After 13 years in power, the Government wants a referendum to alter the voting system. A cynic might suggest that as it approaches the judgement of an election under the existing voting system, it is casting around for a gentler alternative. I reckon I get two or three letters a year maximum raising this issue of reforming the voting system.
By contrast, I have had literally hundreds of letters demanding the referendum that we were promised on the European Constitution. Why were we denied that referendum, which was a manifesto commitment, and instead we are being pressed to have a referendum on the voting system, which no-one has asked for, at the fag end of a parliament, where it was never a manifesto commitment anyway.
On the issue of substance itself, I have always preferred the simplicity of the Anglo Saxon voting system: the candidate with the most votes wins. As opposed to continental systems where the votes go into a sausage machine and a result emerges which nobody really understands or probably intended. The other problem is that the continental systems tend to place much more power into the hands of political parties, after all, the intention of these systems is precisely to make the result proportional to the votes secured by the political parties.
It seems to me that this runs wholly counter to the demand of our times: I detect an appetite to reduce the influence of political parties and to place greater importance on the individual candidate. We seem increasingly willing to vote for individuals that we trust rather than political parties which we do not. Whether the particular voting system that the Prime Minister has in mind will hinder or enhance this trend has yet to be seen. I suspect it may make no difference either way, but I cannot see this as a priority for action when there are so many much more pressing things we need to do to reform our political system. |
