Political Economy

The fact that there are so many voting systems in use around the world implies that the choice of system is more likely to rest on cultural values and context rather than on some scientifically developed, or socially accepted, theory.

The referendum today appears to be heading towards a defeat for the proposal to change to the Alternative Vote (AV) system. If that happens it will be a disaster on two levels.

On the level of national democracy we have been subject to an increasing number of parliamentary seats where the winner fails to win a majority of the votes. That means that the MP has failed to get democratic legitimacy for their position and is entitled to act in any way they wish, no matter how inimical that may be to the majority of voters who voted against them, provided they protect the interests of the minority. Currently only around 200 out of 630 seats in the House of Commons enjoys democratic legitimacy and this figure has been falling for decades. Under the current voting system it will continue to fall.

It is a disaster on the level of the English Democrats whose objective is a devolved parliament and government for England, the achievement of which will have been set back by decades by this vote. This is because under AV the winner has to get more than half of the votes (assuming all candidates are ranked by all voters). Since more than 60% of English voters want an English parliament and since more than 60% of seats currently fail to get a majority,  some, perhaps many, of the candidates would have to adopt support of devolution for England as part of their programme. Or if not devolution a referendum on leaving the EU! What’s not to like about that!

An early move to devolution for England will only happen if one of the major parties takes up the policy. Under AV it is reasonable to forecast that we would have an English parliament within 10 – 20 years. Under first-past-the-post system a better forecast is 60 – 80 years, if ever.

In a rational world all English Democrats would support AV but they do not; all those who say they believe in democracy, in the sense of rule by the majority, would support AV, but they do not; all those who want a voting system whose subtlety allows them to express their choices in an increasingly pluralistic world would choose AV, but they do not.

There appear to be two main arguments against AV. One is the principle of “One man One Vote” and the second is that it is “too difficult for people to understand”.

The first principal appears to come first from the USA where the framers of the constitution were keen to ensure that the number of seats in the federal Congress was apportioned on the basis of population so that equal population numbers gave rise to equal numbers of representatives and so, and this is the key issue, an equal chance to gain resources from the federal government http://bit.ly/kRzW4G.

In this sense the people of England have not had “One man, One vote” since the start of the Goschen formula in 1888 which was the start of systems to give more money to the People of Scotland and we are unlikely to ever have it in England. The “One man, One vote” mantra is in fact an argument for the equalisation of government funding on a ‘per head’ basis through the UK.   That Mr Cameron understands this interpretation is shown by his plan to equalise the number of voters in each constituency. In reality he wants to increase the likelihood of more conservative seats and hence more government resources to the Conservative Party money men. That he will not use the principal in its original form to make funding fairer in the UK is axiomatic – to do so would lose any chance of building up a significant number of conservative MPs in Scotland and Wales.

However most people will understand the slogan as meaning that one person has only one vote in an election. What they do not understand is that meaning in England dates only from the post-World War II period when most, but not all, plurality of voting was stopped http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_person,_one_vote. So Cameron’s claim that “One Man, One vote” has served this country well for centuries is false, and as a student of politics at Oxford he knows it is false.

Could you enhance the democratic legitimacy of the current system? Yes and quite easily. You run the elections in a series of rounds, each round separated by perhaps a week or less and with no campaigning between rounds. At each round if no one has more than half the votes one or more candidates is eliminated and the voting goes through to a second round where once again the electors cast their one vote. No one has more than one vote in the voting ‘pool’ at any one time. This goes on until one candidate has more than half the vote. It is tedious but it ensures democratic legitimacy and it is fair. It is called, in the USA, a run-off system of voting.

But AV is merely an ‘instant’ form of the run-off voting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_vote. AV ensures that no one has more than one vote in the voting pool at any one time and, like run-off voting, ensures that everyone has one vote in the voting pool all the time, if they wish. So if you like FPTP and you want democratic legitimacy you should like AV!

The second reason that ‘NO’ people go for is that AV is too difficult for some of us to understand (actually they mean “some of you”). In 1963 I became an apprentice in an explosives factory. One of the weekly rituals was placing a bet on the horses (but not by apprentices!). The work of collecting the bets on behalf of the bookie and calculating the odds of the complex bets that were placed was given to the labourer.

