A while back I was struck by this quote by the columnist
Frank Tyger from the American business magazine Forbes.
"Progress is not created by content people."
This is so true, and something I have consistently said, with regards the
progressing of our Agenda.
The point I have made, for some time now, is that the people in this country
are generally still too comfortable and so it is quite understandable how
reforming our governance is still a low priority and off their radar.
However, if history repeats itself this could all be about to change with the current ‘Cost of Living and Energy Crisis’? Interestingly it was during periods of economic hardship that the Levellers of 1642 and the Chartists of 1838 made their demands for political reform. The Levellers had four and the Chartists six demands which for both included the vote for all men over 21. It took 276 for this to be achieved in 1918 with an earlier act in 1884 giving the vote to around 60% of men leaving the poorest 40% still disenfranchised.
On top of the economic hardships ahead we have the increasing omnishambles that
passes for our parliament, with more and more people realising that far too
many of our MPs are lazy, self-seeking incompetents. The behaviour of MPs after
the Brexit referendum, in trying every trick in the book, to reverse the ‘People’s
decision, supported by the ghastly Speaker Bercow, proved to many that reform of
our governance is needed. Currently this
is manifesting itself in a spate of new parties which I predict will change
little as they fail to break into the system as even UKIP proved.
Even my own MP elected in 2015, who came from a successful business background and who I have met at least a dozen times, looks like being no better than the rest as he is currently suspended from the party while he is investigated for allegedly taking cocaine and the sexual assault of work colleagues. I hoped he might be a new breed of MP but with his expenses paid flat in London and employing his wife as his PA on I believe around £50,000 it hasn’t taken him long to learn how to ‘milk’ the system. He is now apparently in a psych ward which is not surprising as his career is I suspect unlikely to recover from this whatever the outcome.
Every day the reform of our governance become more and more
important and relevant. The good news is that our six demands exist and I
believe cover all the important areas that need to be addressed if we are to
achieve a system of governance that more closely reflects the desires and
wishes of the majority of the electorate turning MPs into our servants instead
of our masters.
The promotion and progress of our six demands lie in the people’s hands and if
they continue to sit on them nothing will change. The big question is whether
the approaching economic storm will be enough to wake people up to demand
changes necessary to improve our governance and our democracy?
"The big question is whether the approaching economic storm will be enough to wake people up to demand changes necessary to improve our governance and our democracy?" I feel sure that it is bound to do far more than just wake people up but the outcome is unpredictable, IMO.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget The Representation of the People Act of 1832, known as the first Reform Act or Great Reform Act which made major changes to representation. Parliament was scared by the growing threat of civil war and was scared by the thought that ideas that grew during the French Revolution, of 1789. might influence the populace here.
The difference is that we already had some great reformers in government, at that time, who were listened to. Lord Shaftesbury carried all that forward.
"Progress is not created by content people." So true!
"The essential effect of a declaration of sovereignty and its formal recognition is the recognition that power resides with us, the people, making government in all its manifestations subordinate to us." From Demand One.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading about your MP, it seems to me an essential part of local democracy is that we can demand a vote, at any time, for the position of our representative, if a certain number demand it.
Meanwhile, they get further and further from being subordinate to us. This has to change.
In the last paragraph of demand two we say "if one area wanted to introduce a method of MP recall that would be up to them."
DeleteThat is what REAL Local Democracy means amd looks like.
Thanks. I've just re-read Demand 2. It makes so much sense.
Delete:-)
DeleteSo Niall, you believe the demands of THA cover all the major areas that need to be addressed to ‘achieve a system of governance that more closely reflects the desires and wishes of the majority of the electorate’.
ReplyDeleteHowever, no intention to reform the voting system that delivers a Parliament that doesn’t come close to reflecting ‘the desires and wishes’ of the electorate. At the last election, over 56% of those that voted did not opt for the party that gained a 80 seat majority in Parliament and subsequently formed a Government.
If under THA there will be elections to a National and Local Parliaments, how do you square the ‘desires and wishes’ of the people as expressed at the ballot box with the retention of a system that subverts that? Is THA genuinely about reform that delivers what people want or what the people who developed THA want?
I agree with Niall's comments below.
Delete" the ‘desires and wishes’ of the people" are best served by the sole local representative, that FPTP delivers. For all its faults, my belief is that FPTP is better than the other options. I do understand that you will not accept that.
Alfred, you are absolutely right that I don’t accept that. I don’t accept it as a proposition, and I don’t accept that the developers of THA sat down with an open mind with the intention of devising a system of Governance that better reflects the desires of the people and came to the conclusion that FPTP is the best voting system to help do that. It is errant nonsense.
DeleteWe have a system where I could give you the results of the public vote in a General election to 3 decimal places and you would have no idea how the Parliament would look. Furthermore, if the same results were repeated at the following General election the outcome in terms of seats could be totally different. Are you seriously trying to convince anyone that we cannot devise a better system than that?
I believe Parliament should proportionally reflect the way the public voted and you seem to support the current system and believe the people are ‘best served’ by a system that usually delivers a seat majority for a party that most people didn’t vote for. I think they are irreconcilable positions.
"..you seem to support the current system and believe the people are ‘best served’ by a system that usually delivers a seat majority for a party that most people didn’t vote for," I believe that the people are 'best served' by selecting their local representative by a majority.
DeleteYes, there are shortcomings such as you describe, but any other system separates the local electorate further from the elected, perpetuates the party system and even makes it stronger.
Hi Alfred, can you expand on what you mean?
DeleteYou believe that the people are best served by selecting their local representative by a majority but there are 229 MPs in Parliament who weren’t selected by the majority of their constituents who voted. So, are they legitimate in your eyes?
