Anyway, I wrote thusly:
Dear PPC's,
I live in the Blaydon constituency. I would like to know if you understand the need for real change in this election.
I think that among the most strategic issues in this election, because it affects so many other areas of urgent concern is the following.
According to recent polling, there's a possibility that a party that comes third in terms of share of the vote will actually have the largest number of seats in Parliament.
Whatever your party, I hope you agree that this is grossly unfair to voters and a perversion of democracy. First-past-the-post is increasingly unfair and limits electoral choice. We need and demand change.
As a voter in your constituency, I want you to know that I will only support a candidate who will commit to a referendum on the introduction of a proportional voting system during the next Parliament.
Will you make that commitment? (I should also point you to the research of the electoral reform society that the AV system would be even less proportional).
I got a good reply from the Lib Dem candidate (no surprise there, given their manifesto). I was a more than a little disappointed in the response of the incumbent Labour candidate:
will commit to the issues that are in my Parties manifesto and that means arguing fior a referendum on an AV system.
I understand the demand for change and I feel we in Labour are responding to that demand. But changing to a system that produces leaders like Silvio Berlusconi would not be progressive change.
If he'd just stopped with the party policy ... anyway my reply probably tells you how cross the tone and content of that made me:
Thank you, Dave, for your response.
I understand your reluctance to go beyond your party's manifesto.
However, you should have stopped there; if your argument against considering a more equitable system for voting is Silvio Berlusconi, then I will have to conclude that you do not really understand the issue or are being dismissive. As someone with involvement in teaching, I'd have to say such an answer, especially in its implications, would not pass muster in GCSE citizenship. As Marge Simpson said: "There are so many things wrong with that, I don't know where to begin." I would hope that a professional politician would be able to engage in such a fundamental area of debate in a more knowledgeable way.
If you do decide to go beyond party policy and debate the merits of electoral systems, then please don't make dismissive and cavalier remarks. Ironically, it seems to illustrate the problem of an candidate in a safe seat not having to engage with other perspectives and finding convenient arguments to keep the system pretty much as it is.
I hope I'm wrong on that last point.
As things stand, I am disturbed to find that the 'value' of my vote in this constituency is far less than one and I would hope that my elected representatives would want to do something substantial to restore our democratic rights. (See http://www.voterpower.org.uk/).
In case you're wondering what is wrong with it...
first off, the implication is that a PR system produces corrupt politicians. Well, the facts don't support that -neither in terms of looking at countries with PR systems or in terms of making a direct link between PR and the way that corruption originates and is sustained in that case -reading the news etc it doesn't seem to be down to PR but to more ordinary abuses which could be shared in a fptp system. In fact, it's arguable that Berlusconi is able to act corruptly (assuming the allegation may be correct) because of the kinds of forces in society, media and process that can be paralleled in our own country (and indeed could be magnified by the fptp system).
Then there those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Surely a party system that can impose unpopular decisions having gained a parliamentary majority for 40% of the vote -or less! When we have a system that allows votes to count roughly equally, then we can criticise another country's democratic decisions. Remember which party and which system took this country into Iraq.
And then, it ignores the fact that there does seem, both factually and in terms of logic, to be a link between MPs in safe seats and dodgy practice in terms of expenses. Not universally, but enough to suggest that a system that creates safe seats is a 'rotten borough' system and should be reformed.
Furthermore, I am not advocating we adopt the Italian system, necessarily. But New Zealand and Germany don't seem to do too badly with it, or Japan. If PR is so bad why have we allowed it for EU, London, Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland? Why did the Labour government's own commission recommend a version of it? (Not the one being proposed for plebiscite by Labour now, btw, but rather one rather like Holyrood). Indeed, 'we' with the USA imposed it on Germany as part of the post-war settlement because it's a good democratic system and likely to work against elective dictatorship. Sauce for the goose ... ?
Winston Churchill is meant to have said once that 'democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time'. Well, that kind of goes for the electoral systems: PR is not perfect, but the alternatives really are worse and of those fptp and AV are the worst of the worst.
Dave Anderson - Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Blaydon, UK, official website
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