It has emerged that MPs will vote next week on whether a referendum should take place to consider reform of the electoral system. The first past the post system would be replaced with the alternative vote system (currently used in Australia),allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate gained 50% of the vote the first time round, votes for the least successful candidates would be redistributed until a winner emerged. There is no possibility of the system being used in the current election, and one could argue that this is a purely political move designed to show the Conservatives as resistant to change. More news here and comment from Nick Robinson here.
PS: Here is the Electoral Reform Society's website (They recommend the Single Transferable Vote system).
PPS: Newsnight's programme on Tuesday night (2 Feb) had an amusing report linking Brown's reforms proposals to Groundhog Day. Catch it here. (The Groundhog says there's going to be 6 more weeks of winter, by the way.)
OMG NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeletebut about time.
it's pointless putting in av because each constituency would still only turn out one MP, it just means they will have an absolute majority. if we want a truly representative democracy we need to get rid of a constituency system altogether and just go on party lists. personally i'm not a fan of this but i'm getting sick of politicans' meaningless proposals just to look good.
ReplyDeletei think its about time there was constitutional change, although i'm not sure this is the best system, but it still allows constituency MPs, which is a good thing :)
ReplyDeleteof course its a political move to show how the conservatives don't like change, despite their slogan... may have come too late tho?