The AV vote was yet another example of how clueless Clegg really is. There should have been two polls: 1) “Do you want a change to 1st past the post”? if the answer was yes, then we could have debated and offered the alternatives. They really do think the majority of the public are too thick to know the difference.

Remember the ‘no to AV, yes to PR’ part of the campaign?

Everything we told you would happen in the event of a ‘no’ vote has happened. Told. You. So.

“There is not really a delicate way to put this. Laing and Redwood are lying.”

To be fair, you’ve missed a viable alterative hypothesis: “Laing and Redwood are deeply stupid and know less about recent political history than I know about the history of Botswana.”

To be fair, Chaise, I think it’s much more likely that they know very well the history, but are using the ambiguity of it to make their point. As Planeshift says, precisely what we warned the “No to AV, Yes to PR” group of doing. Though in reality I only ever saw them as a sockpuppet group of the No to AV campaign trying to fool naive souls in to voting no and creating this very situation.

@ 4 Lee

Oh, I’d say it’s much more likely that they know they’re lying. I just wanted to point out that they’ve positioned themselves where they can basically chose between being liars or idiots.

First the “No Lords Reform 4 U” topic on LFF, now this.

It’s like a constant slap in the face with the stagnant, rotting Trout of Unfairness.

The chattering classes understood it was not proportional, but the Yes team spent a huge amount of time and effort trying to convince those that mattered, i.e. the votors at large, that it was proportional. And even then those voters said no. You can debate this until the cows come home but that does not change what was said and what happened.

We were offerred AV because that was the system that would most benefit the Libdems (God bless ’em), Now they want to stack the second chamber so they hold the balance of power. What a bunch of despicable chancers.

YES! lets have a 100% elected second chanber, but elected by a real proportional system. And get rid of all the superannuated party hacks and failures, residual hereditaries and bishops.

“but the Yes team spent a huge amount of time and effort trying to convince those that mattered, i.e. the votors at large, that it was proportional.”

No they didn’t.

They argued it was better than FPTP on the grounds that it would mean MPs could no longer win with substantially lower than 50% of the vote due to the opposition being split.

Blame lies squarely with the Lib Dems for conceding to a referendum on a voting system that no one, including themselves, wanted.
Any reform at all =/= better than no reform.

@ 7 Steve in Somerset

“The chattering classes understood it was not proportional, but the Yes team spent a huge amount of time and effort trying to convince those that mattered, i.e. the votors at large, that it was proportional. And even then those voters said no. You can debate this until the cows come home but that does not change what was said and what happened. ”

A huge part of the anti-AV message was the misrepresentation that it would give some people more votes than others. How does that apply, even dishonestly, to PR? Anyway, the referedum was what it was: the words were right there in black and white. You can debate this till the cows come home but that does not change what the referendum was actually about, for all your attempts to pretend it was a vote on something entirely different.

“We were offerred AV because that was the system that would most benefit the Libdems (God bless ‘em),”

Wrong. We were offered AV because that’s all the Tories would offer the Lib Dems, who wanted PR.

” Now they want to stack the second chamber so they hold the balance of power. What a bunch of despicable chancers.”

Heard it. So you think democracy is “despicable”? That says more about you than the Lib Dems, I’m afraid.

The AV vote was always doomed to failure and Clegg knew that when he agreed to it. By forming a right wing government he alienated a large part of the support for reform because that support was largely left leaning and saw electoral reform as a means of re-weighting politics towards the left-of-centre majority in the UK. And then he offered a weak form of reform to that alienated support and watched it die very predictably.

But it is interesting to see Redwood and Laing not only deliberately misunderstand that political situation, but also consider such a short period of history while looking at British views on PR.

After all, the last 20 years has seen a number of referenda back PR as part of electoral reform. Be it the formation of the Mayor of London, the GLA, the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly – the British public have been pretty comfortable with the creation of a more proportional electoral system in recent times.

The unique hostility towards the Lib Dems that was so evident in 2010 and 2011 hardly negates that.

We have been promised reform of the House of Lords for just about 100 years – even now, if reform comes it won’t be before 2025.
With snouts firmly in the trough of taxpayers’ largesse, why would any of these utterly worthless,self serving, parasitic scum want change?
When, oh when are we going to be able to rise out of this medieval political cess pit?

Answer; Not in my lifetime.

Thank goodness that there is still some part of our parliamentary system from which it remains possible to speak from outside the nasty but inevitable union between, on the one hand, what has always been the anti-parliamentary New Left and, on the other hand, the sociologically indistinguishable New Right’s arrival at hatred of Parliament as the natural conclusion of its hatred of the State. From that union, together with the SDP’s misguided Alliance with the Liberals around their practically Bennite constitutional agenda, derives the Political Class’s desire to abolish the House of Lords.

