I posted this tweet this morning:
Things Theresa May did not understand.
The 99%
People
Emotion
Making ends meet
England outside the south-east
Anyone who disliked Tories
Scotland
Economics
Negotiation
Wales
Europe
Working in anything but finance
Compromise
I could elaborate. You can add or delete. But does it make much difference? The point is our political system delivered us a prime minister wholly unsuited to the task.
Very soon it will deliver another equally unsuited.
May failed. That's unsurprising. Most prime ministers do. But her failings were even greater than Cameron's and make Gordon Brown look like a considerable success. And that pattern is important. What it says is that the system deliverered her failure. It ensured someone so unsuitable could have the job.
We need electoral reform and we need it urgently. Then we might have the plurality that may attract more rounded and reasonable people to politics.
Right now there is no chance of that.
We have to live in hope.
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A promise.
……….and her replacement will be better ? I doubt it.
Theresa May manages to embody all the ‘virtues’ of ‘One Person Conservatism’.
The plurity you crave has been a disaster on Brexit where Parliament has failed to find any sort of compromise. Could easily imagine the same thing on all aspects of policy. The electorate want the middle ground but labour and the tories and too extreme in different directions. Better if they themselves become more moderate in their make up and agenda.
Which will only happen with the plurality I crave…
Daniel says:
” The electorate want the middle ground ………”
Is that what the electorate actually wants ? I’m not sure.
“……..but labour and the tories and too extreme in different directions.” I don’t accept that. Elements of both parties have some extreme positions, but the essential problem as I see it is that both are ‘broad church’ parties.
” Better if they themselves become more moderate in their make up and agenda.” Again I disagree, because I think what they need to do is separate into their various factions and then we might know what sort of policies we are voting for. The result will be coalition governments, but in effect that is what we have now. Neither party represents anything other than a coalition of views…..and with a fair amount of centrist middle ground.
I am quite convinced we need a PR voting system which allows voters to vote for what they want and believe in and allow the mechanisms of parliament sort out the arguments in chamber.
Daniel
You sound to me as though you are confused.
The ‘plurality’ you describe is actually just the containment of one party (and all the others) by the one party in power via the FPTP system.
True plurality has the parties in a more equal relationship and sharing power.
It is the best way in my view to cope with the BREXIT party , UKIP even the EDL by co-opting them into that plurality rather than giving them space in the country to grow separately. Their narrow focus as justification for existing would soon expose them all as useless.
I also believe that May lacked one essential component for a successful politician: Empathy.
I will go on hoping too.
PSR
‘True plurality has the parties in a more equal relationship and sharing power.’
If you apply the Hodt system to the 2015 results then UKIP would have had c80 seats https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32601281
I’m not sure that this would ‘expose them as useless’ as their influence would be much greater than the 1 MP they actually got.
Additionally, it seems from various public responses on radio and TV that a good proportion of the public see the current crop of MPs as useless, as do most commenters on this blog.
People voted Labour in 2017 to reduce the Conservative majority in parliament as tactical voters, not because they supposed Leave.
Graham
You make some valid – but the lens you are looking through is a bit old fashioned.
Who is to say what system of checks and balances we would use in – say – a UK PR system for example? It may not be the Hodt system we actually use? I’d hope to see a well designed system that as well as enabling power, checked it in the spirit of preventing a single party being able to rule in a system that is supposed to enable all voters to be represented. That is what I am talking about when it comes to plurality.
Look at Labour – trying to stand there in splendid isolation supposedly leading the Left but failing miserably to work with other progressive parties and therefore not really solving anything or at least taking longer to do so.
Such a system for example may never have allowed ‘No Deal’ to become part of the BREXIT issue as the concerns of Remainers would have been addressed with a properly thought out withdrawal (a deal).
And I disagree on the ‘uselessness’ point. A party in such a PR system would have to lay out it’s other policies anyway to compete with the other parties; we could make it a rule that any party who wanted to stand HAD to have a credible and full gamut of policy proposals before they entered the fray – in order to avoid the single issue parties being just about employing public sentiment on single issues. The way in which the BREXIT Party is currently operating for example should not be allowed by the Electoral Commission.
Also, a PR system would change the behaviour of the way the existing parties canvas for elections; how they work with other parties and on what basis. I tell you, working together becomes more important in a PR system. And working together for what? Party or Country? Has that ever been made clear?
And whilst I agree with why people feel that politicians are useless, politicians and politics is not going to go away – so lets work towards improving the system we have eh?
In doing so, lets be brave and clever and realise that democracy is precious but also imperfect. The checks and balances we have now have been revealed to be very weak.
My biggest concern with politics however is those in it who increasingly seem to inhabit a different world to those whom the UN Rapporteur has been sticking up for recently. And the result? Proto-fascism as seen in UKIP, The BREXIT Party and even the Tories and also Labour.
We need to go back to basics and unpick the problems and solve them. Quickly! What is politics for? Just what is being ‘democratic’ these days?
The biggest problem I see in politics is reductionism; trying to make everything seem simple and black and white. Politics can only survive if it embraces complexity and diversity. And that is my advice to the Left and the Right.
It would take more than PR alone (short of Scottish independence) to change Westminster. There is an entrenched mindset that Parliament at Westminster is sovereign. English Constitutional Law with regard to where sovereignty lies would have to be changed. The UK political parties would have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a change where sovereignty rested with the people.
PSR
I wasn’t suggesting that the Hodt system should be used – merely using it as an example as we in the EU are currently using that system.
From what you suggest I think that you are saying that regardless of the amounts of votes for (say) the Greens there must always be a proportion of MPs for Greens. Same must therefore apply with other parties?
Also, if I set up a single issue party (which is currently my right) then as I understand what you are saying, it cannot take part in any election. Who will decide this? For example there was in the recent past a ‘Stop Kidderminster Hospital closing’ (or something along those lines) party set up by a doctor who got elected by his constituents at a GE>presumably this would not be allowed?
I have to say that someone being accused of being a ‘proto fascist’ because they vote for a party you don’t like is – well, insulting to say the least. There is a very disturbing trend to accuse anyone who supports Brexit as a ‘fascist’.
It is possible to support Brexit and not be a fascist
But we seem to have a growing number of fascists, and they all seem to support Brexit.
As for a voting system, I favour regional (15 seats, at least) STV