Thursday, January 24, 2008

Oh dear, oh dear ...

No, not Peter Hain's resignation, but the Government's Review of UK Voting Systems announced earlier this afternoon ... Statement here and full report here :-(

Now, my views on this issue are well known, but having very quickly read the report released today I just don't think it matches up to the one produced nearly a year ago now by the ERS ... which can be found in full, here.

Deeply disappointing.

... not that anyone will notice, given Hain's resignation :-((

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmm, that report doesn't really say anything that we don't already know, or could work out at least. It's nice to see that there's a modern comparison of techniques, and indeed that it seems that aside from a few slips into the language of "oh no, we can't let minority voices be fairly represented!" it does a lot to say that FPTP isn't superior to PR systems.

I really dearly hope to see some reform on this after the next election.

Andrew said...

Lee

Thanks for the comment - agree with your main point/s.

Personally, I'd much rather have seen change "before" the next election as there's no guarantee of it being an agenda item at all thereafter :-(

Andrew

Anonymous said...

I have to agree, and actually it's a good point, if Tories get in then the likelihood of reform is lessened. However, all the parties are now talking about it in some form which is good. I just can't see Labour introducing a change to voting when they are floundering in the polls to further take seats away from them, as sad as that is.

Andrew said...

Lee

Exactly ... that's the inherent problem with this reform - it needs to be done from a position of strength and that means "giving power away" ...

Andrew