For those who keep such scores, the House of Lords has a higher proportion of women, a higher proportion of people from ethnic minorities, a broader range of ethnic minorities, and far more people from working-class backgrounds generally and the trade union movement in particular, than can be found down the corridor. More significantly, and despite the very hard efforts of successive governments, it also retains a broader range of political opinion, more reflective of the country at large.

But that is under grave threat, both from the party machines and from the way of all flesh. The future composition of the House would be secured, at least in part, by providing for each current life peer, at least who attends very or fairly regularly, to name an heir, by no means necessarily or even ordinarily a relative, but rather a political and a wider intellectual soul mate. That heir would become a peer upon his or her nominator’s death, and would thus acquire the same right of nomination.

Each party should choose its working peers by seeking nominations from its branches, including those of affiliated organisations, and putting out to a ballot of the entire electorate those with the most nominations, up to one and a half times their respective allocations. Each of us could then vote for up to half that allocation, and the highest scoring allocated number would get in. The law should further require that every four or five years, the 12 units already used for European Elections would each elect three Crossbenchers, with each of us voting for one candidate and with the three highest scorers being ennobled.

If there must be an elected second chamber, then let each of the English ceremonial counties, the Scottish lieutenancy areas, the Welsh preserved counties, and the traditional six counties of Northern Ireland, plus perhaps the London Boroughs and the Metropolitan Boroughs, elect an equal number. Say, six. Each of us would vote for one candidate, with the requisite number declared elected at the end. There would be no Ministers in that House, although they would appear before it for Departmental Question Times. And, which is perhaps the most important point of all, parties that contested elections to the House of Commons would be banned from contesting elections to the second chamber.

David

I might suggest slightly toungue in cheek – that the Lords has a broader range of ethnic minorities, working class participants, and more women – because it has a higher proportion of Labour members than down the corridor.

I suggest this not least because of course ethnic minority representation, working class representation and female representation in the Commons typically falls when Labour loses seats at a general election – and Labour lost a lot of seats in the last two general elections.

Some would of course thus criticise the other parties for failing in this regard – pointing out that the tories are run by toffs and that the Lib Dems are an exclusively white parliamentary party – but I tend to blame Labour for not working harder to represent the people it exists to support and for not winning enough seats to ensure the people of this country are more proportionally represented.

Why do people want an elected second chamber?

@Steve

“The chattering classes understood it was not proportional, but the Yes team spent a huge amount of time and effort trying to convince those that mattered, i.e. the votors at large, that it was proportional. And even then those voters said no. You can debate this until the cows come home but that does not change what was said and what happened.”

Bang on.

Reform of the House of Lords of all but the most meaningless sort will happen only in the teeth of fierce and immovable opposition from the Tories (i.e. not before the next election). They – like most political parties – will vote in their electoral interests – and frankly their electoral interests are served by keeping it exactly how it is. Especially if Scotland becomes independent…

ukliberty

they don’t. They want a house of lords that functions well as a second chamber in providing the services a second chamber should provide.

A second chamber should be a good provider of objective scrutiny of legislation, a check against the excessive tendancies of the government of the day, and a good source of a different expertise and experience on which government can call.

Given how utterly our second chamber has failed to be any of those things over the years, some feel an elected second chamber might thus be better able to meet those needs and so make the second chamber a better one.

There is a risk with an elected system that it replicates the already homogenous nature of the existing elected chamber (lots of professional politicians who decided at that they wanted to be in politics for the sake of politics, and so studied the entry-degree for politics (PPE) and went about finding political-ish work and ingraciating themselves with politicians so as to one day be accepted into the club and offered a safe seat.

But even that would hardly mean diminishing the abject failure of a second house that we have already – so the upside (a more representitive body of people responsive to the demands of modern society) might thus be an over-all improvement.

Personally I’d rather a house of professionals. Give all teachers a vote for ten teachers to enter the lords – give all nurses a vote for ten nurses – all baristers a vote for ten barristers – all journalists a vote for ten journalists – and so on – so as to create a chamber that offers expertise and experience without replicating the rather pathetic attempt at representation that our first chamber seems to think is good enough.

But a basic elected house is more realistic an aim.

Margin @ 18:

Why not just repeal/amend the Parliament Act and give the Lord more power to block legislation?

