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Tactical Voting Reform

I was reading a blogpost today by Labour MP Tom Harris, who I am inclined to like purely because I confuse him with Labour MP Tom Watson. In it, Harris decries the Liberal Democrats’ proposals for electoral reform.

Electoral reform looks to be coming, and it’s long past time. The current First Past The Post system magnifies majorities — any party winning 51% of the vote in every constituency will have 100% of the Parliamentary seats. (A cynic would think that this is why incumbent governments have been so far unwilling to change it.) In the last election, for example, the Liberal Democrats got 22% of the popular vote, but 18% of MPs, whereas Labour got 35% of the vote and 41% of MPs. A common proposed solution is Proportional Representation (PR), which is what happened at the European Parliament election: each constituency has multiple seats, which are doled out to best match the proportion of votes for each party. This would obviously benefit the Lib Dems and penalise Labour.

The Lib Dems are apparently proposing a Single Transferable Vote system, a form of PR where you also get to nominate a second choice. Harris says they’ve drawn up some ideas for how to divide up these new mega-constituencies that are designed to favour their own MPs as far as possible:

They want electoral reform, not for their own good – oh, no! – but for the good of the nation. … So, rather than leave the drawing of the new boundaries to a politically-neutral body such as the Boundary Commission, the LibDems have helpfully done it themselves. … Simply gerrymandering LibDem-held constituencies using the excuse that their MPs tend to represent rural areas simply isn’t honest. Not that we expect honesty from the Liberals, of course (a prize to the first commenter or Tweeter who claims that by attacking the Liberals I’m betraying my fear of the threat they pose).

Which is all well and good. Possibly they have cynically chosen this variant of PR and this map to maximise the benefit to their party, although the epic smackdown in the comments suggests otherwise. For some reason, I’m inclined to irrationally disregard his opinion because he uses the word ‘gerrymandering’ I have no earthly idea why. But, let’s have a look at Labour’s proposal.

Labour are suggesting Alternative Vote (AV). Here, someone disillusioned with Labour but rightly disgusted by the Conservatives might vote Lib Dem, but nominate Labour as ‘second choice’. In most constituencies that would count as a Labour vote. This is obviously better than a system where left-wing voters are split between two parties and a right-wing minority can seize power, but given how much of Labour’s decline in support has been defection to the Liberal Democrats, it doesn’t look entirely selfless either.

Meanwhile the Conservatives, who despite their own best efforts are still favourites to win the election, don’t seem keen on reform at all, although this could be a part of their cunning electoral strategy of not doing or saying anything at all unless pressed, and then repeatedly U-turning until nobody knows what their position is.

A Heresy Corner commenter for some reason calling him or herself Wasp Box suggested The Report of the Independent Commission on the Voting System as a source of good, unbiased information, and the proposal in there is called Alternative Vote Top Up, which I think is AV with a pool of ‘top-up’ MPs attached to no constituency who would be selected to make sure the overall party numbers were about right. This report was commissioned by Labour, with the Lib Dems’ support, and neither of them are now following its recommendation. So maybe the Liberal Democrats have chosen the system that will benefit them the most, but even granting Harris that, the Lib Dem proposals are a lot better than those of his party, whose own report describes them as “unacceptable”.

I’d say all three major parties are pushing systems that would work out well for them. Quelle surprise. But to me, that just makes Harris’ condescending and sarcastic tone grate that much harder, especially since he’s attacking the one party whose self-interest is nearest to the public interest.

A lengthy political rant. I won’t be cross if you don’t read it.

So the Practice Election is over. I thought it was the European Parliament election, and the local council elections. That’s what I thought it was. But apparently I was wrong and it was just a practice-run for the general election that David Cameron is so keen on. I assume this because I’m being told to vote Conservative “if [I'm] sick of Gordon Brown’s hopeless Govenment”.

The Conservative position at the moment seems to be ‘Vote For Us; We’re Not Labour’. They’ve got a checklist on their leaflet of policies that they support and Labour oppose — which is fine, but they’re bound to differ on some points or they’d be the same party, so unless they explain why these policies are good ideas, they’re saying little more than ‘We Support Our Own Policies’. And they’re all just generically right-wing policies. Everything on the list is in the form ‘voting against EU [blank]‘. I get how they’re not Labour, but they do seem to be UKIP.

