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dolorosa_12So, as you might've noticed, there was a tiny general election in the UK on Thursday. As a Commonwealth citizen currently living in the UK, I was able to vote (although I'd thought I was only allowed to vote in the council elections, and rather hastily had to make up my mind about who to vote for at national level, once I got into the polling station). As a voter (and a political - and more specifically, election - junkie) I think I'm as qualified as anyone to offer my 10 cents on the result, the situation that's unfolding, and electoral reform. These are just some scattered thoughts, based on my observations and conversations over the past couple of days. I'm not sure I'm qualified to offer anything more comprehensive than that.
1. The result
I was actually surprised that we ended up with a hung parliament, as it's very rare in non-proportional representation systems, and I don't tend to trust polls. (To put it bluntly, people lie in polls, especially about whether or not they're going to vote for minor parties.) But a hung parliament is not necessarily a disaster - at the very least, it will rein the Tories in somewhat.
2. The Lib Dems and a potential deal
This is a very difficult situation. On the one hand, Nick Clegg's insistence that his party must first attempt to work with the Conservatives, as they got the most votes, is an act of integrity, especially considering that, legally, Labour, as the party currently in power, has the right to first attempt to make a coalition. However, a Lib Dem-Conservative deal is going to make a whole lot of people incredibly angry, especially Lib Dem voters.
Nick Clegg would have to get an incredibly good deal - most importantly, a commitment on the part of the Tories to electoral reform that goes beyond the 'review' they're offering now - to make such an alliance palatable to rank and file Lib Dem members, and voters. I suspect he's not going to get it, because proportional representation is not in the Tories' interest.
I know a lot of Lib Dem voters, and the current situation (a Lib Dem-Tory alliance) is absolutely the worst thing imaginable for them, and was not their intention in voting Lib Dem.
The truly awful thing is that the Conservatives don't need the Lib Dems if they can convince the DUP to support them and a couple of others (Plaid said they'd be willing to talk to the Tories), so if the Lib Dems prove too uncompromising, this is highly likely.
3. A 'rainbow alliance'
A lot of my friends are enthusiastic about a Labour-led alliance including the Lib Dems, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the SDLP, Alliance and the Greens. While this looks reasonably attractive to me too, what everyone should remember is that this is Britain, and they don't do proportional representation here. An alliance like this looks as if it's a tacked-together group of a bunch of parties that didn't get many votes, led by the party that came second. To a country unused to coalition government, it looks undemocratic.
4. The collapse of the Lib Dem vote
I've heard two theories about why Lib Dem votes decreased. The first is that people basically got into the polling stations and freaked out about the economic situation and stuck with what they knew. The second is that 'tactical voting' backfired.
A lot of progressive people discussed voting tactically in an 'anyone but the Tories' pact. Thus, Labour voters in Conservative/Lib Dem marginals would vote Lib Dem, and Lib Dem voters in Conservative/Labour marginals would vote Labour. But what happened was that a lot of students (who had the option of voting in their - more Lib Dem-inclined - student towns) chose to vote tactically at home (in places where their 'progressive' vote would potentially be needed more) and this hurt the Lib Dem vote.
I'm not sure whether either of these is correct.
5. Electoral reform
I am not a supporter of proportional representation. What a lot of my shrilly shrieking Lib Dem friends seem to be forgetting is that PR works both ways. Sure, your party would've got more seats, but do you really want a system where the BNP can get 1.9 per cent of seats? Or UKIP get 3 per cent? And potentially hold the balance of power? Didn't think so.
I'm very biased about this, but I personally think that the Australian electoral system, which relies on preferential voting, is probably the fairest.
I like the system because it lets me cast my vote for more than one person, and my vote always counts. Let me explain. Under preferential voting, if your first choice doesn't get enough votes, your vote for him or her is directed either to your next choice (if you order your preferences vote entirely according to your own wishes) or to his or her party's choice (if you follow a party's How To Vote card, which directs preferences in the order that the party itself is planning to direct them if their candidate doesn't get enough votes). So you're voting not only to get the best person in, but also to keep the worst people out, and it (mostly) works.
