenges with PR

 

[Moo]

Exactly!

 

[Nigel Watts]

Moo it is very kind of you to correct my abysmal typing when quoting me!

A view seems to be emerging from Labour circles, from those on the left of the Liberal party and from the Guardian newspaper as new best friend of the Liberals, that the election result was a triumph for "progressive left-of-centre" politics and that a vote for the Liberals was really a vote for a Liberal Labour coalition. This same group also seems to taking the view that PR would demonstrate this conclusively, and that if adopted PR would permanently exclude any party that wasn't in this part of the spectrum (ie the Tories) and that this is why Tories dont like PR and Labour has come round to it.

It's complete tosh of course but it is worthy of discussion. A recent opinion poll shows that just as many people in the country would prefer a Lib/Con coalition as a Lab/Con one. Add the number of people who support a minority Tory administration and the largest block of opinion comes out with a government involving the Tories.

My own view is that constitutional reform has to be done cautiously and preferably not from narrow party interest. Tony Blair's meddlings with the British constitution were strongly driven by Labour party interests, especially in Scotland and Wales, and have ended in some horrible anomalies, for example having English policy in areas devolved to Scotland and Wales forced through against the wishes of the majority of English MPs. In this I am probably like most other Tories.

Unlike many of my fellow Tories however I do not believe that PR will spell the end of the Conservative party's chances of government, as those self-styled members of the "progressive left-of-centre" so fervantly desire. If the Tory party only represented a small privileged elite it would certainly have gone out of business by 1918 when universal male sufferage was introduced. The Tory party's great strength is that it has much wider appeal and has consistently shown itself able to adapt. If Cameron plays his cards right this could be the moment it moves ahead again.

 

[Penners]

I believe that any party will naturally perceive 'electoral reform' as anything which increases their potential power base.

Impact, nail, head.

And they will of course try to do rather more than "perceive". They'll change the rules to their own advantage as much as they feel they can get away with.

 

[Moo]

It looks as though we may have a Progressive Coalition after all now, following Gordon Brown's announcement.
I can just imagine the backstairs manouevring that preceded it, with the Lib Dems refusing to do a deal with GB and their Labour oppos feeding the ultimatum through to Downing Street.

(All very exciting. But they may be doing the Tories a favour by grasping the poison chalice for long enough to make them unelectable at the next election.)

 

[Penners]

It looks as though we may have a Progressive Coalition after all now, following Gordon Brown's announcement.

Well, what an interesting use of the English language.

I had never stopped to consider that "progressive" might mean "a union of two losers that will still render them incapable of winning".

If we end up with a Government cobbled together from some kind of arrangement between Labour and the Lib Dems, it will be the greatest outrage against the democratic system that I've seen in my lifetime. How dare they seek to stick two fingers up at the British electorate?

 

[biffvernon]

I thought it was Gordon Brown that the Great British Electorate wanted a change from. Job done. David Miliband can be PM, Cable at the Treasury and Clegg in the FO.

Failing that we could have Caroline Lucas for PM.

 

[Pford75]

Hear, hear Penners!

I think the Liberals are treading a very fine line with the electorate....having spent weeks banging on about the need to govern in the interests of the country and consensual politics, they are now hawking themselves around like a cheap tart.

Just saw John Reid on BBC and he absolutely slammed the proposal. To suggest that two parties who had a net loss of seats at the election could somehow cosy up and then force through PR without a referendum is shocking. The LibDems stood on a PR ticket at the election and we all saw what the public thought of that. Furthermore, a LibLab pact would require further support from the SNP or similar.....let's wait and see what they ask for in return (immunity from the forthcoming cuts perhaps?)

Scarily, we could end up with:-

An unelected PM
With a key policy (PR) which wasn't part of the manifesto of the main party
and the party with the majority of the popular vote excluded

If this happens, the conservatives will have a field day.

 

[Nigel Watts]

I thought it was Gordon Brown that the Great British Electorate wanted a change from.

The one bit of Stephen Fry's article I did agree heartily with was the fallacy of imputing motives to "the electorate". All one can know for certain (electoral fraud excepted) is how many people placed an X against which candidate in their own constituency.

Gordon Brown is still Prime Minister and no deal has yet been done by Labour with the Liberals as far as I can see. Labour is clearly trying to reengineer itself to increase its appeal to the Liberals but we dont know if their ruse will work.

If we get PR expect a lot more post election manoevering and blind-date politics of this kind. It isn't pretty. If Clegg falls for it he is a fool and I predict he will be punished heavily for it at the next election.

The problem for Clegg is that if he does what he promised before the election and sides with the party with the largest number of seats and votes - the sensible, decent, mature thing which will help sell PR to those who are currently sceptical - I think he could split his own party. I dont confess to being an expert on the inner dealings of the Liberal party but it seems to be a much looser coalition than most of us thought. For every sensible moderniser like Clegg I suspect there are at least as many old dinosaurs like Steel, Hughes and Shirley Williams who would really like to shack up with Labour, and a fair number of the beard and sandals brigade who would be feel much more comfortable with the Greens and the Trotskyites.

 

[Nigel Watts]

.

 

[biffvernon]

I thought it was Gordon Brown that the Great British Electorate wanted a change from.