Now in the industrial triad of Journeyman-apprentice-labourer the latter was definitely bottom of the heap. Yet the labourer could do more complex calculations of odds than I could then, and probably even now. That was when I learnt that anyone can learn just about anything provided they are motivated to do so and have the time, means and persistence. That was also the time when I realised how arrogant I had been. If you want to see how simple AV is then review the ‘choice of crisps’ analogy in this leaflet

Attending the lectures of Prof. Hans Morgenthau at the University of Chicago I learnt that in a democracy, when the people realise that they no longer have the means to control their state, violence becomes ‘existential’. If violence does occur then the people to blame are the political elites who allowed this situation to arise.

How we vote is one of the many means we have to preserve out control, but only if the mechanism works. FPTP does not work in today’s England because it cannot deliver democratic legitimacy.

That is why, if the referendum vote today goes against AV, the issue will come back. The fight is not over!

So says the National Museum of Afghanistan. If you go and visit the current exhibition at the British Museum you will get some idea of how ancient this culture is http://bit.ly/fzBANs.

The Taliban famously tried to destroy the culture by destroying its artifacts and inflicting their strict version of Islam on the country. Whilst much was destroyed the curators of the museum secreted the objects away that are now on display. They were only able to bring them back on display in 2003 once NATO had driven the Taliban out.

Afghanistan has had numerous groups come and go over the millennia.  Some of the golden artifacts on display were over 4000 years old and belonged to a bronze age civilization with what appear to be links to Mesopotamia.

The Greeks arrived under Alexander the Great and built the great city now known as Ai Khanum. This city was lost in antiquity and was replaced by a local civilisation, then by Persia, India, the Mongols and so on.

But however courageous are the curators of museums the Afghan culture or for that matter the English culture will not stay alive unless it stays alive in the hearts and actions of the people.

The Labour plan to crush English culture by allowing wave after wave of mass immigration to swamp our schools, to change the way of life of the people of England, to denigrate the very name “England” will not be ended by the wholly inadequate measures of the coalition government.

The policies of the English Democrats will do this. Having a devolved parliament and government of England, with fiscal devolution on devolved matters, will allow the English culture to be protected and promoted just as the Scottish culture is in Scotland and the Welsh culture is in Wales.

A referendum to leave the EU and the end to all mass immigration will allow immigration on the basis of fitness for the job and for a limited period only when no local people can do the work.

The removal of all illegal immigrants and a strict application of the convention on asylum which requires refugees to settle in the nearest safe country to their own will reduce the excessive demand being placed on hospitals, schools and housing.

Giving local people priority in housing will not only return natural justice to the social housing market, it will make England a less desirable place to emmigrate to.

Putting an end to multiculuralism and expecting everyone in their public life to respect and follow English values and ways of doing things, including speaking English for all residents, will protect and expand English culture.

Putting an end to political correctness will mean that the large amounts of money spent, and wasted, in this area can be directed towards the less well-off young and elderly.

The suspension of the European Human Rights act and its replacement by a sensible English variation will allow the deportation of immigrants and asylum seekers, who commit crimes, to their country of origin. In a number of cases this will cause those intent on criminality to think twice about their actions.

Policies like these are often branded as racist by knee-jerk anti-English groups. But actually not one of these policies is based on racial or ethnic criteria. English Democrat policies are based on a cultural identity. Englishness resides in the heart and so can be adopted by any person of good will.

If you want to preserve the culture of England as a living thing, as a matter of the heart, rather than an artifact in a museum, the Conservative party will not do this, the Labour party will not do this,  the Liberal-Democrats will not do this nor will UKIP, not the Greens and certainly not the BNP.

Only the English Democrats are wholly committed to the fundamental proposition that “A Nation stays Alive when its Culture stays Alive”. Vote English Democrats on the 5th May.

For democracy to be seen to done in an election the candidate chosen must get more than 50% of the vote. If this does not happen you get the situation that we in the UK are familiar with. Candidates and governments are elected with less, sometimes much less than half of the votes cast. To get around this the French use the “run-off” system in their Presidential elections. In this, if the leading candidate does not have more than 50% of the vote, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and the voters are called back to vote again. This continues until one candidate gets more than half the votes. Such a system ensures that a minority President, or government, cannot be elected. It is democratic and it is fair. But, with its multiple rounds of voting, it is arduous and time consuming.

The Alternative Vote system is nothing more nor less than a run-off voting system where you have to make you choices in how you would vote in subsequent voting rounds at the time you cast your first vote. It gives all the advantages of run-off voting such as fairness and democratic governments whilst avoiding the time and arduousness of the original version. (For more on the technicalities see the Note at the end of this blog.)

The already low standards of the “NO” to the Alternative Vote (AV) Referendum continue to drop.

