John Cleese explains Proportional Representation in a promo for the SDP/Liberal Alliance in the 1983 campaign. Thanks to CC for the pointer.
You may not be “involved” (now now, that’s a lazy argument innit?) but it’s intellectually educational – whatever that may mean (yawn).
“Compromise is not a dirty word.” Bipartisanism is.
Interesting:
A Constitutional discussion for proportional representation for the island of Saint Lucia (former British Colony).
It’s the last day before voting day and the three main parties in the UK have unleashed their last attempts to lure voters to their fold. Or should it be to scare voters away from their opponents’ fold? The Fear Factor, redolent of the Top Trumps Horror Series, has become a major player in this election that could have seismic consequences on the British electoral system.
Here, for example, is the Daily Mail’s toon – moved to the front page today for extra punch. MAC (the cartoonist) depicts the obvious choice for anyone toying between the (LibDem friendly) hung parliament and what the Tories would see as an alternative: strong government.
Mac on the Mail
In it’s front page article the Mail is ruthless on those “wrong-headed” individuals toying with the idea of a hung-parliament. And the usual suspect arguments are out – shot at the crowd with wanton abandonment.
The Mail cannot stress too strongly how wrong-headed and dangerous it believes this view is. Whoever wins the election, Britain will desperately need bold, decisive government if we’re to avoid the nightmare into which Greece has been plunged. A hung parliament, with the probability of a coalition or pact, will result in a weak administration, dependent on back-room deals and shabby compromises.
Now now. A bold, decisive government like Mr Brown’s (and Blair’s before it did preside over the initial tsunami of banking and financial chaos but this is not the time to remind the giddy electors is it?
Labour has used the Blair trump to “shake some sense” into the “hung parliament voter”. In what sounds like a more sensible approach Blair admonished Labour voters who thought of voting tactically (LibDem) to keep the Tories out. The Guardian reports Blair shooting down the LibDems :
Tony Blair: Fear Factor '97
The Telegraph pulled out all sorts of rabbits out of its hat. The YouGov poll showing LibDems down to 24% and a surge for Labour to 30% provides the background to a number of anti-hung parliament possibilities. There’s the possible deal with Northern Ireland’s Unionists (better the coalition partner you can chew), or (sit down before you read this) Simon Cowell‘s backing Cameron as “the prime minister Britain needs at this time”. They did say that the TV debates had an X Factor feel about them but hey… Simon Cowell??
If the backing of multi-millionaire Cowell would not dissuade Tory voters from voting LibDem then you had the good old guilt by affinity – remember the “zokk u fergha“? “Clegg styles himself as successor to Blair” – it doesn’t get any scarier for a down and out Tory does it?
For an interesting take on the world outside “tribal pulls” read the Times’ resident genius Finkelstein. Unlike most Brits he never felt the tribal pull so he does not find it difficult to opt for Cameron this time round:
So, annoyingly, this election will be determined by people fighting a tribal urge that I’ve never felt and can’t completely relate to. The best I can offer is this: once I considered myself on the centre Left, and I don’t any more. And once I, too, had “never voted Tory”, but in the end I didn’t find it very difficult at all.
They would like us to think that their inspiration is Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope. But in fact, as the country prepares to go to the polls, the political parties seem to have been more influenced by Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.
Gordon Brown yesterday described the Tory manifesto as a “horror show”. Labour’s recent election broadcast featured a tax inspector with a clipboard going, like the Grim Reaper, from house to house telling families which tax credits and cancer treatments they will lose if David Cameron wins on May 6. It was scare mongering of the worst kind.
The Conservatives, meanwhile, are trying to terrify the electorate about the prospect of a hung Parliament with posters featuring a noose. To me the subliminal message was “Vote Tory, get hung”, an eccentric strategy for a party trying to shed a “nasty” image caused in part by rightwingers’ support for capital punishment. Their other most memorable image was a pair of bovver boots.
Nick Clegg is picking up support because he looks like a different kind of politician, one who does not engage in the petty squabbling and negative campaigning of the “two old parties”. But my local Liberal Democrat candidate has just delivered a leaflet that has only one message, printed in huge capital letters across it: “I don’t trust politicians either.” From a man who is himself trying to become an MP, it looks less like a new politics than the same old dirty tricks.
