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item0078E 1088, 1089 1088 11 May 2005 Damascus Road
But the 2005 Result has convinced me that our voting system no longer delivers authority to our Government - and that is deeply disturbing. Low turnout and multi-party participation is eroding the very legitimacy of government, upon which the civic order depends. I am not particularly concerned with "fairness" in a traditional playground sense: in the past, a logically unfair system has worked pretty well. But circumstances change, and I have changed my position. My recent experiences, working with hundreds of asylum-seekers and their families, have reinforced two perceptions, in my mind.
Any electoral reform should give priority to these two factors. The personal link with the MP must not be broken. Nor is it satisfactory that the advancement of women in public life should rely on the manipulation of internal systems by the political Parties. Indeed, Labour's "all woman shortlist" device, deeply suspected by the majority of rank-and-file Party members, but imposed upon the Party in desperation as a last resort, was given a raspberry by the electors of Ebbw Vale - and that should not be ignored.
And the selection of each MPs should be by Single Transferable Vote, giving voters the option of casting a second vote I fully understand that this will not produce big majorities and "strong government". The cards would be thrown into the air, at each election. Jack Straw's intervention in The Guardian this week, arguing for the status quo, was ridiculous, and did him no credit at all. For large majorities and strong government have always been as much of a threat as an asset. Primacy must, at this stage in the development of our civilisation, be accorded to the legitimacy of government, not to the flag-waving potential of the Jack Straws of this world. Circumstances, dear Jack, have changed - and you have not noticed. The electorate should have its say. Minorities should be given improved chances of success, by way of the Single Transferable Vote. And the political elite should then use its skills to make sense of the result - with the ever-present threat of being evicted. Salaried MPs have already lost, by the very fact of professionalisation, much of the standing and authority they inherited in the 20th century. I do not want the kind of "strong government" I have had for the last five years, riding rough-shod over civil liberties, paranoid about threats to its own position, and capable of taking the country into oppressive and illegal wars.I fully appreciate that this would not be a system of proportional representation - but that is not the point. It would strengthen political motivation, both for parties, candidates and voters. It would put a brake on the accelerating problem of career politics and politicians, which is eating away at electoral morale. And it would increase the threat, to all Governments, of eviction form power - which is what democracy is really about. Where do you stand on these issues? Drop me a line
1089 9 May 2005 Blair's too
Now it can be told! Geoff Mulgan, now Director of the new Young Foundation, inheritor of the Michael Young mantle, and former Head of the Downing Street think-tank, declares that New Labour has not been radical enough. Writing in Prospect, he claims that Labour's "radical reformer" has yet to surface.
Who do you think the New Messiah will be? Drop me a line
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I
surprised myself, this week. At our local Labour Branch meeting in
Mumbles, when we were picking over the result of the Election, locally,
for Wales and the UK, I announced my conversion to
electoral reform. Our Branch is evenly split
on the issue, so my move changed the local "balance of power"..
I
have always been a traditional first-past-the-poster, wedded to the
single-member Constituency. I have refused to have any truck with
the PR people. And I still distrust the term "proportional
representation", because I think it misses the point.
First
is the 
That
is why I now favour two-member constituencies (one male MP, one female),
initially by the simple combination of two existing constituencies.
Every constituent would then have access to one of two representatives
as 