First past the post favours ....

As we enter the final week before the AV referendum the campaign is hotting up and the Sunday papers are full of politicians telling us how to vote.

In the Observer Lib Dem Chris Huhne has joined forces with one of the minority Labour supporters of AV, John Denham, to call for an anti-tory alliance to remove first past the post which he claims has favoured Conservatives.

Firstly it appears that the Yes campaign has dropped all pretence of real arguments in favour of Mandelson’s argument of vote Yes to defeat the wicked Tories. The new non tribal politics is clearly winning inside the Yes camp.

But the main thing about this argument is that first past the post favours the Conservatives. His reasoning, only twice in the last 110 years (1900 and 1931) has a Conservative government had an absolute majority of 50%. His argument appears to be that if we added together the Lib Dem and Labour vote then they would have had a 50% majority. His argument is therefore that all Lib Dem voters are anti Tory, which of course isn’t true, and if you follow it through then clearly the solution is that Labour and the Lib Dems should merge and become one party, job done.

Looking at the figures of General Election results also destroys his argument. Since 1900 there have been 13 Conservative governments (including the current coalition), 12 Labour Governments and 4 Liberal governments, so how exactly has it favoured the Conservative Party?

Of course in reality First Past the Post currently favours the Labour Party, mainly due to the current constituency boundaries (which is why they’re being changed). That’s why even though the Conservatives got a large national swing last May they still didn’t win an overall majority. In reality the Labour party (a progressive majority?) won a landslide election in 1997 and then two more majorities before being kicked out (although not in any way by a landslide) last year, and technically they could have stayed in power with the Lib Dems.

So given recent history do you really think that First Past the Post favours the Conservatives? And who do you think AV favours?

Update:
I see everyone’s favourite Vince Cable wrote basically the same thing in the Guardian yesterday. I do feel sorry for Clegg who I believe is more centre right than centre left, and is stuck with a coalition in his own party, the left side of which is abusing the AV referendum to try to enforce their dominance.

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Fili-what? The Filibuster hits our shores

There's suddenly a new word in British politics, a word which is normally only heard on the other side of the Atlantic.

Filibuster:

–noun

1. U.S. Politics .

a. the use of irregular or obstructive tactics by a member of a legislative assembly to prevent the adoption of a measure generally favored or to force a decision against the will of the majority.

b. an exceptionally long speech, as one lasting for a day or days, or a series of such speeches to accomplish this purpose.

c. a member of a legislature who makes such a speech. 

For many people their only knowledge of Filibusters is from The West Wing Episode - The Stackhouse Filibuster, which shows an elderly senator giving an extended length speech in order to stall a vote on a Family Wellness bill on which his autism centre ammendment had been defeated. It turns out that his grandson has autism (hence why he is so determined) and of course after the Whitehouse realise this they support him and his fillbuster and the bill is (we presume) ammended. The episode leaves you with a feel good that the system works and that the right things was done.

Of course as we watch fillibusters appearing in the British political process for the first time you look at that episode in a slightly different light. Was it right for Senator Stackhouse to hold up an otherwise acceptable bill for what was effectively personal gain?

If looked at in that way then someone in the Labour top tiers did indeed get The West Wing for Christmas as I previously suggested (It's series 2 episode 17 so they clearly haven't had time to get far through it), as this is exactly what Labour Peers have been doing in the House of Lords.

The idea appears to be to talk for as long as possible in order to draw out the length of time of the debate whilst claiming that all you are doing is properly scrutinising the bill and offering helpful (read as 200 plus) ammendments. In reality peers are just waffling, as this well reported example from Lord Harris of Harringey at 1:45am this morning:

“So what were the reasons for choosing 600 (MPs) as opposed to 650, 630, 575 or 585? I was tempted to say that there was some sort of arcane numerology about this. Noble Lords will be aware that 650 is the product of three prime numbers: two, five squared and 13; 630 is of course the product of four prime numbers: two, three squared, five and seven. I defy anyone to find a similar formulation or number that involves five prime numbers. Maybe my noble friend Lord Winston, or some such person could come up with something.”

Labour claim that their issue is the bundling of the AV referendum with the redrawing of constiuency boundaries and the loss of 50 MPs as a result, and have previously tried to block this by making out that it was hybrid legislation. An initial challenge that was defeated. In reality it makes sense for the two aspects (both of which will come into affect at the next general election) to be in the same bill as they both relate to the reform of our electoral system.

In reality they're playing the numbers hoping that in the end the government will given in and split the bill on the basis that failing to deliver an AV referendum in May will cause unrest on the Liberal benches and amongst their activitsts. If this happens they then hope to be able to delay the boundary changes, possibly indefinitely but definitely too late to be implemented for the next election. Why? Because as everyone knows the current boundaries are uneven and favour Labour. It is after all the current system that means that the Conservatives could get a national vote share that means they fail to win a majority but which would result in a Labour majority if the situation were reveresed.

So the Filibuster continues, unhindered by the guillotine and business order motions that mean we never see these in the House of Commons. The Lords are certainly earning their money at the moment, or they would be if they were paid.

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