Vote For The Alternative

Tomorrow the British public will go to the ballot box for a referendum on electoral reform. Most people, I suspect, won’t actually vote at all, either because of a general disaffection with politics or because the condescending metaphorical bickering between the two camps has put them off (referring to the choices in terms of foodstuffs or sporting events has been bordering on the ridiculous at times). Personally, I urge people to vote Yes to the Alternative Vote (AV) for reasons of proportionality. It is too easy under the current first-past-the-post system for political parties to win more parliamentary / council seats when they have not got the majority of the votes; whereas AV, by taking into consideration second preferences of people who voted for other candidates will make sure that any winning candidate has more than 50% of the votes before winning the seat, thereby also ensuring that any aspiring politician has to appeal to a broader range of voters rather than taking any ‘safe’ seat for granted. I realise of course that most right-wingers will vote No because the current system benefits the Conservative Party, and most left-wingers (like myself) will vote Yes because they want to see more opportunities for smaller parties to have a chance of gaining some influence; but I honestly do believe that AV is a fairer system in distributing people’s votes, so no-one should refuse to vote Yes simply because they dislike Nick Clegg! You can still register your protest against him by (at the same time) voting for a different party in the local council elections. However, I fully expect to be disappointed when the results come in, as polls are currently saying that the right-wing elite in this country is taking control, as always.

Congratulations To Democracy

Finally, something good to report. Ed Miliband has become the new leader of the Labour Party. It would have been disastrous if his big brother David had won the election as all three leaders of the main parties would have been virtually identical. But now we have a distinctly different leader in Ed; someone who is principled rather than consumed by spin. It's unfortunate that it took the trade unions to get him the job - if it had been left to party members or MPs they would have handed it to David, the Tony Blair wannabe - but at least the right result was achieved in the end. And even though Ed would never admit to this himself, I hope he throws New Labour in the dustbin and goes back to a time before Blair changed the whole concept of what the Labour Party was meant to stand for, i.e. the working class. Incidentally, the voting system used in this election was the Alternative Vote, so let's hope people take that into consideration next year when we get to decide in a referendum on our general electoral system; AV is much fairer than Proportional Representation. But that issue can be discussed another time; for now, well done Ed!