The one bit of Stephen Fry's article I did agree heartily with was the fallacy of imputing motives to "the electorate". All one can know for certain (electoral fraud excepted) is how many people placed an X against which candidate in their own constituency.

I was being ironic.

 

[biffvernon]

If this happens, the conservatives will have a field day.

Dunno about field day but they'll be out in the wilderness.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

It looks as though we may have a Progressive Coalition after all now, following Gordon Brown's announcement.

Well, what an interesting use of the English language.

I had never stopped to consider that "progressive" might mean "a union of two losers that will still render them incapable of winning".

If we end up with a Government cobbled together from some kind of arrangement between Labour and the Lib Dems, it will be the greatest outrage against the democratic system that I've seen in my lifetime. How dare they seek to stick two fingers up at the British electorate?

Because most electors didn't vote for a Tory government. Though it's now a mess because the Lib Dems didn't do as well in terms of seats as I was expecting, in order to make them more "legitimate" as power-brokers.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Hear, hear Penners!

I think the Liberals are treading a very fine line with the electorate....having spent weeks banging on about the need to govern in the interests of the country and consensual politics, they are now hawking themselves around like a cheap tart.

Just saw John Reid on BBC and he absolutely slammed the proposal. To suggest that two parties who had a net loss of seats at the election could somehow cosy up and then force through PR without a referendum is shocking. The LibDems stood on a PR ticket at the election and we all saw what the public thought of that.

An increase in their overall share of the vote? Concentrating on numbers of seats won, under the current system, simply underlines the problem with it. But then I've always believed in PR and coalition government. And I'm quite pleased that, even under this sytem, my vote went to the winner in my constituency for the first time.

 

[Flyfisher]

Surely the ideal coalition (assuming just two parties) is a Con-Lab coalition? It would have a huge parliamentary majority and would be representative of a large majority of the electorate. I can't understand all this faffing around with the Lib/Dems when the answer is obvious. :lol:

 

[DaveBrigg]

'Vote Clegg, Get Brown'. That was the widely publicised Tory slogan. Given this choice, more people voted Lib Dem than in 2005 - 6,827,938 people, a 14% INCREASE in their vote from 5,981,874 The fact that this increase was rewarded by fewer seats is an irony not lost on Mr Clegg. If PR had been the only issue debated before the election it could be fair to argue that it was rejected by the electorate, but it was actually mentioned very little by the politicians themselves. The key issue was the economy, and it could be argued that well over half the electorate chose a party that doesn't want savage cuts to public services.

The argument about Scottish MP's deciding policy for England is a valid one, but by the same token the Scots may argue that under a Conservative government, policy in their country would be decided by a party which came fourth in the election with even fewer votes than in 2005.

One of Cameron's problems was that his campaign was focussed mainly against Gordon Brown. There seemed to be more pictures of Brown on Tory posters than there were of Cameron. He was supported in this by the long-running campaign by the Tory press (and, it has to be admitted, by Mr Brown himself at times). With Gordon out of the way, the Labour bogeyman has gone.

Whatever the outcome of discussions, I agree with Moo. Power will be a poison chalice. Conservative and Labour would both be intensely disliked by a sizable proportion of the population on the grounds that they had no mandate, both held to ransome by a coalition partner, and neither leader would have the authority to force their entire complement of MP's to vote in favour of voting reform. They may struggle on for a year, but the real test will be winning the next election.

 

[Nigel Watts]

An alliance of the loosers. Three leaders presented to the electorate in three debates but an as yet unknown fourth one becoming Prime Minister. The party most strongly advocating PR, coalition government and "new politics" showing itself to be split down the middle and reversing its promise to support the party with the largest number of seats and share of the vote. Bribing the Scots, Welsh and Irish - already the recipents of vast quantites of English cash to prop up their welfare and public sector dependent economies - at a time of economic crisis in a desperate bid to make the numbers add up in Commons.

What more discreditable behaviour could enemies of the Labour and Liberal parties possibly desire? Bring it on! Any such government will collapse before long, there will be an election and the Liberals will be slaughtered.

 

[Nigel Watts]

 

[Moo]

Power will be a poison chalice. Conservative and Labour would both be intensely disliked by a sizable proportion of the population

True, but not, I think, "on the grounds that they had no mandate". It would be either because of the painful measures they would have to put in place to sort out the economy, or the even worse mess we'd be in if they chickened out of them.

 

[Pford75]

Moo - Have to disagree slightly. I believe that a very large proportion of those who voted Conservative (despite all the smokescreens...significantly more people voted for this party than any other party), feel that if Lib / Lab strike a deal which excludes the party with the most votes....then there really is something rotten at the core of our politics.

Don't know if anyone else read it, but the Sunday Times carried an article which suggested that as few as 16,000 votes could have secured an overall majority. I hear all the arguments about how our political system works, the constitution etc. blah, blah....but it's strange that the word 'fair' seems to have disappeared from Clegg's lexicon.

Ask any independant observer from outside of the UK who 'won' the election and you would get a fairly straight answer. To exclude them from a government is unsustainable and I think the fury of the electorate is being underestimated. Joe Public already perceives that the rules are bent to fit the whims of government....this merely confirms it.