Third on the list is ‘Voting to keep the UK’s opt-out from the EU Working Time Directive, allowing people to choose how much overtime they work’. As I understand it, the idea of the Directive is to make sure nobody is forced them to work nominally-voluntary overtime, say by paying them so little that they basically have no choice. I don’t know if I support that, but if I oppose it it’s not because (from the leaflet):

More than three million people in the UK, many working in the health service, have opted out of the Euro-regulations because they rely on overtime to boost their pay to make ends meet.

Maybe I’ve misunderstood this, but it seems to me that if you need to work overtime in order to make ends meet, then you’re being exploited. If you have a full-time job and can’t support yourself on your basic salary, you’re not being paid enough. Unless they all have irresponsibly vast progenies, this isn’t an argument against the Working Time Directive, it’s an argument for a massive increase in the minimum wage and a Working Time Directive. These are surely exactly the people this regulation is designed to protect? Once it’s illegal for them to do the overtime, presumably their employers will be forced to increase their wages, because they’re not going to turn up if the pay isn’t enough to live on. They’ll look for something else and claim benefits in the meantime. Surely that’s exactly the point?

But mostly what makes me cross about the Conservatives lately is their ‘handling’ of the MPs’ Expenses scandal. David Cameron, realising that ‘MPs’ becomes ‘the Government’ in people’s heads, then ‘Gordon Brown’ and then ‘Labour’, keeps standing up in Parliament shouting about how Gordon Brown has ‘lost control’ and ‘isn’t it time to call an election and let the public say how they feel’, all without mentioning that almost all the really bad expenses stories were Tory MPs. Brown can’t control the opposition MPs, therefore there should be an election, at which everyone will vote Conservative because they’re ahead in the polls principally because they swindled their expenses.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t much like Labour either. But I think the extent of their present unpopularity is unfair — it’s caused more by bad timing, Gordon Brown’s inability to control his own facial muscles and the cross-party-at-worst expenses scandal than anything they’ve particularly done wrong — and the Conservatives aren’t better. The Conservatives think anti-science nonsense-fountain Nadine Dorries is a viable MP. Ann Widdecombe, an insane, shouty, far-right lunatic who supported The Master for Prime Minister, is their health secretary. They are, if anything, worse than Labour at almost everything that Labour are unpopular for, but they’ve cunningly exploited it as a selling point anyway because they’re The Opposition, and it’s an easier narrative if you can Vote For Change than if there are inconvenient details like, say, the Liberal Democrats to worry about.

And people fall for it. The council election results are in. The Guardian put them on a map, and it just looks like a map of Britain painted blue. There’s one Lib Dem council, a few with No Overall Control, and the rest are Tory (and a few in a nice sky blue that wasn’t on the key so I don’t know what it means).

There are even fears that the BNP might get a seat on the EU Parliament. That’s almost criminal — they’re not remotely interested in contributing to the running of the EU; they just want cash. A seat on the Parliament comes with £5 million of funding, which they could use to push their racist agenda. You can’t let a racist fringe party have that kind of public money just because you’re upset at MPs. And again, they’re not a protest vote because they’re worse than either Labour or the Conservatives. Okay, so some Labour and Tory MPs fiddled their expenses, but BNP members (they escaped the scandal by cunningly not having any MPs) have made explosives, attacked people, robbed houses, stolen cars and assaulted the police.

And it’s hard to say before the results come out, but apparently there’s a chance they’ll manage it. If they do, I shall blame the Telegraph newspaper. There’s no point blaming the people who voted BNP or the BNP themselves; they’re all idiots or racists or both, and you can’t expect any better of those people. But the Telegraph ought to know better.