I just love Sylvester’s conclusion. The dilemma is very much alive in the UK as it will be in Malta come next election:
Like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this campaign has got curiouser and curiouser. With Nick Clegg going from Churchill to a Nazi in less than a week, Gordon Brown meeting an Elvis impersonator and David Cameron pulling the head off a chicken, there has been something surreal to the whole thing — and not just in spin alley. The election itself will be a bit like the Queen of Hearts’ declaration: “Sentence first — verdict afterwards!” But will the voters also soon shout: “Off with their heads”?
Hang or Behead - Fear Factor Unknown
addendum:
Back in 2008 when the attacks on the “Wasted Voters” were akin to the carpet bombing of Dresden on a bad day I had written an open letter on J’accuse (Daphne’s Invigilators) in answer to their attacks. That it is still very relevant two years on says much about how far we are advancing locally.
This Sunday’s Observer editorial is all about endorsing Nick Clegg as the candidate of change. There’s some interesting extracts that discuss subjects relevant to our local (Maltese) realities too:
First there’s that echo of the argument of the “wasted vote”. Clegg’s rise in popularity has prompted a harsher approach by the Labservative front against the potential LibDem voter. We are familiar with the attack of “irresponsible”, “toying with vote” and other similar slurs thrown at anybody considering a vote outside the PLPN fold. When you are in the thick of it and the onus of the vote is immediate it is probably a bit more difficult to notice how false in democratic terms that kind of accusation is.
For what is voter emancipation all about if not for the right to choose the party that best reflects his or her options. When Labservative or PLPN candidates or pundits arrogantly attack the voter as “irresponsible” they are only demonstrating a lack of respect to the very voters’ principles:
The Conservatives have spent much energy campaigning against that outcome. They have publicised their irritation that voters could deprive David Cameron of a majority much better than they have explained why he deserves one in the first place. Mr Cameron warns portentously that a coalition might lead to instability, economic jeopardy and “more of the old politics”. Perversely, he also rejects the need to change the current voting system, which has, he says, the merit of delivering clear results. Except this time it might not. What then? Mr Cameron’s view is that the system would work fine, if only everyone voted Conservative. This is sophistry draped in hypocrisy. He backs first past the post, while agitating against one of the outcomes that is hard-wired into it. He is campaigning against the voters instead of pitching for their support. He defines change in politics as the old system preserved – but run by the Tories.
That is the crux actually. The establishment politician is so ingrained in the system that he does not notice the arrogant folly of his own assertions. The “insult” to voters considering a third way is probably not seen as such from their point of view. To te PLPN/Labservative person dishing out advice it is more of an “eye-opener” – they are blissfully ignorant of how hopelessly perverse their assertion is.
Then there is the argument that the third parties have led an easy life and would not be so attractive an option when in government:
The Lib Dems have in recent years developed a habit of getting things right. They were first of the big three to embrace environmentalism, first to kick back against the assault on civil liberties, alone in opposing the Iraq war. The conventional riposte to those boasts is that the Lib Dems were free to take idealistic positions because they knew they would never be tested in government. Thus is political courage denigrated as a luxury of eternal opposition.
Which leads us to the Observer’s final declaration of bias (it’s normal, it’s done and it’s nice to see when it is openly declared):
There is a moral imperative to consider in this election, distinct from the old Labour-Tory contest. Opinion polls throughout the campaign suggest that the country wants the Lib Dems to take a place of equal standing alongside the other main parties. A grossly unfair voting system has historically deprived them of that right. It is vital this time that they win a mandate for real change expressed in the overall share of the vote, not just in the discredited distribution of seats in parliament. There is only one party on the ballot paper that, by its record in the old parliament, its manifesto for the new one and its leader’s performance in the campaign, can claim to represent an agenda for radical, positive change in politics. That party is the Liberal Democrats. There is only one way clearly to endorse that message and that is to vote Liberal Democrat.