Not only this, you can use your vote to send a message to the major parties. Let me explain. As you probably all know, I'm a social democrat, and I disagree with a lot of policies of the Australian Labor Party. However, I would of course prefer a Labor government to a Liberal one (USians, the conservative party in Australia is called the Liberal Party, with 'liberal' being used in the European sense). I used to live in a very safe Labor seat, and so I would always vote Green, in the knowledge that my vote would ultimately go to Labor, but that if the Labor Party analysed the votes, they'd see that I had voted Green as a message that Labor wasn't social democrat enough for me. (The boundaries have been redrawn and I'm now in a Liberal seat, so all this is kind of moot now.)
While we're at it, I think I'd like to step forward and say that compulsory voting is as close to true democracy as possible. I got into a screaming row with my friend about this the other night, and I've been thinking about it a lot. Let me explain.
My friend's basic stance was that forcing people to vote is antidemocratic, and that apathetic people or people who spoil their ballots don't deserve to play a part in who governs the country. Now, much as I'd prefer everyone to be politically engaged and take their responsibility as citizens of a democratic country seriously, this is unrealistic. But democracy means the will of the people, even the will of the people who don't want to vote. They're going to be affected by whoever governs them, whether they vote properly or not, and it's a bit of a 'you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink'. You can compel people to vote, but you can't stop them from spoiling the ballot. At least with compulsory voting, you've done all you can to include the wishes of every citizen.
Compulsory voting and preferential voting. They're not perfect, but they are, in my opinion, as close as you can get to perfection. I say this mainly because you never get anyone complaining about the system when the election result is not to their liking. We complain about the voters (God knows I wanted to throttle the mortgage belt for voting against their own economic interest for eleven years), but never about the system itself. That strikes me as being the essence of democracy.
6. Final thoughts
The current situation is not yet a disaster. A Conservative government is not yet inevitable. I had been reassuring my friends that I suffered through eleven years of conservative government in Australia and survived to tell the tale, but it's one thing to be middle class under a conservative government in times of economic prosperity, and quite another to be working class under a conservative government in times of economic hardship. I've had no experience of that, and shouldn't have been so optimistic.
In my opinion, the best possible outcome is not a Tory-Lib Dem alliance (because the Lib Dems will have to compromise too much, and I just don't like them anyway, sensible attitude to digital rights aside), and it's not a Labour-led rainbow alliance (because it will lack democratic legitimacy in the eyes of many). The best I think we can hope for is an unstable minority Tory government that collapses quickly, forcing another general election, and hopefully a better (ie not Conservative) result.
I'm thrilled that a Greens candidate got elected, and that the BNP were soundly routed. I really love Glaswegians.
I'm disgusted that voters were turned away when voting was meant to close. These were not people who showed up at 10pm. Most had been waiting for at least half an hour. In some places, there weren't enough ballot papers. Even my tiny Cambridge polling station, which had only four people in it ahead of me, took nearly as long to get through as my massive polling station in the most densely-populated area of Australia. The highest turnout was only 70 per cent, and it's disgraceful that so many people were disenfranchised due to incompetence on the part of the polling station attendants.
That's it from me. Feel free to disagree, vociferously, in the comments.
1. The result
I was actually surprised that we ended up with a hung parliament, as it's very rare in non-proportional representation systems, and I don't tend to trust polls. (To put it bluntly, people lie in polls, especially about whether or not they're going to vote for minor parties.) But a hung parliament is not necessarily a disaster - at the very least, it will rein the Tories in somewhat.
2. The Lib Dems and a potential deal
This is a very difficult situation. On the one hand, Nick Clegg's insistence that his party must first attempt to work with the Conservatives, as they got the most votes, is an act of integrity, especially considering that, legally, Labour, as the party currently in power, has the right to first attempt to make a coalition. However, a Lib Dem-Conservative deal is going to make a whole lot of people incredibly angry, especially Lib Dem voters.
Nick Clegg would have to get an incredibly good deal - most importantly, a commitment on the part of the Tories to electoral reform that goes beyond the 'review' they're offering now - to make such an alliance palatable to rank and file Lib Dem members, and voters. I suspect he's not going to get it, because proportional representation is not in the Tories' interest.
