David Cameron, the UK's prime minister, will go down in history for a blunder of monstrous proportions that could precipitate a constitutional crisis. When he made a coalition with the reformist party, the Liberal Democrats, he refused a plebiscite on all but the simplest and most inadequate form of electoral reform, whereas the Lib Dems had asked for full proportional representation. Cameron opposed the change and the Lib Dems lost, so we kept the system as it is. First past the post is the system in which the candidate with the largest number of votes in a constituency wins, but that causes problems because in multi-party elections you can win with under fifty per cent of the votes, often significantly under. The trouble is that first past the post works if you only have two significant parties, with three it struggles, but now the party system has proliferated. We have a range of parties contesting the election with an electoral system designed for two.
How did this come about? In the thirteenth century when first past the post was instituted, there were no parties and each constituency elected an independent. But hundreds of years have elapsed,the franchise has expanded to the whole population, parties have risen and fallen, but first past the post clung on because it was in the vested interest of two parties. Thatcher clung on to it with spurious justifications. Not only did she refuse to make any change, uttering the peremptory no that was her trademark, she even had the impertinence to tell the Europeans that they should adopt our defective British way of holding elections.
So what's the problem? We now have the following parties all contesting the general election:
Conservative [Tory] slightly in the lead at present, but tend to represent the rich.
Labour, slightly behind behind, but with a leader lacking credibility, especially in Labour's Scottish heartland.
Liberal Democrats, much behind. They are currently junior partners in the coalition, but have been responsible for major reforms to the tax system. But at eight per cent of the vote disaster is looming.
United Kingdom Independence Party. [UKIP] On fifteen percent. Wants Britain out of Europe, you know blame the immigrants for your problems.
Greens: Five percent. Great policies, but a leader not up to the job.
Then there are the nationalists: Welsh and Scottish. The Welsh are small in number, but the Scots could win a large number of seats in Scotland at Labour's expense. They would make no coalition with the Conservatives, the Lib Dems would make no coalition with them, but there is talk of a coalition with Labour; and this is getting England incensed.
Comments
Thanks. In Britain there is a wider sense of Britishness, but there are some nationalists who only think of their own little nation and have no concern for others in the union.
@frankbeswick - For the past elections barring the present elected government, the elections gave rise to a coalition government. In India, this could not function adequately because the regional parties blackmailed and threatened to exit for any trivial matter.
Such government could not take decisions because of lack of support from the members of other parties. In absence of a clear direction, there were hardly any reforms. This coalition party had many internal quarrels and all the time they were busy solving internal issues. India is a country with diverse culture and there are many groups who think only about their state in contrast to the country as a whole.
Thanks, the pair of you. I was not aware of these problems in your countries. I believe in coalition government, and we have one in the UK at the moment. But I insist that the only parties who should be eligible for a role in the government of a multi-nation union of smaller countries, which is what the UK is, are parties which believe in the union and care for all its peoples. This is why I repudiate coalition with any nationalist party, as they are only concerned for their sectional interest and not for the people as a whole.
By the way, honesty makes me reveal that I am a member of the Liberal Democrat party. We have nothing at all in common with any nationalists. We are an internationalist, pro-European party.
Israel has the same problem as well. We inherited a party-system that just doesn't work anymore, yet the elected officials are reluctant to change the electoral system because it will mean they will have to work harder to get elected.
India is infected with the same problems. With many regional parties fighting for the election, a clear verdict and a majority win becomes difficult. The electoral system needs to be refined, in the absence of an open and focused agenda, the politicians as always polarizing nation and votes.