P Ve M

because it isn’t weak as a result of the Parliament Act – it is weak because it is filled with a lot of people who have little interaction with the wider public, a lack of range of knowledge across a great many professions (seriously, plenty of lawyers, not many teachers) and a rather sad adherrance to party allegience which, under a coalition situation, delivers pretty close to an unbreakable majority on the side of the government.

Repealing the Parliament Act won’t help that.

Following the reforms under Blair the HofL came about as close as it has ever been to a proper second chamber. There was no government majority (which there had always been under Tory governments) but also no anti-government majority (which the tory majority had always been when the tories were out of power – be it to the liberals or labour).

As such the relatively improved balance led to some genuinely good debate at times.

But even then it was a bit superficial. The level of expertise was still relatively poor. The connection between lords and real life in Britain was practically non-existant. And of course a great many party appointed Lords were put in place to secure party donations or usurp the role of the electorate in selecting who governs us (with the appointment of growing numbers of ministers from among those unelected lords like Mandelson and Drysen).

As I said before – I wouldn’t say an elected house was the best way to try to fix the second chamber. But it is at least a means of improving it from a state in which, frankly, we wouldn’t lose much by just closing it down to save money.

Margin @ 20:

“because it isn’t weak as a result of the Parliament Act – it is weak because it is filled with a lot of people who have little interaction with the wider public, a lack of range of knowledge across a great many professions (seriously, plenty of lawyers, not many teachers) and a rather sad adherrance to party allegience which, under a coalition situation, delivers pretty close to an unbreakable majority on the side of the government.”

The HOL has a wider range of professions than the Commons, more independents, and the Party Whips have less control over how members vote. On all the measures you bring up, the Lords is superior to the Commons, and I see no reason whatsoever to suppose that that would still be the case if it were democratised.

The HOL has a wider range of professions than the Commons, more independents, and the Party Whips have less control over how members vote. On all the measures you bring up, the Lords is superior to the Commons, and I see no reason whatsoever to suppose that that would still be the case if it were democratised.

This is my impression.

I understand what margin4error is saying, but the proposal we appear to be going with seems like something that will be worse than what we have now, not better.

@ ukliberty

I often wonder about that question. Certainly the HOL as it stands has to go one way or another, no unelected people should exercise legislative power.

However, I’m not too keen on a second chambre, even if it was democratically elected. The second chambre’s purpose is to put the brakes on the ‘mandated’ government in the first. Its an anti-democratic impulse!

There3’s a sort of romantic view of the Lords as of it being full of independents. In reality, the regulars, with a few exceptions (Lord Rix springs to mind)—and in any case these tend to be specialists who only turn up regularly on that topic, are predominantly career politicians—a collection of has-beens and never-weres—who increasingly vote according to the whip (look at the Lib Dems voting records: in spite of a lot of huffing and puffing, they’ve supported the coalition line pretty consistently).

Those genuine independents tend to be very wary of offending the government of the day, and, in any case, tend to disappear for dinner after about 7:30pm—have a look at the Lords debates, and see how many are drawn out to a vote at about 8pm when the cross-benchers have gone.

Frankly, I don’t see any point in having an elected second chamber: either it will be so tightly constrained as to be powerless, or we run the risk of US-style legislative deadlock.

I tend to a return to Greek-style democracy: a chamber chosen by lot for 1-2 years, and specifically tasked with enensuring legislative clarity—that is reject bills and, critically, any additional guidance they cannot understand. There’d have to provision for keeping their jobs open etc, but I don’t think any differences would be insuperable.

” are predominantly career politicians”

It’s the retirement home, a reward for vacating a safe seat or doing something unpopular that ruins one’s career.

Step Left @ 23:

“Certainly the HOL as it stands has to go one way or another, no unelected people should exercise legislative power.”

Why not?

“However, I’m not too keen on a second chambre, even if it was democratically elected. The second chambre’s purpose is to put the brakes on the ‘mandated’ government in the first. Its an anti-democratic impulse!”

So if 51% of people voted for a party promising to kill the other 49%, should we try and “put the brakes on the ‘mandated’ government”, or would that be anti-democratic, and therefore bad?

P Ve M and UKLiberty

One criticsm of electing the second chamber would indeed be that it risks making it more like the Commons – and thus even less value than it is now (which is so close to zero it’s barely worth quibbling about).

That’s why it is so important to elect it by PR if it is to be elected at all. (And as I’ve said, I’m not entirely convinced a straight national election is really the best option for securing the best second chamber we could).

But at least PR would ensure a much more independent HofL than at present and make the government and opposition whips much weaker. With so many more Greens, UKIPs, SWPs Plaids, SNPs and BNPs than the Commons, the second chamber would be highly unlikely to afford any government a double majority – or the opposition a consistent blocking majority.