I know a lot of Lib Dem voters, and the current situation (a Lib Dem-Tory alliance) is absolutely the worst thing imaginable for them, and was not their intention in voting Lib Dem.
The truly awful thing is that the Conservatives don't need the Lib Dems if they can convince the DUP to support them and a couple of others (Plaid said they'd be willing to talk to the Tories), so if the Lib Dems prove too uncompromising, this is highly likely.
3. A 'rainbow alliance'
A lot of my friends are enthusiastic about a Labour-led alliance including the Lib Dems, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the SDLP, Alliance and the Greens. While this looks reasonably attractive to me too, what everyone should remember is that this is Britain, and they don't do proportional representation here. An alliance like this looks as if it's a tacked-together group of a bunch of parties that didn't get many votes, led by the party that came second. To a country unused to coalition government, it looks undemocratic.
4. The collapse of the Lib Dem vote
I've heard two theories about why Lib Dem votes decreased. The first is that people basically got into the polling stations and freaked out about the economic situation and stuck with what they knew. The second is that 'tactical voting' backfired.
A lot of progressive people discussed voting tactically in an 'anyone but the Tories' pact. Thus, Labour voters in Conservative/Lib Dem marginals would vote Lib Dem, and Lib Dem voters in Conservative/Labour marginals would vote Labour. But what happened was that a lot of students (who had the option of voting in their - more Lib Dem-inclined - student towns) chose to vote tactically at home (in places where their 'progressive' vote would potentially be needed more) and this hurt the Lib Dem vote.
I'm not sure whether either of these is correct.
5. Electoral reform
I am not a supporter of proportional representation. What a lot of my shrilly shrieking Lib Dem friends seem to be forgetting is that PR works both ways. Sure, your party would've got more seats, but do you really want a system where the BNP can get 1.9 per cent of seats? Or UKIP get 3 per cent? And potentially hold the balance of power? Didn't think so.
I'm very biased about this, but I personally think that the Australian electoral system, which relies on preferential voting, is probably the fairest.
I like the system because it lets me cast my vote for more than one person, and my vote always counts. Let me explain. Under preferential voting, if your first choice doesn't get enough votes, your vote for him or her is directed either to your next choice (if you order your preferences vote entirely according to your own wishes) or to his or her party's choice (if you follow a party's How To Vote card, which directs preferences in the order that the party itself is planning to direct them if their candidate doesn't get enough votes). So you're voting not only to get the best person in, but also to keep the worst people out, and it (mostly) works.
Not only this, you can use your vote to send a message to the major parties. Let me explain. As you probably all know, I'm a social democrat, and I disagree with a lot of policies of the Australian Labor Party. However, I would of course prefer a Labor government to a Liberal one (USians, the conservative party in Australia is called the Liberal Party, with 'liberal' being used in the European sense). I used to live in a very safe Labor seat, and so I would always vote Green, in the knowledge that my vote would ultimately go to Labor, but that if the Labor Party analysed the votes, they'd see that I had voted Green as a message that Labor wasn't social democrat enough for me. (The boundaries have been redrawn and I'm now in a Liberal seat, so all this is kind of moot now.)
While we're at it, I think I'd like to step forward and say that compulsory voting is as close to true democracy as possible. I got into a screaming row with my friend about this the other night, and I've been thinking about it a lot. Let me explain.
My friend's basic stance was that forcing people to vote is antidemocratic, and that apathetic people or people who spoil their ballots don't deserve to play a part in who governs the country. Now, much as I'd prefer everyone to be politically engaged and take their responsibility as citizens of a democratic country seriously, this is unrealistic. But democracy means the will of the people, even the will of the people who don't want to vote. They're going to be affected by whoever governs them, whether they vote properly or not, and it's a bit of a 'you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink'. You can compel people to vote, but you can't stop them from spoiling the ballot. At least with compulsory voting, you've done all you can to include the wishes of every citizen.