As I said in the previous post, speculation on Cleggmania is ripe in the papers. I just came across another article as I ran through today’s Times. Incidentally, for an election that is only ten days away it is incredible how (proportionally) little newspaper space it takes up. The front page of the printed Times has news items on Thai revolts(main article), oil spill in Mexico and the London Marathon. A reference to the election can only be found in the “In the news” section (Labour in turmoil).
Back to Cleggmania though. Here is columnist Martin Bell interpreting Cleggmania in his article “This is more than a revolt against the big two” (subtitled, for good measure , “Voters want to loosen the grip of political parties on the windpipe of democracy”):
Many people who were previously indifferent to politics, and especially to party politics, are finding a sense of wonder and excitement in this the most enigmatic election of modern times. Something extraordinary is churning out there. The immediate casualty is two-party politics and the pendulum-swinging assumptions that go with it: first one major party holds office for a while, and then the other, and no one else gets much of a look in. This is beginning to seem as out of date as the competition between two superpowers.
My friends in the old order, and their cheerleaders in the press, have long been assuring me that the public revulsion against MPs’ expenses was a passing phase that would have lost its momentum by the election. They believed that once the obvious miscreants had been purged (though many remain, including certain absolute crooks), the politics of the status quo would return, slightly purged but still intact.
This has not happened.
Not bad for a starter. But Bell is not rooting for the LibDems. He declares his interest as adviser to the Independent Network – “a loose coaltion that helps Independents to help each other.”
I believe that we are witnesses of a phenomenon that goes beyond the Lib Dems’ traditional election pitch of a-plague-on-both-your-houses. Anti-politics as usual would not work in the way that Nick Clegg’s campaign has if it did not connect with a wider belief that our system of government has fallen sick; and that a gap has opened up between the politicians and the people that only the people can close through act of democratic insurgency.
The insurgents on May 6 will include 315 Independent candidates — twice the number who stood in 2005. Most will fail. Some will lose their deposits. But others are serious challengers.
So the thesis here is slightly nuanced. It is not the LibDems that are breaking the strnaglehold of the two main parties. It can only happen if the disillusioned voters transform their disillusionment into effective votes. And yes… there is the danger of their being “wasted” thanks to the outdated electoral system. Martin Bell has something to say on that too:
The Lib Dem surge may make it harder for them, but the Independent appeal is still a strong one.
And this is just the start of it. This election will surely be the last under the first-past-the-post system. Its result will be such a distorted reflection of the popular will, in the ratio of seats gained to votes cast, that it can hardly be called democratic.Any future, fairer system will remove the bias against Independents, who may well be the voters’ second choice if not their first.
The Independents are back — and here to stay. They should be welcomed.
Finally, here is Peter Riddell on Election Briefing (also the Times) explaining why talks on coalitions and other solutions to hung parliaments are useless until after the election:
The talks are speculative rather than substantive, for three reasons. First, we still live in a winner-takes-all culture at Westminster, unlike most of the rest of the EU, Scotland and Wales where, under proportional representation, it is assumed that an election will result in a coalition or minority administration.The main parties, therefore, say that they are fighting to win outright, since any hint of pre-election talks would be seen as weakness. Moreover, in PR systems, talks invariably take place after rather than before elections, producing an average 40-day delay between polling and the formation of a government, unlike the familiar changing of prime minister the day after polling day in Britain.
Second, the parties are not remotely prepared for a hung Parliament. The leaders’ advisers are belatedly starting to think out the options. But their main focus is still on the final ten days before May 6. The Lib Dems have considered hung Parliament scenarios since the early 1980s, but these have mainly highlighted the awkward dilemmas of which party to back — which have now been exposed.
Third, the parties are divided about what to do. What happens is crucial for the careers of individual politicians. Whatever their private conversations, Cabinet ministers are not going to say anything firm about negotiating positions before the polls close. But some are preparing to go public immediately afterwards.
Cleggmania is generating a huge amount of literature (is it too big a word?) on the subject of third way politics. I came across this article by David Mitchell in the Observer (David Cameron feels the hand of history where it hurts) and it was one of those articles that you read while constantly nodding your head in agreement.
