Are we answering the wrong question with a referendum on AV?

I have a confession to make. I don’t really have any great interest in what voting system we use to elect our MPs. Shocking, isn’t it. I generally manage to have an opinion on most things, but this…

I know that I ought to have great concern for the various systems – for AV, AV plus, d’Hondt, STV, Condorcet, first past the post or random pulling out of a hat like for jury service… but I don’t.  Conservatively though, I’d suggest that  just having the winner as the person who comes first might be most reflective of how most things in life operate? However, I’m open to persuasion one way or another (so – supporters of all types of voting, feel free to send us an article arguing your case!)

What I do have a great interest in and a deep concern for, is, are we actually trying to fix the real problem with changes to the actual voting system, or should we be looking in greater detail at the even less interesting but perhaps more important systems we use to select and whip our MPs?

For example, I absolutely support recall elections. I’m disappointed that the coalition has decided that a recall can only be proposed from the centre – where’s the devolution in that?

I also support open primaries – proper ones – but I’d argue that they should be self-financing and in every constituency, every electoral cycle – so every MP, no matter how safe the seat, has to come back and justify to their voters what they’re up to in the House of Commons.

Similarly (and yes, I know this is a difficult one…) I think there needs to be greater freedom for MPs to say what they actually believe, and fewer whipped votes. There’s a balance to be struck in achieving the agenda of the government of the day, but I can’t see how allowing MPs the freedom to be accountable to their constituents for the manifesto on which they were individually elected can be a bad thing.

Equalising the number of voters per constituency seems an absolute no-brainer, should happen every election, shouldn’t take ten years to implement and should just be got on with. Independent assessment, stop faffing around with street by street appeals – if you’re not happy with being in an area with an MP from X party then get out and persuade your co-constituents to vote for someone else.

Closed lists and related mechanisms are undemocratic – if you’re going to maintain a representative democracy, I want every person elected by whatever means to have a direct link to the people they represent and be fully accountable to them. Simply moving up the list because it’s Buggins’ Turn is not accountable.

More widely, though, I also think that there needs to be a fundamental appraisal of what role we want our MPs to play. Do we want to have 600 (or whatever) glorified councillors, contacting trading standards on our behalf, or do we want people whose intervention really means something, and who hold the government to account?

Basically, we need to remember the experience of reforming the House of Lords. While entirely undemocratic, it did actually function pretty well – there was a huge amount of expertise in the most unlikely areas, and because people weren’t dependant on the party machine, the peers did a relatively good job of ensuring sensible legislation. The mish mash we have at the moment is a nonsense and needs further reform.  We need to remember that softly softly compromise and fudge isn’t always the answer – sometimes we need big bang reforms.

Having spoken to a few MPs since Nick Clegg made his announcement last week (oh and incidentally, I saw him just beforehand, walking along the Embankment practising, which I suppose I really ought to have sent to eyespymp), I suspect that there will be some hefty efforts to change the bill during its passage. Somehow, he seems to have offended everyone in some way – some because they want ‘real’ proportionality, some because they find the very concept of anything but first past the post offensive, and some because… well, because it came from the coalition.

So I’d ask those MPs who are going to take a close interest in this, to ask themselves the real question – what are we trying to fix here? And is this the right way to do it?

Related posts:

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2. How Question Time should have taught David Cameron a lesson