Cutbacks and Cameron

The coalition warns of tough times ahead and the need for everyone to tighten their belts. Everyone of course except the new leader. The Daily Mirror reports Samantha Cameron has insisted on an upgrade to the Downing Street living quarters and kitchen before moving in. Will multi-millionaire Mr Cameron be footing the bill from his own pocket? Or will it fall to the poor taxpayer, still reeling from bailing out the vastly overpaid bankers that almost wrecked the world financial system through greed and incompetence.

First Scandal of Coalition

The ink of the queen's speech is barely dry when the coalition is hit with its first scandal (is this a record?) So much for new parliament, new politics, it seems same old grubby business as usual at Westminster.

Liberal Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Laws resigned from his position administering the nation's finances after fiddling his expenses. Laws admitted he claimed expenses to pay rent to his "partner" James Lundie.

One wonders if a member of the public were caught robbing a bank if they could simply apologize, pay back the proceeds of their crime and simply be allowed to carry on as though nothing had happened. One thinks not.

What do Tories REALLY stand for?

Given so many conflicting messages, observers could be forgiven for not having the slightest idea what the Tories stand for.

PM David Cameron ascended to the Tory leadership on the promise the party had to change. However, as chief architect of the preceding manifesto, he himself authored the views he advocated change from.

Tories campaigned for the 2010 election on the platform of the "Big Society" (whatever that might mean, it sounds very Orwellian). However, his not too distant predecessor Maggie Thatcher famously declared "There is no such thing as society".

In its first few days of office the new administration declares it will (quite sensibly) cut schools free of central control, by way of creating loads of so-called "academies". However, it was not that long ago the ill-fated leader William Hague (now miraculously resurrected to frontline politics after humiliating 2001 electoral defeat) issued a diktat calling for compulsory school uniforms, ie centralized interference in the extreme.

Meanwhile, Home Secretary Theresa May, after voting against gay adoption in 2002 and against the repeal of Section 28 - the law which banned councils from "promoting" homosexuality - in 2000, conveniently declares she has "changed her mind" and now supports gay adoption!

Coalition shows its TRUE colors

Behind all Dave and Nick's smiles and promises the small print gives away the true nature of this administration, ie: "free vote for commons 'to express its view' on repeal of Hunting Act."

This act was already passed by a house of commons free vote with a large majority. There have been no disastrous consequences to this legislation and a recent opinion poll (Ipsos MORI, Oct 2009) found 75% support the ban on fox hunting remaining.

There can be no justification to re-legalise the tearing to pieces of foxes by dogs other than to satusfy the bloodlust of the sadistic few.

RSPCA Animal welfare issues during the General Election campaign

SAVE ME Use your vote to ensure that the present laws protecting animals from cruelty are kept in place, more carefully monitored, legally tightened up, and fully enforced.

IFAW Freddie the Fox and friends urge party leaders to protect hunting ban

BACK THE BAN The next parliament may see legislation introduced which specifically allows foxes to be ripped apart at the teeth of hounds. Will you join us in fighting this barbarity?

LEAGUE AGAINST CRUEL SPORTS works to expose and bring to an end the cruelty inflicted on animals in the name of sport.

The 55% trick

With the sleight of hand of Derren Brown the sanctimonious Mr Cameron preaches how he has given MPs the right to dissolve parliament. The only trouble is that to do so needs a majority of 55%. Which coincidentally is just too big for the combined other members to bring down the Tories.

Of course MPs should have the right to kick out a failing administration, but simple democracy demands that this should happen on a majority of 50%+1.

The argument about preventing frivolity in exercising the right holds no water, since EVERY MP would have to face their electorate, and those that were felt to have acted irresponsibly would be judged accordingly.

Thus the move can only be perceived as political expediency to prop up the Tories whoc ouldn'tr achieve a parliamentary majority against a sitting government that presided over the worst economic conditions for generations.

The Disaffected

Despite returning Liberals to (the fringes of power) for the first time in the best part of a century some liberal Liberals are unhappy at what they view as a sell-out of the fundamental principles on which their party was founded.

Many disaffected grass roots liberals (small 'l') are flocking to join Labour, now seen as the only progressive force in British politics. Labour party sees record surge in membership (Guardian, 13 May 2010).

Hugely popular former Liberal leader Charles Kennedy, the most successful of recent times in terms of seats, refused to back the coalition. Of the surprising partnership, Mr Kennedy says: "Certainly, they drive a strategic coach and horses through the long-nurtured 'realignment of the centre-left' to which leaders in the Liberal tradition, this one included, have all subscribed since the Jo Grimond era... It is hardly surprising that, for some of us at least, our political compass currently feels confused."Charles Kennedy refused to back Lib Dem-Tory pact (BBC News, 16 May 2010).

Research by the Fabian Society suggests the ill-matched coalition is an electoral gift for Labour (Lib-Tory cooperation is an ‘electoral gift’ to Labour, says report).

