A deal will have to be done. The Liberal Democrats are the (very) weak kingmakers. There is – somewhere – a deal that can be acceptable to Cameron and Clegg. The main ‘national interest’ issues are restoring stability to the economy, resolving our situation in Afghanistan and reforming how government resources are allocated. Voting reform and restructuring the House of Lords are important issues that need serious consideration BUT voters are not pressing for these questions to be answered today.
Cameron should offer Clegg a free vote on holding a referendum on proportional representative within the next parliament. In exchange the Lib Dems will support the Conservatives on a vote-by-vote basis. In this pact it would not be in the Lib Dems’ interest to bring a Cameron government down, unless the spirit of the deal is reneged.
Gordon Brown is not an appealing option. The national interest is not the same as the Liberal Democrats’ interest. When Clegg made his statement earlier this morning he was wisely continuing the lofty campaign position of wanting to support the party with the most votes and seats. In the current climate any parties that do a deal for nakedly partisan interests will be punished at the next election. If Clegg goes back on his word, he will be rightly viewed as being another old style politician. If the Lib Dems lose their ‘new politics’ image they will have nothing left. The Labour party will not do themselves any favours if they prostitute their beliefs in order to cling on to power. If Mervyn King is right about power being a poisoned chalice, having an extra few years of Government is not worth sacrificing long held principles for.
Nick Clegg leading a Lab-Lib coalition is the wild card in the pack. This is an unlikely outcome for so many reasons. But it has been an uncertain night. It’s now up to those who have had no sleep to make a solid agreement.
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Betapolitics: We agree on so many things… but not this I’m afraid. Either Conservatives believe in FPTP or they don’t I think. I could see an argument for going for some kind of PR in order to achieve a fully elected upper house.
But faffing about with voting systems is simply not important enough, as you say.
Interestingly, these discussions about who to support under what circumstances etc could well have been the brake on the Lib Dems – they sounded like normal politicians (which of course they are!) when they talked about it…
Hi Fiona.
Disagreements make politics fun. I am in favour of looking at our democratic structures. New Labour’s constant tinkering has left a whole lot of mess. Lets consider the parliamentary voting system, local government system and House of Lords reform and then decide how our democracy should operate.
On a real-politik level we have to deal with the situation the electorate has given us. No matter what Clegg wants I think his party would find it hard to accept supporting the Tories without getting something on PR. Also, an agreement on PR could be the glue that encourages the Lib Dems to keep the Conservative Gov afloat over the next few years. By offering a free vote it doesnt mean the Tory party will support it. These are uncertain and tired times!
Im sure this is a debate we will revisit in the future.
“faffing about with voting systems is simply not important enough”
The Conservatives got almost twice as many votes as the Liberal Democrats, yet ended up with about six times the number of seats.
I realise that there are many urgent issues facing Parliament, but it would be nice if the governing party had a sliver of legitimacy. Claiming to have a mandate with only around 10 million votes and a massively disproportionate presence in the House of Commons is just laughable.
At the moment, elections are simply about deciding which of the two main parties are the lesser evil. It’s a broken system that doesn’t even work on its own terms.
Matt M is right. How on earth can you lot (who claim to be modern and progressive) back a voting system which so blatantly distorts the distribution of votes? Unless you want to backtrack on your longstanding condemnation of the evils of Mrs Thatcher, you can hardly claim that the period 1979-2010 has been a wonderful advertisement for elected dictatorship (aka “strong government”).
As ever the Tories are well behind the curve on the voting reform issue. They should be putting forward their own version of a better voting system, not letting Labour and the Lib Dems make the running with the deficient AV system. It was obvious ten years ago that once a jaded electorate stopped handing Labour massive majorities they would become latter-day converts to electoral reform. That time has now come.
There is no moral imperative to introduce PR. The Lib Dems got 23% of yesterdays vote. Conservatives and Labour, both of whose manifestos did NOT propose PR, got a combined total of 65%.
A ComRes poll a couple of weeks ago found that most people were unsure as to what ‘voting reform’ really meant. It was certainly not a priority for most voters. This to me suggests that the Lib Dems haven’t won national support for PR. If you feel strongly enough on this point Clegg can bring down the minority Tory Government, thus making PR a central part of the ensuing general election.
The democratic system needs to be looked at. Cameron agrees with this. Voting reform, thus PR is an important aspect of this. In my opinion Parliament should have a vote on PR, among other reforms. But I think it’s a harsh to say that being anti-PR means you are not ‘progressive’. PR has benefits, is the most advantageous system for the Lib Dems, but is no-where near faultless. As Churchill said “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
I agree with Fiona that either the Conservatives support FPTP or not; offering a referendum on PR—whether or not they support the proposal itself—may be too clever by half. According to a Telegraph compilation of updates, for ‘Nick Robinson the question is whether Cameron is talking about forming a coalition with the Lib Dems or simply a “confidence and supply arrangement” on particular policies.’ The latter possibility is by far the better solution (and has been a workable Canadian practice since the mid-1960s, early ’70s, and now since 2006).
The problem with proportional representation, as I see it, is not the idea of compromise in the first instance—indeed, it can be quite a salutary activity—but that by-and-large government becomes nothing but a series of compromises between those propositions that are good and those which are less so. Elections cannot clear away the debris (unless, in extraordinary circumstances, a party meltdowns) because party standings—and thus their parliamentary percentages—will change so little. Definitely a case of rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic.
As for the House of Lords, reformers should be wary of what they wish: an elected body will compete with the Commons for role of the ‘people’s chamber’, the character of ‘career politician’ will rise—along with pure partisanship—and its revising function, admirably performed at present, will undoubtedly suffer.
Betapolitics,
At the moment, votes for Labour and the Conservatives are worth far, far more than votes for the Lib Dems – 23% of the population voted for the latter, and ended up with with less than 9% of the seats.
The fact that a majority of the public might not care is irrelevant. It’s simply ridiculous to call yourself liberal or progressive while maintaining that some people count more than others, just because the party you support happens to benefit.
The first thing would be to even out the number of voters per constituency and reduce the total number, as DC has already proposed. Scotland, with 59 MPs, is grossly over represented for a start, conpared to England ( approx 62,000 voters per constituency versus about 71,000