There is no doubt that the recent MP expenses scandal has more to do with the personal greed of MPs and their low morality than the system.
While you can improve things by tinkering with the system the system doesn’t think or make decisions and the low morality really needs to be addressed. That’s what you get when you have a bunch of lawyers running the country- as long as something is legal that means it is moral, to a lawyer they are the same thing.
I remember having an argument with a barrister on this some years ago, and he just could not get it. To him, the law and ethics, they are the same thing. If it is legal then it is ok, even if a murderer gets away with it. So that is the kind of mentality people are dealing with here, kind of a different species lawyers.
The point of this article is that in the scramble by the politicians to look good and reform the political system the specter of Proportional Representation (PR) has once again raised its head This is mainly promoted by the Liberal Democrats, who cannot get enough votes in the First Past the Post System. PR is a fair system on paper but doesn’t pass close scrutiny, I don’t like it and this is why.
The Political system currently in use in the United Kingdom, U.S.A and many other countries is called the “First Past the Post System (FPTP). This is a system of democracy where a country is divided into districts and the candidate who gets the most votes in an election for a district wins a seat in the government, or the legislative assembly in provincial and territorial elections. The leader of the party which wins the highest number or seats, rather than the party with the highest percentage of the overall vote is asked to form the government.
Other country’s elections such as those in Australia and the EU are run on Proportional representation (PR) This is a system of democracy aimed at a close match between the percentage of votes that groups of candidates (grouped by a certain measure) obtain in elections and the percentage of seats they receive. There are various forms of PR but they all conform to the principle that all voters should be represented in government according to the overall percentage of votes they obtain in an election. I am not a fan of this system.
Both systems are flawed in that they rely on accurate information being given to the electorate, and they also rely on all parties having equal access to communication mediums such as newspapers, TV, Radio and the Internet.
Some countries hold token elections every now and then, but the media is completely controlled by the ruling party. This gives them a big advantage and they usually get elected, but if the propaganda fails they simply fake the result. But these countries are really only pretending to be democracies for Public Relations purposes.
That bloke in North Korea apparently gets voted in every few years, not too difficult when you are the only candidate standing. The recent Iranian election results were faked. But these aren’t democracies; they are a one party system pretending to be a democracy.
But provided there is a reasonable equal access to the lines of communication and the media the first past the post system is the one that works best. This doesn’t mean it is the best possible system; it is just the best form of democracy we have now- but why?
On the face of it PR looks good, everyone gets a say, it is fair, but in government fair is not always the best.
Firstly government requires a certain degree of leadership. This is not possible in a government that attempts to represent every single view and base its decisions on this. It makes it very hard to get a good decision, and the decision process is too slow.
Legislation and vital decisions can be abandoned, making it very difficult to get any decisions about anything. As an experiment try putting a socialist, a capitalist, an anarchist and a fascist in a room together and tell them to come up with a coherent plan to run the country. One of two things will happen.
Either there will be violence as everything degenerates into a massive argument or they will “agree” on some sort of weird hybrid policy that they all agree on but it won’t actually work. This is what happens when leadership is replaced by the obsessive desire for consensus and fairness..
The second objection I have to PR is the voice it gives to nutty minorities.
The basic principle of PR is the idea that everyone who votes is proportionately represented. What this means is if 2% of the population are violent racists they should get a voice in government, or if 5% support the legalization of drugs (something the majority of the population is against) then they should get a couple of seats in government. It is quite plainly crazy and unworkable.
Just because a small minority are mad or evil it doesn’t mean they should get a say in how the rest of us are governed. Yet there are lots of people who actually believe this is the “fair” way of doing things. I wish people would stop being so politically correct..
Reform the electoral system by all means but remember that good government comes from following the wishes of the majority and by fast decisions and leadership and this is not possible under PR.
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