The reason I blame the Telegraph is that they were the ones to break the expenses story. And they could have done so properly: reporting the genuinely scandalous examples as such, while praising or quietly ignoring MPs whose expenses claims were perfectly reasonable. Instead, they tried to read a scandal into even the most innocent behaviour, and paint all MPs as equally corrupt. Possibly they did this because targeting the worst offenders is difficult for a historically pro-Tory paper, but it did wonders for the BNP, who immediately started shouting nonsense like ‘punish the pigs’ as if petty revenge was a good reason to vote fascist. Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats, who are less corrupt and less terrifyingly illiberal than any of the above parties, haven’t been doing as well as one might expect, and I put this down to the Telegraph trying to paint them as corrupt for no good reason and the ‘two-party’ false dilemma whereby people unhappy with life under a Labour government automatically side with the Tories without bothering to look up either party’s policies.

Basically, people need to take a good long look at their reasons for voting. ‘Punishing’ the government is not a reason. A demand for vague, unspecified ‘change’ is not a reason. ‘We always vote Labour in our family’ is not a reason. A reason is something like ‘I strongly agree with his policies on Europe and the environment’.

Because it turns out this stuff might be important some day.

What’s next for Cormac Murphy-O’Connor? Shit, no? Seriously?

One of the most senior figures in the Catholic Church in England and Wales has defended his decision to allow a known paedophile to continue working as a priest… The archbishop said he had been acting on advice from professionals at a time when the behaviour of child abusers was not as well understood as at present. … Documents seen by the BBC suggest the archbishop ignored the advice of doctors and therapists who warned that Hill was likely to re-offend. … He later became chaplain at Gatwick Airport where he abused a boy with learning difficulties.

Archbishop Murphy-O’Connor has now agreed that boys abused by the priest should receive compensation, but as part of the settlement they were required not to speak publicly about what happened.

I’ve linked to this story before, but I think it bears repeating, because according to the Times,

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor is on course to become the first Roman Catholic bishop to sit in the House of Lords since the Reformation… The Archbishop of Westminster looks almost certain to be offered a peerage after his retirement, which is expected within weeks.

Gordon Brown’s brilliant plan, then, is to let this man have a direct say in public policy without ever facing an election. This man whose poor judgement allowed children to be abused. This liar and hypocrite. This ardent anti-secularist. This man should be allowed a vote in the houses of Parliament. I’m sorry, no. This man should be sidelined, marginalised and ignored like the unrepresentatively right-wing liar in the increasingly unpopular and irrelevant cult that he so clearly is.

We’ve already had one secretly-Catholic Prime Minister this century, who’s now promoting religion as the answer to everything. The government have opened 84 faith schools in the last 11 years despite polls showing they’re unpopular. Why are they so keen to push faith down our throats? Religion is a great tool for controlling the masses, but it only works if the masses genuinely believe it, and we clearly don’t. Even people who profess faith are generally secularist in politics. This is just going to make Labour even more unpopular than they already are. It’s like they’re throwing this election on purpose.

I can’t see any way of looking at this other than as just one more bizarre gift of power from this government to religion. The alternative is that Brown genuinely believes that Cormac Murphy-O’Connor would be a good member of Parliament.

Frankly, I’m not sure which is scarier.

Your MP Is Probably A Dick. Do Something About That.

I read today on mySociety’s blog about a plan to block the publication of MP’s expenses. They link to two newspaper reports, saying in the Facebook group (although this text has since been replaced) “when the Daily Mail and the Guardian are in full throated agreement, you know something dodgy is happening.” (A couple of hours ago when I started writing this, that group had eighteen members; now it has 119.) According to The Times, too*,

A document from the committee led by Michael Martin, the Commons Speaker, said: ‘It has been argued that it would be excessively burdensome for Members to have provided receipts for all transactions and that additional costs incurred … would be likely disproportionate.’

Which seems almost reasonable except that a reader quickly wrote in to point out that

As a self-employed person I am instructed by my local tax office to keep, log and report all expenses, down to a sandwich or coffee, for five years. Failure to do so will mean I cannot claim these expenses against legitimate business expenses and hence mitigate my tax bill.

