On This Week, Michael Portillo claimed that they didn't really have democracy to subvert in the PIGS, because he had just voted in the Spanish General Election, and it was a matter of voting for a party list, off which elected MPs would then spend all their time keeping in with the party hierarchy rather than representing the voters.
Imagine that, eh?
Party lists are what we have in all but name in Britain, with exactly the same cultural effect. Hasn't Portillo ever noticed that? It will not change until, primarily, we have the vigorous contesting of every seat by every party on behalf of a candidate in every case capable of being that constituency's MP.
Nor until we each vote for one candidate, with the requisite number, never fewer than two, elected at the end, most obviously by dividing the country up into 100 constituencies, each electing six MPs by this means, so that at least two of a patiotic and socially conservative party with Tory roots, a patriotic and socially conservative party with Labour roots, and another party with Old Labour roots, would always be in government at any given time.
Nor until, in the course of each Parliament, as a matter of routine, each party submitted to a binding ballot of the whole constituency electorate its locally determined internal shortlist of two for Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, submitted to a binding ballot of the whole national electorate its nationally determined internal shortlist of two for Leader, and submitted to a ballot of the latter kind the 10 policies proposed by the most of its branches, including affiliated branches where applicable, with each voter entitled to vote for up to two, and with the top seven guaranteed inclusion in the subsequent General Election manifesto.
Nor until we legislate for a ballot line system, such that voters would be able to indicate that they were voting for a given candidate specifically as endorsed by a smaller party or other campaigning organisation, with the number of votes by ballot line recorded and published separately.
That would be a start, anyway.
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How about doing it the Louisiana way? Put everyone in one big primary, with the name of the party they were a member of, if any.
ReplyDeleteIn the Pelican State, the top two go forward to a run-off even if they are members of the same party. But under your scheme, the required number, such as the six that you suggest, would be elected there and then even if some of them were members of the same party.
Wouldn't work for leaders, but would for MPs.
I like it, but it would preserve the present tribal voting patterns in Britain.
ReplyDeleteIf six people, all of them entirely genuinely Labour Party members, put up as Labour for six seats in County Durham, then they would all get in and no one else would.
Or if six people, all of them entirely genuinely Conservative Party members, put up as Conservatives for six seats in Surrey, then they would all get in and no one else would.
Probably the fourth placed, almost certainly the fifth placed, and certainly the sixth placed would be decidedly "interesting". But even so.