It is thus essential Labour makes the right choice to replace Gordon Brown in its upcoming leadership contest in order to once again offer Britain stable and progressive government.

Democracy and Voting Systems

So, at our current stage of evolution we need some sort of leadership / authority / control / government to keep society in order. And surely the most acceptable kind of governance is one that the people themselves choose. Simple, right?

Not necessarily. In actuality there are numerous ways of implementing democracy, each of which is capable of producing vastly differing results in practice. So the issue becomes one of selecting the best (or more realistically least bad) system.

For centuries Great Britain has used a system known as first past the post. The country is divided into a number of constituencies (currently 650) of roughly equal population. Each constituency holds a ballot to elect a member of parliament, with the candidate gaining the highest number of votes being elected.

The problems with this are:

• It inherently favors the big parties, namely the big 2 - Tories & Labour, ie in the 2010 election the Tories got 36% of votes but over 47% of seats, Labour got 29% of votes but nearly 40% of seats.
  
• It discriminates against smaller parties, eg Liberals got 23% of votes but just 9% of seats, other smaller parties are left completely unrepresented though earning sufficient proportion of votes for at least a single seat and thus a voice in parliament.
• It tends to produce majority governments from a minority of votes. This time around is a welcome exception from the usual situation in which a party with monority support is able to impose its will upon the majority that didn't support it. Hardly democratic, and a recipe for resentment.
• Elections tend to be decided by the relatively small number of floating voters in so-called marginal seats in which support is close enough to change hands depending on voters moods at polliing time. Voters in many safe seats, of various parties, are essentuially disenfranchised as their vote makes little difference as these seats are always held by a single party with a large majority.
• The proportion of parliamentrayy seats does not match the proportion of votes cast for each party.
  

Supporters of the current system argue it leads to "stable" government, albeit unsupported by the majority! Those countries operating proportional representation, in which votes cast are proportionally represented in the legislative assembly often rely on coalition governments of similar-minded parties. These generally function well and act as a check upon rash extremism. It's important also to allow non-partisan independents to gain election should they attract sufficient support.

A further argument in favor is that citizens have a recognized representative that they may petition (regardless of personal part support). Any fairer system should retain one or more recognized representatives for every individual.

A welcome effect of the current hung parliament is that it has forced the issue of voting reform onto the agenda as both major parties sought deals with the Liberals. The result is that we have been promised a referendum on something called the alternative vote system, first proposed by Gordon Brown at last year's Labour conference.

As I understand it, the alternative vote means that instead of simply pacing an X by their candidate of choice, voters in each constituency rank candidantes in order of preference. If no candidate wins the first choice, then second choice preferences are taken into account, and so on until one candidate gains the support of at least 50% of voters. Alternative vote at least ensures each MP has majority support and goes a little way to ensuring fairer representation of society by parliament.

A fairer system yet is proportional representation, PR, in which the proportion of seats in parliament matches the proportion of votes cast for each party.

Given the current climate the British should welcome the opportunity to reform the flawed system with whcih they have been handicapped for ages and to embrace the alternative vote. However, this should not be viewed as an end, but rather as a step along a journey towards true democracy.

Take Back Parliament - Campaign for a fair voting system. This Parliament does not represent us. We demand fair votes now. There must never again be an election under this broken system.

BBC - Q&A: Electoral reform and proportional representation

Hung Parliament 2010

The British elections of 2010 resulted in a hung parliament with no single party winning enough MPs to command a parliamentary majority.

The results of the election (courtesy BBC) were as follows:
Conservative/Tory: 36%, 306 seats
Labour: 29%, 258 seats
Liberal Democrat: 23%, 57 seats
Others (Nationalists, Unionists, Green): 12%, 28 seats.

There followed a period of intense debate between the Tories and Liberals, and some discussion between Labour and Liberals, over who might form the next government. The result of these talks was the formation of a coalition Tory-Liberal government.

Despite fighting the election against the backdrop of a global financial crisis, and a scandal of MPs of all parties abusing the expense system, sitting Prime Minister Gordon Brown performed very much better than expected, and very much better than many previous Labour leaders, in preventing an outright Tory victory. However, once the coalition agreement was announced Mr Brown resigned as Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party thus allowing David Cameron to take over as Prime Minister, and triggering a contest to elect a new Labour leader.

While this blog firmly believes coalitions can and do produce good government, as witnessed by many democracies around the globe, it also considers that to be effective coalition partners must share values to a significant degree. However, the Tory-Liberal coalition is an unnatural alliance between two diametrically different philosophies. It is our view that this marriage of convenience (rather than love) will fall apart acrimoniously sooner rather than later, and the purpose of this blog is to document the process for posterity.

Though the editor considers himself philosophically left-leaning, this blog is non-partisan. Indeed the editor remains a fierce critic of former Labour PM Tony Blair's militarism. As such we will be only too happy to praise the coalition when we it behaves positively.