Jon Bright (London, OK): As Alex Parsons indulges in some blue sky thinking over reforms to the UK's voting system below, Sunder Katwala mixes the art of engagement with the art of the possible over at the Fabian Review today. It's worth a read. Calling our current system "not fit for purpose" he sketches out the potential price of doing nothing:
It is one minute past ten pm on Sunday 4 May 2013. After a hard-fought campaign, the most expensive pie chart in BBC history spins towards the viewers. Has the New Tory call for 'change' finally worked? Their fetching new sky blue segment at 39 per cent edges the Prime Minister's deeper red back to 37 per cent, and the Lib Dems are squeezed to 21 per cent. Seven nail-biting hours later, Labour is back for a fifth term with a slim working majority of 14. Not because the exit polls got it wrong – they turned out to be uncannily accurate - but because the electoral system did.
Result: meltdown. "Democracy crisis as losing party wins" reports the Times. "Labour's Strange Victory – half a million votes behind", says The Guardian. "Disunited Kingdom: Tory England denied" complains the Telegraph. "Stolen: The Great Election Shambles", shouts the Mail. "No Mandate to Govern", declares The Independent. One question dominates angry radio phone-ins: why weren't we told this could happen?
Unlike the curriculum, it seems unlikely the voting system will become something every government has a bit of a tinker with. Opportunities for change are thin on the ground, and Katwala is calling on campaigners to unite behind what might not be their first choice, but might at least be achievable - AV in the general election, with a second chamber based on PR to mitigate AV's tendency to exaggerate clear victories. Could supporters of electoral reform unite around this compromise? The consequences of not doing so are worth considering.