MPs don’t just claim the top 28% back from public funds, remember, they get this stuff for free, entirely from taxes. Now I’m not against that, obviously; they have as much right to an expense account as everyone else. (That means they also have as much obligation to let the people paying for it know what they use it for as everyone else. I’m sure we can all think of at least a couple of examples where MPs have been caught abusing this system and their carreers have been damaged as a result. That’s what this would stop.) If they want the self-employed to log these things in exchange for a small fraction of this money, it seems reasonable to suppose they’d be willing to do it themselves for the full amount. But then, it would seem reasonable that if MPs were willing to ban smoking in all workplaces including bars (which again, I support) that they would include in that ban the bars in the Houses of Parliament. It should be a clue that they’re not fit to govern when they enforce rules and then refuse to live by them. It is especially so given that MPs are the people whom it is most important are subject to scrutiny: we entrust them with great power and it’s only fair that we can watch to see what they do with it.

Here is the actual proposal:

This Order amends the entries for the House of Commons and the House of Lords in Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the Act”).  In respect of Members of Parliament it removes most expenditure information held by either House of Parliament from the scope of the Act.

It strikes me as either lazy and stupid or just massively dishonest. The whole premise of democracy rests somewhat on transparency and openness: if the people aren’t given all the information, how are they supposed to make a decision? Worse, if they’re drip-fed information by the government, then they’ll only know things that make the government look good, and that will just serve to keep the same government in power forever.

It’s vitally important that such things are opposed, because systems naturally fall into that rut anyway. For example, the recent Political Parties and Elections Bill Committee discussed making it more difficult for large, well-funded parties to pour endless money into local elections relatively free of scrutiny by working around the rules. That such a bill is needed is a clue that the system is naturally rigged in favour of whoever is in power. That we’ve only ever had two parties in power, or even with a reasonable shot at government. And apparently the discussion was largely controlled by the chairs, who were all Labour and Conservative members, who primarily selected trivial amendments tabled by Labour and Conservative members, and apparently the way these committees work is that rather than continuing until you reach an agreement or have discussed every idea, you talk until four o’clock then call it a day. That’s not democracy; that’s cricket! It even ends up being abused in the same way as the rules of cricket. The upshot is that the rules to stop big parties abusing their positions end up being controlled by big parties, and the people with the power to change that are the people it’s protecting. The only way around it is for the public to be aware and determined, until it stops being viable for MPs to behave that way. After all, they win nothing if they protect the system and immediately get voted out of it. But we’re a very long way from that at the moment.

And now, some MPs are planning on voting themselves out of having to publish details of their expenses. They say this is because it is too time-consuming and expensive to do so (although presumably it would be cheaper in the long run not to give them carte-blanche to buy any expensive telly they’d like), and they cite as an example details already logged, collated and scheduled for publication, which apparently cost the taxpayer £500,000. That being the case, why are the new proposals so carefully timed and retrospectively acting so as to block the publication of those details? They’re effectively free: we’ve paid for them already. There’s no means to an end in blocking them: the only plausible end is simply keeping your spending a secret, and at that, keeping it a secret from the people who end up footing the bill. This, at the same time as they’re trying to design an invasive and frankly rather stupid database containing details of emails, phone calls, internet activity and text messages for everyone in the country whether or not there is even the slightest suggestion that they may have done anything wrong, which they are presumably going to leave on a train or something. The hypocricy that they show in fighting for their own rights and privacy while trampling everyone else’s is staggering. And we only really have one means of recourse:

MPs have the power to keep their expenses secret if they win the vote, but they do not have the power to keep their voting secret. Not only the results of this vote will be published, but also a full list of MPs who backed it, opposed it, and didn’t vote (which, let’s not forget, is a cowardly way of looking like you object while actually helping the bill to pass). Pester yours to vote the right way. Then, after the vote (whether it passes or not), see how they voted. And bear that in mind when you decide if you want to sack them at the next opportunity.

*Actual quote is on page 45 of the Revised Green Book and audit of members’ allowances (link is to PDF). It’s one of those long, massively boring documents that we employ journalists to read for us and never usually know if they do or not. Openness and transparency at their best, isn’t it? This paragraph, by the way, immediately follows one which notes that the committee set up to decide these things reccomended againts exactly this.