You see the LibDem breakthrough is an interesting phenomenon for those of us who have long been advocating about the harm of duopolistic scenarios. One of the strongest arguments, at least in our opinion, is the lack of incentive for new ideas when the battle is shorn down to a two-way race. Opposition by default has a nasty habit of just creating two clones with different names in the long-run – a very unhealthy prospect for healthy development. Here is Mitchell’s (part of ) take on the issue (my highlights):
“You’re sick of the government, aren’t you? So vote for me!” is how British opposition leaders have always addressed the electorate. It’s usually enough. “Why commit to policies in advance when I can win just by not being Gordon Brown?” Cameron must have thought. It doesn’t exactly make him a statesman but doesn’t mean he’s an idiot either. He analysed his strategic objective and, in time-honoured fashion, organised a perfectly competent cavalry charge. It had always worked in the past. And then history opened up on him with a machine-gun.
It feels like something may be changing, and this could be real change rather than the mere alternative that Cameron offers. The apathy and disillusionment of the electorate may be turning into something more constructive than moaning about politicians being the same, not bothering to vote or telling ourselves that Ukip isn’t racist. Instead people are beginning seriously to question the two-party system. That’s why Cameron’s strategy, to everyone’s surprise, isn’t working.
The public’s reasoning may have gone like this: “The Tories represent change, in that electing them would result in a change of government. But somehow I’m not sure they’d be a better government, just a different one. And, in fact, there’s something eerily familiar about them. Big business seems to back them. Does that mean they’re nice? Hmm.
“Oh, it doesn’t make any difference who you vote for, does it? They all use the same platitudes. I wish they could all lose. I suppose that means I want a hung parliament? People seem to think that could happen. And everyone says Nick Clegg won the first leadership debate. I only saw a bit of it myself, but I’m quite glad – he was the underdog. Maybe I’ll vote for him? That might give the LibDems a bit more influence if there’s a hung parliament. Also, it might keep the Labour/Tory [delete as applicable] candidate out in my constituency.
“Actually, wait a minute! I feel quite good about Nick Clegg now! Nick Clegg and a hung parliament! And the LibDems want proportional representation which would mean there’d always be a hung parliament. Would that matter? It seems interesting.”
I hope people have been thinking along those lines because I believe that that’s the sort of typically British, ponderous and cynical reasoning that could bring about proper reform. Historically, we don’t change things out of ideological zeal – we change them when enough is enough. We’re sick of a system where all a party leader needs to do to win power is convince us that he’s not as bad as his rival.In a proportionally representative hung parliament, politicians may have to win arguments, talk about all their policies, not just scaremonger about the taxes or cuts that they claim their opponents are planning.
I’m speaking too soon but all this makes me optimistic. The savage and irresponsible response from the Tories and the right-wing press to Clegg’s popularity boost reinforces my belief that something might be happening. Otherwise the Tory papers wouldn’t be using words like “Nazi” and even more damaging ones like “donations”. And senior Conservatives wouldn’t imply that a hung parliament would usher in a sort of governmental apocalypse.
The truth is, for them, it might. No party has done better under the old system than the Conservatives – they’ve enjoyed decades in office. But a hung parliament resulting in electoral reform could mean they never form a majority government again. They’re feeling the hand of history where it hurts.
That’s more than an nutshell quote. We are familiar with “the savage and irresponsible responses” (cue Stephen Calleja’s tiddlers). We are familiar with the perception of disgruntlement with two -party politics (I H8 PLPN). What description will the Maltese voting public fit into? Are they prepared to “seriously question the two-party system”? Are they also sick of the system where “all a party leader needs to do to win power is convince us that he is not as bad as his rival”?
Will there be anyone prepared to harness this momentum and transform it into the necessary third party? The LibDems in the UK also face an “unfair” electoral system. In the UK there seems to be a growing consensus for the need to change electoral law. There will of course always be those who are against such a change – particularly those who (like the Tories in Mitchell’s account) can only stand to gain by preserving the status quo.
There are Faustos in the UK who will answer that it is not the system but the voters who need to change. Would our system allow a series of three way televised debates? Would it give PN, PL and a third party equal exposure? That validation was a huge step for Nick Clegg.
Something is telling me that in Malta the tiddlers will have to swim against the current for a while longer.