As such we might then get a second chamber that actually adds something to the political debate and the legislative process.

Not as much as some alternative suggestions – but as I said before – this is at least a route to improving the waste of money that is our current sham of a second chamber that might actually happen. My ideal of a chamber of experts is sadly never going to get traction.

Also – and this is an interesting thought – if the HofL was no longer a handy retirement home for old MPs – would that not have implications for the Commons?

At present – the prospect of that retirement reward helps keep a lot of older MPs in line. (Go against the whip, and you won’t be made a lord).

Likewise it is a useful bribe to get old MPs out of seats that party leaders would like to give to plient young freinds who will do as they are told as they want their nice political career.

If it was no longer that – would we see more cantankerous old MPs staying in their seats for longer and feeling relatively free to disagree with party leaders half their age?

If so – that would be great news for the Commons.

@28 – yep – totally changes the relationship of MP and Party. I suppose you can offer staff positions as well but no party can afford the kind of salaries that ex-MPs would demand for loyalty. It also increases the power of constituency parties who can de-select MPs knowing that their ex-MP isn’t going to end up in the lords.

That seems a good idea, that MPs cannot become Lords.

My ideal of a chamber of experts is sadly never going to get traction.

FWIW I like it in principle.

Basically we need to decide that the lords is one of two things;

1. Party political – in which case it must be 100% elected and reflect the proportions. You can still keep it as a revising chamber through differing term lengths and methods of election.

2. Non-party political with people appointed due to expertise. A chamber of experts if you will. If you go down this road you need to ban members of political parties from sitting. The question then becomes how you decide who has expertise and how they are appointed. You have to make sure all forms of expertise are represented from all relevant academic disiplines – which would have the amusing effect of forcing many economists to acknowledge the existence of other social sciences.

Step Left,

I often wonder about that question. Certainly the HOL as it stands has to go one way or another, no unelected people should exercise legislative power.

However, I’m not too keen on a second chambre, even if it was democratically elected. The second chambre’s purpose is to put the brakes on the ‘mandated’ government in the first. Its an anti-democratic impulse!

Why is that necessarily a bad thing?

We ostensibly have checks and balances in our version of democracy to mitigate its inherent risks; our goal should be the maximisation of liberty, which democracy puts at risk.

Chaise Guevara quotes me three times and then claims I think think democracy is “despicable” simply because I think the Lib Dems are “despicable” in their manourering to hold power without being actually the winners in an election.

Bit weak there my friend. But then what would one expect with someone using a name like Guevara, a man not exactly known for his love of democracy….. Says it all.

I note that he doesn’t quote me when I said :-

“YES! lets have a 100% elected second chanber, but elected by a real proportional system. And get rid of all the superannuated party hacks and failures, residual hereditaries and bishops”.

Ain’t that democracy then?

You are wasting your time with Chaise Guevara. He is a concern troll. His name gives him away because it is, I guess, his idea of irony.

@ 33 Steve

“Chaise Guevara quotes me three times and then claims I think think democracy is “despicable” simply because I think the Lib Dems are “despicable” in their manourering to hold power without being actually the winners in an election.”

What the Lib Dems did was attempt to create a system that would mean we actually get a functioning democracy rather than a semi-permanent choice between two parties that can complacently sit back and relax, secure in the knowledge that the system is rigged in their favour.

Yes, the Lib Dems think that the change would benefit them, rightly or wrongly. But you’d hardly expect a party that would suffer (read: lose its unfair advantage) under PR or AV to be the ones championing a change in the system. Even Labour only backed AV once the referendum was a reality, probably in an attempt to clean up its brand.

OK, accusing you of being anti-democratic was OTT, my apologies. It just angers me when someone argues in favour of a rigged system by attacking the democratic credentials of the people trying to de-rig it. If you’d made a more honest argument you would have got a more friendly response.

“Bit weak there my friend. But then what would one expect with someone using a name like Guevara, a man not exactly known for his love of democracy….. Says it all.”

Don’t accuse me of making weak arguments then attack me based on my screen name; it’s like the pot calling the washing machine white. BTW, history lists no anti-democratic figure called “Chaise Guevara” 🙂 If my name was supposed to indicate support for Che’s policies I’d be called Hooray For Che or something like that.

You ad hommed the pro-PR movement and now you’re ad homming me. Got anything of substance?

“I note that he doesn’t quote me when I said :-

“YES! lets have a 100% elected second chanber, but elected by a real proportional system. And get rid of all the superannuated party hacks and failures, residual hereditaries and bishops”.