Also, you state that any system other than FPTP perpetuates the Party system and makes it even stronger but where is the evidence for that in Parliament? In the 2019 General Election can you tell me how many independents were elected? When you look up the answer please explain how an alternative voting system could deliver fewer Independents.
Finally, Niall made a point a few days ago that in response to growing disenchantment with out Political system there was a growth of new parties, but he predicted they would get nowhere. He was right of course for the same reason that there is no intention to form a party to fight for THA at the ballot box as he well knows that the chances of a new Party achieving anything under FPTP are negligible. The voting system needs to change, or new ideas will be continue to be strangled at birth.
I do believe that "the people are best served by selecting their local representative by a majority". Let me explain. If 5,000 vote for candidate a, 4,000 for candidate b and 3,000 for candidate c, then the most votes went to candidate a. That candidate was preferred by the most. Putting b or c in parliament would be against the wishes of the people, in my opinion, but maybe not in yours. Candidate a best represents the people of that constituency.
DeleteYou stated in an answer to Niall that "with FPTP you can cleanly get rid of a government at an election’ always neglects to reference the fact that the Government that you can ‘cleanly get rid of’ never had the support of the majority of the electorate in the first place"
A system that puts a government in power that "had the support of the majority of the electorate" as you put it, pre-supposes that the electorate are voting for a party to put in power, rather than for a local representative. That is what I meant by " any system other than FPTP perpetuates the Party system".
If the voting system is to change, the impacts of the changes must be considered very very carefully. I believe that FTPT, for all its many faults, is the best around.
Hi Alfred, so firstly your example does not align with what you originally wrote which was that the people are best served by selecting a local representative by a majority. In your example candidate ‘a’ clearly does not receive a majority of the votes, the same as 229 MPs in our current Parliament did not receive a majority of votes in their constituency. Also, you have introduced your own view as the people being ‘best served’ rather than Niall's ‘system of governance that more closely reflects the desires and wishes of the majority of the electorate.’
DeleteWhat your example does highlight is another flaw in our electoral system in that the 7,000 votes not cast for candidate ‘a’, the actual majority, count for absolutely nothing and do not have any impact on the make-up of Parliament. I actually agree that candidate ‘a’ should go to Parliament but the votes that didn’t go to candidate ‘a’ should matter, or there should be two votes, one for a local representative and a vote for a party as there is in the Scottish and Welsh assembly elections. It is interesting that the UK Government did not impose a pure FPTP system on the Scottish and Welsh assemblies, opting instead for something more representative of the peoples wishes.
WRT your point about whether people vote for a local representative or a party, the answer is both. They put their x on the ballot against a name, but that name is associated with a party. Also, in the case of Labour and the Conservatives, who won over 550 seats of the 650 available at the 2019 election, those individuals have been selected by the local party organisation and they stand on the party manifesto that they will be expected to follow. Furthermore, the Hansard Society undertakes a regular stocktake of democracy in the UK and occasionally, one of the questions asked was ‘name your MP’. Between 2004 and 2013, there were 6 surveys and the best result for the question was 44% being able to name their MP. The worst result, in 2013 was only 22%. I think this ably demonstrates people vote for parties as most don’t know who their MP is.
I think what Niall refuses to recognise is that his support for FPTP is not consistent with his support for a system of governance that better reflects the desires and wishes of the majority. The fact that a party had a Parliamentary majority of over 50 seats when receiving 35% of the national vote ably demonstrates FPTP does not represent the wishes of the majority of the electorate.
Yes, you are right. That was a loose use of words by me. I should have said the candidate that receives the most votes.
DeleteYour comments about voting for a party just demonstrate how much parties have come to dominate politics which, to me, is very unhealthy and go to show how badly the system has been derailed.
In my constituency, party central office decided on our local candidate, and the local party had no say - v unhealthy.
We strongly believe changing the voting system will NOT improve our system of overall governance and countries which don't have our system of FPTP are no better governed.
ReplyDeleteOur parties are already coalitions and at least with FPTP you can cleanly get rid of a government at an election.
However having said that with or without FPTP our six demands are still needed but chnaging the voting system is not on our agenda which we see as a Red Herring. If others want to change the voting system let them start a campaign to do that.
In the meantime our priority are our six demands.
Niall, the context of THA is framed around ‘people power’ and enabling a democratic structure, that in your own words, will ‘achieve a system of governance that more closely reflects the desires and wishes of the majority of the electorate’.
ReplyDeleteThe wishes and desires of the public with regards to who should sit in Parliament are made crystal clear and in black and white at general elections. The purpose of the voting system should be to reflect that in Parliament. That should be the first demand and the starting point of THA, give the people a Parliament that reflects the people’s votes.
The FPTP system does not come close to delivering that and the fact that THA doesn’t really discuss it is mystifying. Furthermore, the reasons that you deploy to defend FPTP are frankly questionable. ‘Our Parties are already coalitions’ is irrelevant but does reveal what you know to be true, that the UK electorate chooses not to bestow a majority of votes on any party.
The other reason to retain FPTP that you put forward, ‘at least with FPTP you can cleanly get rid of a government at an election’ always neglects to reference the fact that the Government that you can ‘cleanly get rid of’ never had the support of the majority of the electorate in the first place. Furthermore, as we have previously discussed, you can’t always ‘cleanly’ remove a government as history shows FPTP has delivered a comfortable majority in Parliament to a party receiving 35% of the vote.
What do the developers of THA actually want, is it purely a system of Governance that better reflects the wishes of the people which is what it purports to want, or is it a system of Governance that better reflects the wishes of the people BUT modified by what the developers believe is practical? At the moment, it doesn’t do either.