The first-past-the-post voting system in the UK is not fit for purpose. It stifles real voting intentions and means too many people get elected without a having any sort of meanginful mandate from the people.
Proportional Representation (PR) is cumbersome and separates people from their representatives because of multi-member constituencies. So what do we have to turn to? The answer has to be AV or Alternative Vote.
With AV you can vote for your real preference – a Tory in a strong Labour place or vice versa – without trying to think about whether or not some tactical voting is worthwhile. Then you can put down your second preference and then third and so on.
The bottom placed candidate drops out in each round and the next preerence votes are transferred. This way someone will eventually win but with qualified support of 50 per cent of those voting.
This has to be better than the present system and is certainly easwier to understand and administer than PR. With the current debate over parliamentary reform we need some radical changes – get rid of the House of Lords, change the voting to AV and get everyone out of the Palace of Westminster (see previous blog).
The currenrt furore over MPs expenses must not take our eyes off the real need for change here. Expenses do need reform, but it is the whole system which has to change.
This way democracy will work better for everyone and will start to make people feel more engaged with our politicians. The real danger is that we will get a general election before too long and then everyone will just settle down for more of the same. We are tired of the confrontation system of politicis in this country. We want politicians to work for the good of us all.
Bring on AV for a start.