Voting issues
For several years on this website I have bored readers with my resolutely negative view of Western democratic political elites – not least those of all parties within the UK version – because of their patronising attitude towards the voting electorate. I’ve even suggested that anyone displaying signs of harbouring an inclination to go into politics should automatically be barred from doing so as a matter of principle.
As I see it, elections (local or general) are simply part of the game that politicians have to play in order to achieve their ambition – i.e. gaining entry to the exclusive club that is the political establishment. The rules of the game don’t really matter, of course. All the prospective candidates want to know is what the rules are at any specific time in order that they can direct their efforts to securing whatever votes, mandates or proportion of support they require to ‘get in’.
First past the post, proportional representation (in whatever form), block union votes, you devise any other system you like or can dream up, it hardly matters … for our politicians it’s a case of “Look, don’t flaff about, just tell me what the rules are and I’ll get on with it …”.
One of the contentious issues bubbling along during the Tory/Lib-Dem Coalition years (2010 to 2015) and since – and which has recently gone rather quiet recently for reasons I know not [one of the joys of contributing to the Rust is that I don’t have to do too much research if I don’t want to] – was/is the proposal that the people numbers within all national electoral districts (constituencies) should be altered from the current varying mish-mash to, as I understand it, units of roughly 50,000 voters each.
On the face of it, one might think, the concept was not unreasonable, given that – although I’m almost making this up, I don’t think it matters because I’m sure the basic thrust is correct – the current set-up ranges from constituencies with large areas in square miles but sparse populations (at one end of the scale) to others with heavy populations in comparatively small land areas at the other.
However, of course, that wasn’t quite the end of the story.
Once the political scientists, policy wonks, party strategists and journo-pundits had delved into the detail, it rapidly became apparent that the quality of the logic, common sense and theory being applied – being somewhat secondary to the electoral implications of the proposed change – was a controversial issue, depending upon your political and/or party-affiliation viewpoint.
It was easy to spot why the ’50,000 voter constituency’ proposal made eminent sense to the Tory Party, the originators of the wheeze, when it became clear (I’m dragging these figures from the depths of my hazy memory) that it would make an estimated switch of somewhere between 20 and 30 Commons seats from Labour to Tory.
Which is exactly why the Labour Party began jumping up and down on the spot at the proposal, claiming that it was a blatant Tory plot to ‘rig’ the electoral system permanently in their favour.
On the face of it – to this supposedly impartial observer – this added a certain irony to the issue. Even I could see a certain logic behind the concept that ‘equalising’ the number of voters in each constituency would advance some degree of fairness. However, it didn’t seem to me that this was not the grounds of Labour’s objection to the proposal – their indignation was purely directed at the effect of the change if it were put into practice.
In other words, whilst all parties seem to agree that the current long-standing ‘first past the post’ electoral system (with the size and nature of constituencies all over the country decided upon many different bases, some of them historical and now sufficiently obsolete, irrelevant or altered as to render them modern versions of the now much-derided early 19th Century ‘rotten’ and ‘pocket’ boroughs) is in need of review if not updating and development, for purely practical reasons Labour would prefer to retain it rather than move to any newer, supposedly-improved, version that might disadvantage them.
I’m not bashing Labour per se here. I’m sure that in advance the Tories knew all too well that getting behind the idea of bringing in ’50,000 voter’ constituencies would help their cause – just as I’m sure Labour would have been in favour of it had its practical effect been a 20 to 30 seat-advance for their Party … and (by the same token in the same circumstances) the Tories would have been crying ‘Foul!’ and opposing it.
From time to time the old chestnuts of Proportional Representation (PR) and political ‘breast-beating’ about voter apathy come to the surface with monotonous regularity. I regard both as mere exercises in political navel-gazing and – whilst enjoying the debates when they happen – don’t take either very seriously because, from where I’m sitting, the political elite are simply playing ‘the game’ when discussing them.
As I’ve said previously on many occasions, politicians only consult the voters in order to secure supposed ‘democratic legitimacy’ for their ascent into the political establishment.
Once their votes have propelled them into an MP’s seat (irrespective of the range of reasons for them being given, e.g. even if the voter was simply intending to register a protest against another candidate or party), they are cited thereafter as an endorsement of everything that the winning candidate subsequently does or says in Parliament or on the airwaves.
The fundamental paradox for Western democratic politicians lies in the very fact they have to consult voters at all. It’s an inconvenient necessity because, although everyone wants to pay lip service to democratic principles, history proves over and over again that – if you consult ‘the people’ – you might not like the answer you receive.
It’s why supposedly-complex (morally-difficult) issues such as capital punishment and ‘assisted dying’ rarely get addressed – or are quietly buried – in Parliament: politicians know, or suspect they do, that the ordinary voter in the street would vote in favour of them. Just like, if the public gets a chance to suggest names for a polar research ship pending an open popularity contest to decide the winner, you get a ship named Boaty MacBoatface.
The latest ‘old chestnut’ to make a comeback is the concept of compulsory voting – see here for Polly Toynbee’s latest piece as appears on the website today of – THE GUARDIAN
I’m completely neutral on this one, regarding it as I do as probably irrelevant.
If voting ever did become genuinely compulsory, I’d place a penny to a pound that in some constituencies either ‘spoiled ballot papers’ and/or some wacky ‘Monster Raving Loony Party’ candidate might well gain the majority of votes.
People these days have become so disillusioned with politicians that any opportunity to cock a snook at them has its attractions – I know it would for me!
