Pushing PR forward (or, “Fuck You, Crawley”)
10 May 2005Wow. Since last Thursday’s record-breaking Labour minority, there has been a lot written about reforming our electoral system and adopting proportional representation.
I’m not going to waste bytes and repeat the views above, but instead propose some ideas as to future action, so that we can move just beyond talking and good intentions (eek, that sounds unintentionally Judean People’s Front…). Here’s some ideas, tossed into the air at random by yours truly, as to what the pro-PR movement could do…
Decide on a system to adopt
There are plenty of PR systems out there, and despite my attempts at amateur psephology I won’t pretend to know the outright best one. Make Votes Count propose the AV+ system heavily favour the AV+ system (or one that meets similar criteria) – while not being purely proportional it helps retain a geographical link between local voters and their MP (itself debatable in the modern era, and the likes of Shaun Woodward being parachuted into safe Labour seats). I personally prefer AV+, I’m sure others would disagree. It would be better for the pro-PR movement to adopt a single united front on which option to go for – and it would be deeply ironic if people felt unable to support AV+ on the grounds of it being “second best” to STV. A partially proportional system may not be a total success but it would still mark a massive leap forward for British democracy.
Be more informative
MVC have some geodata stuff – type in your postcode and you get your constituency and the 2001 election results for it. But we need more than this (and not just an update with 2005 results). There needs to be analysis – people need to be told how their vote compares, how much it influences the makeup of Parliament compared to the national average, and to the most extreme cases like Crawley*. For marginal seats, you could be told how little influence you have if you favour a party other than the two competing. I won’t offer how these metrics are to be worked out (I’m looking at you, Lightfoot) but it should be able to work out some agreeable formula. Possibly, non-numerical indicators could be added – how much media coverage their area got in the 2005 election, whether it got party leaders or senior ministers to visit, etc.
Be creative
Ads, simple Flash games, virals – they will all help. Being funny and catchy is to be expected out of any campaign. My own idea was a “Don’t you hate someone else making decisions for you?” campaign: e.g. an advert picturing an office fridge with a note saying “I’ve replaced the jammy dodgers with plain digestives – Brian” stuck to it. I dunno. It’s probably crap. But it’s a stab in the right direction. Enrolling a decent photoshopper/designer with political inclinations (not sure whether Tim Ireland‘s recent antics make him a candidate, but there must be others) would be good.
Realise from the start that this fight will not be won on the web, let alone the blogosphere
While the web is a great place for like-minded reformists to congregate, comment on each others’ blogs, exchange mails on a list and make Flash animations, and will attract some supporters, for a groundswell of popular support to come about, we will need to go beyond. Getting out on the streets like MVC have is a good idea. MySociety’s excellent projects could be a real boon here – using WriteToThem to contact MPs (once Parliament has reconvened) and to make sure they keep it in mind, and Pledgebank to arrange local on-the-street campaigning and leafletting.
Right, that’s all I can think of for the moment, but I’m sure there’s more. Anyone?
* Before the election, when Cheadle was the most marginal seat with just 33 votes in it, I had the idea of setting up a rude publicity-stunt pro-PR site called FuckYouCheadle.com, as an attempt to highlight why a voter in Cheadle has up to hundreds of times the influence of a voter in the likes of Liverpool or Tyneside on the outcome of their seat. This was, on reflection, not my best ever idea; but I still think being eye-catching (but not being offensive) is still a must.
Update: Regrettably, I won’t be able to make it to the Call this democracy? meeting in London held by MVC and the Electoral Reform Society tomorrow… could anyone who is going bring up ideas like this?
Garry
Pedants point: I’m not sure that MVC proposes AV+ as such. I believe they prefer not to be committed to a particular system but instead to the broad principle of PR.
IHMO, this is the best way to go. Get a political commitment first and sort out the details later. From my limited knowledge base, I do think AV+ is the best option though.
Chris
They don’t exclusively promote AV+ but certainly favour it… have clarified in the above blog entry now…
Edward
My problem with MVC is that they just seem to be running down the current system without any alternative – that is the easiest job in the world and the least constructive.
Paul Davies
You’ll be glad to know that we are already thinking along the lines of most, if not all, of the things you suggest. It’s been a little slow, as we didn’t know how the election was going to pan out, then it turned out pretty good, but we weren’t totally sure what the reaction would be (although doing our best to make sure people noticed) and in the last couple of days (thanks to the Independent) it’s all gone completely nuts.