Fellow Indy columnist Stephen Calleja has penned an obituary and death sentence in one on today’s edition of the Malta Independent. Calleja introduces his column (“Too weak too be called a force”) with the inspired sentence “Another tiddler has called it a day”. For those among us who have little or no knowledge in the jargon of the sea, a tiddler is a fisherman’s term for the three-spined stickleback – in other words “small fry”.
Calleja’s article contains observations that are very similar to the post-electoral observations as such political savants as Pierre Portelli who famously dismissed the “small fry” irritants in a bout of overenthusiastic euphoria when the PN had just scraped into government with a 1,500 vote relative majority. For my sins I will once again point out this twisted mentality that resurfaces at moments of truth: the ideas of “wasted votes”, “experimenting with voting” and “irritant alternatives”. I point them out because since I believe that alternating mediocrity is not beneficial for the long-term outlook of the nation then I must defend the potential third way. I will of course be linked once again with AD but that is the problem of the observer, not mine. My interest is third (fourth, fifth etc) way politics that offer a window of opportunity away from the mediocrity driven mechanisms of today.
Calleja’s article is peppered with the arrogant rhetoric that has dotted the (mostly nationalist) political spin ever since the first EP election scare. While using the excuse of AN’s demise as a ruse his real target is AD. They are wasting people’s time and their own. Those are not exactly Calleja’s words but the rhetoric he borrows from the “wasted vote” spin is there for all to see:
“(…) Alternattiva Demokratika is still struggling to make an impact on Maltese politics, in spite of having been around for more than two decades. Its best result remains the near miss at the first EP elections in 2004, at a time when the Maltese experimented with their vote – just as they do in local council elections – because they knew it would not affect the running of the country.”
There you go. The first clue for AD’s failure is in fact the idea of “experiment”. People will only vote AD when voting AD does not translate into voting for someone else. An inconvenient truth? We’ve been over it time and time again. Fausto will bleed his fingers dry typing an answer to this as his mental processing goes in tilt at the mere mention of the subject. The rules of the game are such as have been drafted to favour alternation – yes it is an added obstacle, yes it is real but it is no reason to give up trying. I believe next time round their is an even stronger reason to cock a snook at the Wasted Vote argument. Given the options – PL or PN, a third party liberal vote would definitely not be wasted. At least not in terms of getting a message across.
Stephen's (Small) Fry
AD has taken part in five general elections, always with miserable results. Their best performance, in fact, remains their first ever participation, when the party was seen to be a novelty and included several candidates who were well known and rather popular as well. In spite of this, the party obtained a meagre 1.69 per cent of the votes. Since then, its share has dwindled in consecutive elections until it slightly rose again in 2008, reaching a still poor 1.31 per cent. If AD could not make an impact when it had the likes of Wenzu Mintoff, Toni Abela, Peppi Azzopardi, Arnold Cassola and Harry Vassallo, then I believe it will continue to crumble even more the next time around.
And then it gets personal. People either voted for a “novelty act” or for the faces behind the party. I guess Calleja means better the devil you know. Look at the list of candidates PLPN offered you over the last ten years. Now look back at Calleja’s argument. See? Better the JPO you know than the Vassallo you don’t. Innit? Calleja would have us believe that AD has “offered little to Maltese politics”. I beg to differ. With their very presence they have offered a constant reminder of the world outside the box. The shenanigans of the PLPN crowd in order to preserve their mediocre alternation would not stand out so ugligly if there were no third party against which to measure them.
Calleja’s article brings little to the discussion than an extension to the nationalist rhetoric on the Wasted Vote.It is a sad confirmation that such ideas are still alive and kicking today and that the obstacles ahead to breaking the mold are huge. I agree with Calleja that AD are not equipped to face this challenge. Where we disagree is with the prescription. Calleja would love for AD to admit they have no future to look forward to so he could return to the game of zero-sum mediocrity. I would advocate for stronger independent ideas. I would advocate for that movement that had been gathering momentum for some time and that could see an opportunity in the next elections to begin the opening up to different ways of thinking. I’d hate to stay in a world of Evens Stevens – black and white politics scraping off the bottom of the intellectual barrel.
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