Ain’t that democracy then?”

Indeed, but it doesn’t change the fact that you support a rigged system for the first chamber. So my working hypothesis is that you only like democracy when you think it would help the people you want to be in power. A fair-weather democrat, basically. Note that I’m not saying that’s definitely the case, but it’s the best guess based on the evidence I have to hand (i.e. your last two posts).

And if we’re talking about ignoring parts of other people’s posts, what about the other two comments from my last post, which showed that you either don’t know much about the AV referendum, or that you’re being economical with the truth? Were those a bit inconvenient and best left unanswered?

Why is it so important for failed politicians to be given a sincure in the House of Lords? We have enough party faithful already with donors buying seats, friends and supporters being elevated to the Lords and people such as Kinnock being given peerages for their achievements. An elected Lords on any system would continue this system of privilege.

I think that the people of this country would prefer a method where members were selected in the same way as with jury service. A fully representative system, rather than the failed approach we have now.

“An elected Lords on any system would continue this system of privilege.”

There’s a difference between ‘appointed’ and ‘voted for’.

UKLiberty

Thanks – maybe we can start a campaign? 😉

Planeshift

It would indeed give constituency parties a somewhat different relationship with their MP – though I had barely thought that widely about it.

Chaise

Labour were the only party to propose AV in their 2010 election manifesto. Pretending they only backed it at the last minute to clean up their brand is thus a little odd. Rarely can a party use its manifesto policies as a post-election-defeat means of improving their band?

The Labour Party leadership supprted AV from a lot earlier than the coalition was formed. The membership was what defeated the referendum partly because mant never backed AV in the first place, and partly because many saw little value in a system that would benefit lib dems in the maintaining of future right wing governments. (Others had more opaque reasons about a bldy nose to put pressure on to drop other unpopular policies).

The Labour leadership was pretty unambiguous. The only ambiguity claimed was because Miliband quite rightly treated Clegg as utterly toxic and so wanted him distanced from the campaign and wouldn’t share a platform with him for that reason. The Lib Dems whinged, but they could hardly argue Miliband was wrong.

@ 38 Margin4Error

You’re quite right, I’m misremembering. Labour’s backing of the referendum itself struck me as kind of torpid and divided, so I’ve obviously extrapolated that into “didn’t support AV before the election”. Apologies and thanks.

You’re welcome Chaise

the Labour leadership was pretty united in favour. The membership was somewhat less so.

@Margin4error #38:

Labour were the only party to propose AV in their 2010 election manifesto. Pretending they only backed it at the last minute to clean up their brand is thus a little odd. Rarely can a party use its manifesto policies as a post-election-defeat means of improving their band?

The last Labour Government had been in power since 1997. It introduced an AV referendum as an amendment (not even as an original provision) to its 2010 Constitutional Reform Bill in February 2010, 3 months before the election. At that poin,t the Jenkins report – which backed AV+ and rejected AV – had been gathering dust since September 1998. Are you really trying to deny that they only backed voting reform at the last minute so as to clean up their brand? That would require a degree of naievté that would entitle you to be called Doctor Margin4error.

Labour weren’t courageous pioneers of AV in including it in their manifesto – this was simply as far as they were prepared to go toward a more proportionate system.

OTOH, the Liberal Democrats, and before them the Liberals, have had voting reform – towards a more proportional system – in their manifestoes for as long as I can remember.

In the tug of war between the LibDems – who had had STV (ie multi-member AV) in their manifesto – and the Tories – who wanted no change – the decision eventually alighted on AV (ie single winner STV) as a compromise.

Even though AV was a Labour manifesto commitment, and by happy chance the coalition agreement produced a referendum on precisly that method, Labour failed to deliver; its Lords introduced an intended wrecking amendment to the bill by adding a 40% turnout threshold, it had no official party line in the campaign and indeed more Labour MPs campaigned No than Yes (many of them pretty senior).

The Labour Party leadership supprted AV from a lot earlier than the coalition was formed.

True – if “3 months before” can be defined as “a lot earlier”.

Robin

yep – I’m denying it. You should remember that…

1 – government’s can’t and shouldn’t do everything instantly and go home and do nothing once it’s done. So the “but they were in power for … years” usually reads as rather flippant nonsense to those who understand politics.

2 – the nature of what the public will and won’t support, and what the public do and don’t prioritise, changes over the course of many years. so the “but they were in power for … years” usually reads as rather flippant nonsense to those who understand politics.

3 – leadership within a government changes over time as ministers come and go – and as that happens the government changes its nature to lesser and greater extents over the years – especially when the PM is one of the changed ministers. so the “but they were in power for … years” usually reads as rather flippant nonsense to those who understand politics.