Compulsory voting and preferential voting. They're not perfect, but they are, in my opinion, as close as you can get to perfection. I say this mainly because you never get anyone complaining about the system when the election result is not to their liking. We complain about the voters (God knows I wanted to throttle the mortgage belt for voting against their own economic interest for eleven years), but never about the system itself. That strikes me as being the essence of democracy.
6. Final thoughts
The current situation is not yet a disaster. A Conservative government is not yet inevitable. I had been reassuring my friends that I suffered through eleven years of conservative government in Australia and survived to tell the tale, but it's one thing to be middle class under a conservative government in times of economic prosperity, and quite another to be working class under a conservative government in times of economic hardship. I've had no experience of that, and shouldn't have been so optimistic.
In my opinion, the best possible outcome is not a Tory-Lib Dem alliance (because the Lib Dems will have to compromise too much, and I just don't like them anyway, sensible attitude to digital rights aside), and it's not a Labour-led rainbow alliance (because it will lack democratic legitimacy in the eyes of many). The best I think we can hope for is an unstable minority Tory government that collapses quickly, forcing another general election, and hopefully a better (ie not Conservative) result.
I'm thrilled that a Greens candidate got elected, and that the BNP were soundly routed. I really love Glaswegians.
I'm disgusted that voters were turned away when voting was meant to close. These were not people who showed up at 10pm. Most had been waiting for at least half an hour. In some places, there weren't enough ballot papers. Even my tiny Cambridge polling station, which had only four people in it ahead of me, took nearly as long to get through as my massive polling station in the most densely-populated area of Australia. The highest turnout was only 70 per cent, and it's disgraceful that so many people were disenfranchised due to incompetence on the part of the polling station attendants.
That's it from me. Feel free to disagree, vociferously, in the comments.
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-09 01:01 am (UTC)Re your Point 4 - I am currently a student, and know a lot of people who chose to vote at home, either tactically, or because they were in their final year, and didn't want to vote somewhere they would only be living for a few months longer. Therefore, if the same happened in other student towns and cities, that may well have contributed reasonably significantly to the LibDem minority. Also, people are more ballsy before the act.
Re your Point 6 - It seems that organisations never prepare for what they want. The government wanted more people to choose to go to university. More people did choose to go to university and there wasn't enough funding. The Electoral Commission want more people to vote, yet when they do, the resources aren't in place to handle it.
I think I was more irked by the fact that there was no system in place to deal with this situation. By which, I mean that some polling stations stayed open to accommodate excess voters, some herded people in and used the, "If you're in the building by 10pm you can vote" system, and some just slammed the door. I heard stories of some polling stations not being opened by caretakers and such, so being carried out from the boots of people's cars.
The sheer numbers of people who were turned away is crazy.
It will be interesting, and slightly worrying to see what happens over the next few weeks.
I bought The Times and The Guardian today, both with Election supplements, which I intend to trawl through tomorrow. I may come back with more comprehensive and criticising comments then!
no subject
Date: 2010-05-09 09:25 am (UTC)The situation with the polling stations is a disgrace. As someone who comes from a country where voting is compulsory (admittedly, a country with a much smaller population), the idea that polling stations weren't able to cope even with a 70 per cent turnout appalls me.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-09 10:03 am (UTC)I actually voted in my student town in order to vote tactically. I come from the northeast, and there was no way the vote was going to swing any way other than Labour. Although, I was surprised that the borough next to mine got a Conservative majority. However, after some thought, I think that was because it's where a lot of Corus workers live (who have had a hell of a rough time this year and last), and they basically would have voted for the opposite of who was in power, be in Labour/Conservative/LibDem.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-09 08:49 am (UTC)--Matthias
no subject
Date: 2010-05-09 09:23 am (UTC)Still don't like proportional representation, though...
no subject
Date: 2010-05-09 01:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-09 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 11:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 12:38 pm (UTC)I didn't realise that people were including preferential voting under the PR heading, because preferential systems are almost nothing like PR (for one thing, they tend to favour the two major parties, and rarely end in coalition government), but I find that reassuring.
I second your thoughts about the whiskey, but disagree about the mead.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 06:13 pm (UTC)