Listening to BBC radio 4 on Saturday (19/3/2011) it transpires that a reason to vote “No” is that the AV will give someone who votes for the British Nationalist Party (BNP) a second vote. Notice that the speaker did not say that a reason to vote “No” was that it gave a Labour (or a Conservative, or a Liberal Democrat) voter a second vote! I do not like the BNP, but then I do not like the Conservatives, Labour or the Liberal Democrats either. However I do not make my dislike a reason to deprive a fellow citizen of their democratic voting rights.

The implication is clear. If you vote BNP, a legally registered political party, then you are not worth giving an alternate choice to. How fascist can you get?

I have said it before. The “No” campaign have used lies, deceit, anti-democratic and now fascist arguments to support their views.

A vote for the “No” campaign is a vote for a continuation of the status quo in our already creaking democracy. The speaker for the “Yes” campaign pointed out that the high point in the two-party system in England was in the 1951 election and that this was also the high point for the “first past the post” voting system. Now in a pluralistic political era we, the voter, desperately need a voting system that reflects the political realities and allows us the flexibility to vote in a way that reflects these multiple choices whilst giving us only candidates, and government, who have a majority of the votes.

Those who believe that the way to democracy is to cut voting costs should remember that this is what dictators believe. The fact that the “No” campaign believes this is no accident.

In reality what is not to like about the Alternative Vote system, the efficient, fair and democratic replacement for the run-off voting system?

Note for Readers.

Some voting systems require the voters to vote again if no candidate has more than 50% of the vote. At subsequent voting the bottom candidate of the previous round is eliminated.

The Alternative Vote System is an example of “Instant Run-off Voting. You have the choice to rank candidates – 1, 2, 3 and so on. When the votes are counted the candidate with most votes, provided this is more than 50% of the votes cast,  is elected. If no candidate has more than 50% then the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and their votes are given to their second choice. ALL the votes are now counted again and if no one has more than half the votes the new ‘last’ candidate is eliminated. This continues until a candidate has a majority. See Wikipedia

On the 5th May we in England will have our first opportunity, ever, to vote on the voting system that is used to elect MPs.

Let me say that again. “we in England will have our first opportunity, ever, to vote on the voting system that is used to elect MPs.”

Notice that I am not including the Scots or Welsh in this since they have already had a choice to vote in matters like this. It is only the English that will have this opportunity for the first time. The English who, remember, invented the parliamentary system and representative democracy are, at last, being allowed to vote on something that is of reasonable constitutional importance.

Perish the thought that we might actually vote ‘Yes’. Were we to do so we might get ideas above our station, ideas that we can actually change things, dangerous ideas that there are perhaps other things that we should change!

It is interesting therefore to review the ‘No’ vote campaign’s leaflet to see how they intend to steer us away from this dangerous action.

First off they claim that AV is not fair because some people will have their vote counted five or six times. Well I have some news  for the ‘No’ campaign. My vote hasn’t counted for 20 years. There are some people whose vote has never counted over 50 or 60 years – assuming that they still bother to vote. The fact is that the current system is undemocratic and broken. The ‘No’ campaign state that  the ‘First Past the Post’ system has served us well for hundreds of years whereas in reality the system has been failing increasingly since the introduction of universal suffrage in the last century.

The ‘No’ campaign have an equally dodgy approach to finance and budgets. They claim that machines will have to be used and that these will be very costly. Well so they might, in the first year. The next time and the time after that and after that, they will cost nothing because the machines will already have been purchased! And of course the greater speed of machines could mean that there will be savings in manpower, not just at the count, but also in the broadcasting organisations. It might be that the cost of a general election would actually go down.

But not only do the ‘No’ campaign begrudge the cost of machines to bring our vote counting practices into the 21st century, they also begrudge the cost of democracy, and hence democracy itself. Apparently the cost of holding referendums, and hence referendums themselves, is something we should not be countenancing.

I will not go into the advertising campaign claiming that the referendum is causing the deaths of babies and soldiers. Such deceit is a hallmark of the abysmal level to which public standards have fallen and which we the people must battle to raise.

All-in-all the ‘no’ campaign is hostile to democracy, solidly behind the hold that the two major parties have over parliamentary seats, indulges in deceitful financial analysis and is an example of the appallingly low standards which pass for good practice in public life today.

Vote ‘No’ if you must, but do not complain over what it will cost you in the future.