“but they were in power for … years” plays well to a sleepy public who don’t much care to know more – but the engaged among us should know better than to think it is of any use in understanding politics. I imagine you do know better but just hoped I didn’t.

And no – Labour were not courageous pioneers of AV – but quite why you imagine anyone might think they were is beyond me. I suspect you’ve seen my description to Chaise of what actually happened and assumed I’m some sort of nasty pro-labour type and so gone on the attack.

Instinctively I suspect your post indicates you are a lib dem who wants to blame some one other than Clegg for crippling our chance at electoral reform – so I’m inclined to quip that you should go play on Conservative Home where you belong – but I won’t as I don’t know that you are one.

@margin4error #42:

It was this passage that struck me:

Labour were the only party to propose AV in their 2010 election manifesto. Pretending they only backed it at the last minute to clean up their brand is thus a little odd.

What is the relevance of the first sentence in context? It seemed to be to suggest that Labour had some kind of history of backing voting reform; backed up by the second sentence.

I am well aware that politics is the art of the possible. The problem here is that the Labour leadership never demonstrated any real commitment to voting reform. There was a commitment to a referendum in the 1997 manifesto, when they thought they could get votes from LibDems to form an anti-Tory coalition. That was the first time in my memory that Labour demonstrated any interest in voting reform. They set up the Jenkins Commission during the Blair/Ashdown honeymoon. There was at the time no obvious reason, save self-interest, why a favourably disposed Government could/would not act on the recommendations.

By 2001, the Blair/Ashdown honeymoon had faded, and as a result the commitment was watered down to a commitment to assess Jenkins together with the experience of devolution elections. In 2005 reference to Jenkins had gone although there was still a commitment to consider the experience of devolution elections. By 2010, LibDem votes were once again clearly needed to form an anti-Tory coalition so the referendum commitment, this time to a specific system rather closer to FPTP than Jenkins’s recommendations, re-appeared in the manifesto.

Chaise’s original criticism –

Even Labour only backed AV once the referendum was a reality, probably in an attempt to clean up its brand.

– was unjustified in detail; Labour did have a referendum in its manifesto, but didn’t actually back AV as a party when the referendum became a reality.

It was however spot on in principle; in my lifetime Labour has only ever evinced any warmth toward PR when LibDem votes are both available and useful, and its leadership have been quite happy to promise something they can claim looks like PR in those circumstances, secure in the knowledge that they can either kick it into the long grass once elected (see “Jenkins Commission”), or simply rely on its footsoldiers to defeat any formal proposals that actually came forward.

The first few years of the Blair Government produced some good work; the HRA, RIPA and FoIA being particularly noteworthy. In that context, the fact that Labour came to power in 1997 with a manifesto commitment to have a referendum on voting reform, and within 18 months actually had recommendations that could be put to a referendum – yet 14 years later we were back to square one with nothing having happened in the meantime – is more than just a “but they were in power for XX years” criticism.

In the later years of the 20th century a referendum on AV+ was both possible and had decent prospects of success. Labour, for its own reasons, chose not to pursue the proposal; it returned to the subject in 201 for one reason only – to clean up its brand (ie to seek LibDem voters).

Robin – the context was that Chaise said Labour only backed AV once the referendum became a reality – and I pointed out that that wasn’t true because they had it in their manifesto for the 2010 election.

The weird thing here is that Chaise agreed, acknowledged he had misremembered, yet you are quibbling about the context of a fact that me and Chaise exchanged and agreed about.

Why do that? What is your motivation here? Are you just anti-Labour to the extent that you rant periodically and rather pontlessly about them? Are you bitter about electoral reform failing and want to deflect from the Lib Dems’ quite obvious culpability? Are you just being overly provocative because that’s what entertains you?

I’d love to know.

@margin4error #44:

It was weird that Chaise agreed; but conversations on the Internetz aren’t private, so you very often end up discussing something with someone other than your original interlocutor.

The blame for the failure of the attempt to get voting reform was spread amongst all three parties; and I see no difference between the culpability of Labour and the Tories, both of whom wanted the baby of PR drowned but didnl;t want to be seen as the ones who did it. Clegg and the LibDems were guilty of naiveté in believing the assurances of the other parties, by way of manifesto commitment or Coalition agreement.

