Westminster Diary - 15th February 2010

Monday, 15th February 2010

The House of Commons recently debated a Government proposal to change the electoral system from first-past-the-post to the alternative vote (AV), under which voters rank candidates in order of preference and the ones ranked lowest are eliminated until a candidate is left with at least 50 per cent of the vote. The Government argues that this new method is fairer and would improve the relationship between an MP and their constituents. I take issue with both of these claims.

First, a study by professors Rallings and Thrasher of Plymouth University suggests that AV would actually make the electoral system more unfair than it is at the moment. They estimate that approximately 40 per cent of the second-preference votes of Labour and Conservative voters would go to the Liberal Democrats, and that Liberal Democrat voters would favour Labour in their second-preference votes by two to one. Thus, AV would simply skew the electoral system more in favour of the Labour Party and the centre-left, which I suspect is the reason why the Government has suddenly decided to champion it only weeks before an election and at a time when they are trailing in the opinion polls.

There is also the problem that, under AV, it is possible for a candidate to be a clear winner in first-round votes, but, through a process of elimination, be defeated by the runner-up. It strikes me as absurd to have a system under which a candidate can have a clear lead in the first-preference votes, but in which the second- or third-preference votes become equal to the first-preference votes in further stages of the counting. Clearly, those other votes are not equal to the first-preference votes; if they had been, people would have voted differently in the first place. Sir Winston Churchill rightly said of AV that it allows democracy “to be determined by the most worthless votes given for the most worthless candidates”. I think that Britain deserves a better democracy than that.

Nobody can seriously claim that our political system is not in need of radical reform. For example, I would like to see better parliamentary scrutiny of legislation and a substantially elected House of Lords. But it is important that in building a better democracy, we do not dispose of that which is good about our system of government. Given the anger and dissatisfaction that people feel with the current Government and with those MPs who have been caught up in the expenses scandal, I believe that the case for first-past-the-post - with its clear lines of accountability and ability to get rid of weak, tired and discredited governments - is now stronger than ever. For this reason, I voted against the Government’s proposals.

---

Updated on Monday, 15th February 2010