Plenty should be happening on the streets, we were gonna have massive viral stuff going on during the election, but John Cleese pulled out at the last minute and that sort of fell apart…
Also chatted to MySociety about the Pledgebank this morning, for example, so all in all we’re thinking along similar lines. The meeting tonight is very much a key point in the campaign, because it should show us how much legs this thing actually has… but expect good things, and thanks for thinking about it :)
And especially for Edward: I guess we’ll have to agree to differ. Voting reform has been stymied too many times by a bunch of anoraks arguing over the best way to do it. IMO (and partially in the opinion of MVC I would guess) this is not as important as showing people why we should be discussing this at all. We stand for broad proportionality and voter choice and being fairly amenable people, we’re fairly open-minded on the rest of it – the nitty gritty can be sorted out later.
Neil
Like Paul says, I think any of the alternative systems is preferable to FPTP. I would vote for any of them, including AV. We may have to accept incremental progress. Peter Hain is pushing AV, this would be a start. Although its not any more proportional it at least removes the need for tactical voting and ensures 50% support in a constituency for who is elected. Once we had AV and inevitably more minor parties represented, we could then push for PR from a stronger base.
I went to the meeting tonight in Westminster. The committee room was packed out. Im not very good at estimates but I would say over 500 people were there easily!
Peter Tachell suggested we need direct action to get this thing going. Media stunts like the Fathers for Justice and Countryside Alliance use. The panel mostly disagreed with this and said electoral pressure was more important, but I think he has a point. There is a vigil outside parliament being staged on Tuesday.
Check MVC website for details. They are also publishing a more detailed analysis of the election soon, describing the faults of the present system.
Otis
As a bit of a political novice, does anyone have a more detailed description of how AV+ (and the other major voting systems) works? Despite having a “How it works” section, even the ERS’s site seems fairly vague on erm, how it works. Why is your example of Shaun woodward not possible under AV+? Who decides upon the extra “consolation” seats for counties, and under what rules are they given?
Paul Davies
glad you enjoyed it Neil. Much as I’d love to say we crammed 500+ into that room, we’re told it only holds 300, so we reckon 350 is a fairer bet. Still fantastic tho. Most of them seemed to be in the pub afterwards as well, which was fun.
Written a bit about it here: http://www.makemyvotecount.org.uk/blog/archives/2005/05/last_nights_mee.html
sadly not as informative as it might have been, but the first one died on me, and I couldn’t face writing something huge again.
Steve Guy
Anyone involved in this issue is strongly urged to read the Jenkins Commision report. Whenever a room full of people meet to discuss this issue, one or two people will want to air their preferred system. The problem is that this blunts our campaign, and opponents accuse us of being unable to offer an alternative. While the various merits of AV, AV+ and STV may be of interest to people like us, they will bore the pants off the average voter. In my view, we need to unite behind a system that has been thoroughly researched and documented – and commisioned by the government. And that has to be Jenkins. The system could be put to a referendum straight away and is not too radical. The last thing any of us would want to achieve is a referendum on PR followed by loud public arguments about which system to go for! Once we have PR, we can always have a debate about improving it!
Hugh
Yes – I was at the meeting too, and although I was pleasantly surprised at the turnout and the obvious passion of convictions, there was (and I suppose always will be) a sense of being amongst the converted (and not so much being preached to as reaffirming one’s beliefs in turn!). The chair (who he?) did say that there was to be a move towards specific steps to be taken next – but the most obvious one he highlighted was, erm, to give money. That said, it was clear that this election has provided a powerful demonstration of the arguments at issue.
Paul Davies
Who he? He Lord Lipsey. He good man. He serve on Jenkins Commission. He even blog now and then. :)
Hugh
Good for him! He was the only member of the panel he didn’t introduce – distressingly for him, he was also the only member of the panel I didn’t recognise anyway.
Paul Davies
what made it worse i guess was the fact he wasn’t on the press for it, because he only decided he could make it at the last minute. ah well…
Neil
What do people think of the idea for a mass burning of voting cards outside polling stations at next month’s Staffordshire by-election?
I think this would be a great way to protest at how worthless voting is in this safe seat!