You picked Chaise up on accusing Labour (broadly) of only pushing it to clean up their brand; he was wrong in the particular, but absolutely right in the general – do you disagree? Do you argue that there is in the Labour Party a genuine desire for change to a voting system that better reflects the wishes of the electorate? Or do you agree with me that while there might be some in the Party well-disposed towards it in an ideal world, and a wider group who see electoral advantage in being seen as well-disposed towards it, they don’t have a real problem with the system as it now stands and certainly aren’t going to risk losing seats by allowing the system actually to change. Their history since 1997 certainly demonstrates this, IMHO.

I’d add that I don’t like party list PR; it leaves too much power in the hands of the list-compilers. I do see the value of the constituency link and acknowledge that many good constituency MPs do have a personal vote that goes beyond party; multi-member constituency STV probably best expresses the wishes of the electorate.

@ 45 Robin

“It was weird that Chaise agreed”

Well, he’s right. They DID have it in their manifesto. It just wasn’t all that popular with the party, and they didn’t seem hugely enthusiastic about supporting it in the referendum, at least at first. I’m not going to stand here and argue when I’m demonstrably wrong.

However, I stand by my original point (that it’s hardly surprising that parties who would benefit from fairer elections tend to be the ones that campaign for change) and implication (that this reflects much more badly on the parties who don’t campaign for change than the ones who do).

Thanks Chaise

I genuinely don’t really know how it became a point of contention with some one. I didn’t think there was much in my post to quibble about. I didn’t even post an opinion on anything. I just figured it was all pretty well known stuff, if occasinally forgotten.

Robin

I understand that comments to one person might lead to discussion – but you might want to learn to be a little more polite and perhaps not start with a bunch of idiotic accusations about what some one thinks as part of a rant about whatever it is that you just happened to want to rant about to people who had shown no interest in the subject of your rant.

Also – I’ll be honest – you describe the Lib Dems as naive victims who were betrayed by the nasty parties.

Now I don’t know how stupid you think Clegg and the Lib Dems are – but it seems implausible to suggest mere naivety would explain the decision to hold a referendum on AV so soon after 1 letting down the PR campaign, and so undermined the on-the-ground campaigner base, 2 forming a right wing coalition and so casting off support from those who thought reform would mean inevitably left wing coalitions, and 3, associating reform with himself at a time when he had allienated, passionately, millions of voters who had voted LibDem as a left wing option.

Far more realistic analysis – and as I wrote in an article a week after the coalition deal came out – was that he and his team knew full well that the referendum would be an easy win for the no vote – but electoral reform wasn’t that important to them compared to securing the best possible mix of ministerial posts for Lib Dem MPs.

As such – my instinctive suspicion that your first post to me indicated you are a lib dem who wants to blame some one other than Clegg for crippling our chance at electoral reform – is starting to feel rather astute. That said, I still won’t tell you to go play on Conservative Home where you belong just yet.

7. Steve in Somerset:

“We were offerred AV because that was the system that would most benefit the Libdems (God bless ‘em)”

Not true. AV was offered because it was the only form of electoral change that the Tories were willing to accept.

@margin4error #47:

I understand that comments to one person might lead to discussion – but you might want to learn to be a little more polite and perhaps not start with a bunch of idiotic accusations about what some one thinks as part of a rant about whatever it is that you just happened to want to rant about to people who had shown no interest in the subject of your rant.

Which of the factual claims in my post #41 do you take issue with?

I accept I accused you of naiveté if you believed that Labour ever support electoral reform otherwise than for electoral tactical advantage; sicne you do seem to do so. But that hardly justifes your rants in response, and your bizarre claim that my pointing out Labour’s shortcomings constituted a desperate search for others to blame than Nick Clegg.

As for Chaise’s views; yes, we all agree he had forgotten the 2010 Labour manifesto pledge and was wrong in the particular. But your defence seemed to me to go beyond pointing out that mistake, and to suggest that the Labour party actually supported electoral reform more generally; and that was what I was responding to. You have confirmed that that is your view – you do deny that “they only backed voting reform at the last minute so as to clean up their brand”. hence my pointing out that the high point of their support was in 1997, following which it went backwards until 2010 when, at the last moment, Brown inserted an AV referendum into a bill that had no chance of reaching the statute book – and followed that up with a manifesto pledge. In 1997 and 2010, Labour eneded LibDem votes; in 2001 and 2005, they didn’t so much. The strength of the manifesto pledge varied with the need for LibDem votes.

My impression at the time was that going further than an AV referendum would have been a deal-breaker in any coalition negotiations, whether with Tories or Labour; and it’s politically “difficult” for someone espousing electoral reform to say that he doesn’t trust the electorate to get the right answer on electoral reform because of party politics. Delaying a referendum, as I understand you to suggest, would simply have meant it wouldn’t be held – if the Tories hadn’t been nailed down to an early date before the agreement was signed, they would have pleaded other priorities whenever it came up again, challenging the LibDems to walk out of the Coalition if they felt so strongly about it. To be honest, I wouldn’t have trusted the Labour Party on this any more than the Tories; so it was an early referendum, or none.