A Windy Stevenage Town Centre

Standing behind a pasting table draped in the English flag and carrying English Democrats election material is an interesting experience. Even if the location is draughty and there is no sun.
Nature, being the perverse entity she is, ensures that when you are walking the streets it is sunny, hot and windless!
It is at times like this that you need cheering up. And the people of Stevenage have never failed to come up trumps.
During a very hot afternoon this week I was delighted to be invited in for a cup of tea. Thank you Edward.
My election address was delivered this week and today, Friday, a number of people stopped by the stand and said how much sense it made. One even said they had voted for me on their postal vote!
So a big thank you to the people of Stevenage. I hope you give me the opportunity to return the favour!
Posted from my Palm Pre using the ‘Poster’ application.

Imagine that you are getting to the end of a not very good meal at your local restaurant. The dessert menu has arrived and you see that only ice cream is still available. Worse still there are only three flavours, vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. You have tried all of them before and found some fault with each. However you are still hungry so you decide to choose, somewhat peversily,  your least favourite flavour, strawberry, in the hope that this time it might be more appealing.

As your ice cream arrives you notice that another table of three is getting quite different flavours, passion fruit and mango, mint chocolate chip and rum and raisin. You complain to the waiter who tells you that he has decided to offer only the three largest sellers as this makes his job easier. To get the others you have to know to ask.

You would quite rightly be upset and probably make a complaint. But this sort of thing is happening all the time at election hustings up and down the country. Only the three largest parties are allowed on the panel and the smaller parties have to make do with submitting their responses in written form for later publication in the hope that some voters may read them.

The silly thing is that with the planned televised debates you are going to hear what these three main parties think. Even worse is the fact that these are the parties who have run parliament for decades and are the primary architects of the mess we are in.  Limiting the panel in this way ensures that the innovative solutions that the smaller parties are espousing may not see the light of day. It is also constraining the democratic process in a way that will increase the likelihood of an adverse outcome for the country.

People are likely to vote for what they hear, or not vote at all. Worse still if there is a hung parliament it will consist of the three larger parties fighting it out to get their old fashioned and out of date ideas accepted. Any negotiation is likely to be along the lines of “You accept this stale policy of ours and we will accept one of your stale policies”. Melding one stale idea with another has little chance of creating one new idea. Or to put it another way. If you have one thousand monkeys typing stale ideas out for a million years the chance they will create one new idea is small.

It will be as though you complained to the waiter and all he could offer as compensation was Neapolitan ice cream with layers of  vanilla-chocolate-strawberry. The fact that you like not one of the flavours makes no difference.

Now you might remark that as the English Democrats Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Stevenage that I would say all of that wouldn’t I? But the fact remains that the English Democrats party does have an important contribution to make.  First we are an English nationalist party in the same way that the SNP are a Scottish nationalist party or Plaid Cymru are a Welsh nationalist party. We will put England first just as the SNP puts Scotland first and Plaid puts Wales first. The English Democrats are the only party that is committed to putting England first. English voters might welcome such voting option as election day approaches and the demands for yet more money by the SNP and Plaid become yet more strident.

Secondly we are the only party with a well thought through but radical alternative to the current constitutional settlement. Our plans have matured over the last eight years and are not a knee-jerk reaction to current problems. So have the rest of the policies in our Manifesto

Thirdly we are not that small anyway. In the 2009 European elections over 280,000 people in England voted for the English Democrats – compare this to around 321,000 for the SNP and 127,000 for Plaid. We will soon be the largest nationalist party in the UK. We plan to field over 100 candidates in the Parliamentary election, much more than the SNP or Plaid. The Alliance for Democracy, of which the English Democrats are a founding member, plans to field 300 or more candidates.

We are in a critical election period. A recent survey said that 38% of the population wanted a hung parliament. It is quite possible that as the election date gets closer this proportion will increase. But do voters know what they wish for? A hung parliament of the three main parties plus the nationalist parties of Scotland and Wales will lead to an unprincipled grab for yet more English taxpayers money for the already over-paid Scots and Welsh.  The three main parties will eagerly connive in this, driven as they are by ego and bombast rather than a true love of country. They have already shown themselves  happy to sell the English down the road in order to get an opportunity to implement their already degraded ideas. They will not stop at this. For the English it will be a bit like a vanilla-chocolate-strawberry Neapolitan ice cream with an added extra – a layer of strong mustard!

The results of this will not be pretty. A severe reaction by the English leading to civil unrest, riots and mayhem by a nation that has already signalled that it has had enough is an almost certain outcome of this scenario.

And all for the want of not allowing the voter to see the full range of ideas and parties open to them. How sad can you get?