Why wouldn’t I have trusted the Labour Party? Brown gave a wonderful speech in October 2007 on liberty:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7062237.stm

but it was never followed through. Time after time, liberty was sacrificed for security – and we know what Franklin said about people who do that.

I’m happy to hear your evidence that Clegg is to blame – but seems to me that even if he did throw electoral reform to the wolves (and I hold no brief for Clegg), it is the wolves (Tory and Labour alike) who savaged it. It was obvious that the Tories would not adocate reform. Andy Burnham’s excuse that Labour wouldn’t campaign for AV because the referendum date coincided with local elections however was a pretty transparent excuse for a party that just couldn’t – or wouldn’t – get behind reform when it came to the crunch; even though it was a manifesto commitment “To ensure that every MP is supported by the majority of their constituents voting at each election”.

Robin

your whole tone was aggressive and accusatory and you that’s presumably as you intended it. It was also entirely besides the point of what was just a factual comment. I never said, nor would ever say, the labour party are a courageous supporter of electoral reform. It isn’t pro-FPTP (as evidenced by the systems introduced for Scotland and Wales and the GLA) – it just isn’t pro-reform.

They just were the only party that had a referendum on AV in their manifesto – which fluke as that was, ran somewhat counter to Chaise’ comments.

And yes – ironically – the commitment in Labour manifestos tended to vary according to the need for lib dem support – but describing a transparent attempt to woo the lib dems in case a coalition needed forming (97 and 2010), as an attempt at brand-cleaning – is just, well, wrong – obviously. In effect, it’s the wrong criticism being made.

And no – you have failed to understand what Clegg did. I understand that as some one who doesn’t want to blame the lib dems – this may not fit with your agenda. However, try to understand that it was not the other parties that killed any chance of a yes vote. It was the Lib Dems forming a right wing coalition that killed any chance of a yes vote. Campaigning can only do so much. Demonstrating to a huge wealth of left wing support that their presumed advantage could turn out to be a consistent disadvantage, or at least had only been an imagined advantage – killed reform.

It is sad – but that’s what he did and he knew he did it. It was his choice. You could argue he had no chance but to form a coalition. But that’s a political “no choice” and means more that he made a choice that wasn’t his ideal one. It was still a choice and that choice included the knowledge that the decision would kill reform.

also – and this is kind of fun – I am glad my instincts that your aggressive and unrellated rant was indeed a result of you just wanting to attack others to deflect from the fact that it was Clegg’s fault that the no vote comprehensively won.

@margin4error #50:

OK; reality check.

If the LibDems had gone into coalition with Labour in 2010, it’s doubtful there would even have been a referendum. As it turned out, over 100 Labour MPs campaigned against AV and the entire party voted against the bill that provided for the referendum.

Why did they vote against that bill? Because it also provided for equalisation of constituency sizes. Why was that a problem? Because Labour benefits disproportionately from the current system.

Labour, despite its manifesto commitment to support AV, in the events as they happened voted against it to preserve its unfair electoral advantage.

How would a hypothetical Lib-Lab coalition have got a referendum bill through the Commons in the teeth of united Tory opposition and without united Labour support?

@ 51 Robin

Well, presumably a Lib-Lab coalition wouldn’t have tied the boundary changes to the bill. Not saying you’re wrong, but I don’t see how that bit’s relevant to the hypothetical scenario at hand.

@Chaise #52:

Well, presumably a Lib-Lab coalition wouldn’t have tied the boundary changes to the bill.

Precisely. So (i) the Tories in opposition would have had no reason to vote for the bill (hence united Tory opposition); but (ii) it would not have been surprising if the Labour MPs who (in the events as they happened) both voted against the bill and campaigned against AV had registered their opposition to AV by voting against the bill (hence without united Labour support). The voting arithmetic wouldn’t have worked.

Maybe I’m a little off-beat when it comes to my idea’s regarding the future of the House of Lords, but why is an elected house such a great idea. Surely we would just end up with the same old partisan boredom that the house of commons provides us with, just rubber stamping the bills without question of the party line.

I would suggest that instead of an elected second house we should appoint short term lords from the general public, randomly chosen from maybe a two year staged lottery, offering all of the breadth of experience that that would bring. Imagine, the house of commons held to account by a random cross-section of the community, no parties, no whips … politics with the people at the heart of decision making 😉