6 Reasons for enjoying the General Election 2010: Pts..2 & 3

Reason 2: Exposure of the Electoral System

The first past the post system can work quite well in some constituencies. This will depend on how many candidates stand and what the predominant political views are. Take for example a constituency in one of the old coal mining areas where the sitting Labour MP could have a majority of 20,000 or more. If a Conservative stood there would be little chance that the Labour candidate would not be a clear winner with the Conservative getting a very small share of the votes. In more mixed constituencies with a three way split and possibly with several small parties, it can happen that the winning candidates will have had more votes cast against them, than for. If the total votes cast for the winners opponents exceeds the the winners votes, the split vote, rather than the winners popularity, has brought about the victory.

A similar situation can arise nationally with the total votes cast for each party There is much talk at the moment of the Labour Party winning the majority of the seats despite being third in the current opinion polls. There is a real risk that Gordon Brown will have to be asked by the Queen to form a Government because his party won more seats than the other parties put together despite being second or third in the national popular vote when all the votes are divided up between the parties. Lack of popularity does not always prevent a party winning.

It is these two forms of what may be called, 'the popular vote contradiction' which could be exposed by the coming election results one and for all. This always happens to varying extents in most elections but the present position of Labour in the polls and the growing popularity of the LibDems due to the Clegg effect, is raising expectations. Given that Gordon Brown has not yet been elected as the PM, not even by his own party, to return to power with a third rate popularity vote could be too much for many voters to tolerate. The popular vote contradiction will not just cause academic interest but public outrage and disillusionment in equal measure. Perhaps this is why PM Brown is promoting a watered down form of proportional representation to head the opposition off at the pass. Even this decision seems beyond him as he has promised a referendum. Where did I hear that before?

Granted, the first past the post system normally has the advantage of giving a clear cut decision but this is by no means guaranteed in this General Election. In any case more and more people will come to realise that a clear cut decision should not be achieved at the cost of fairness.

Reason 3: The Hung or Balanced Parliament

The British Constitution is a story of the Executive gradually conceding power from the top down. Often the concessions have been begrudging and have often turned out to have been rather thin. Starting with the Reform Act of 1832 it took just short of 120 years to arrive at one person one vote. Lets hope that we do not have to wait much more than the 170 years we have been enduring an unsophisticated electoral system which has favoured one branch or the other of the political establishment. On this occasion the usual model may not deliver that certainty and a House of Commons with no clear party majority will emerge. The Queen, acting as a Constitutional Monarch is perfectly well equipped to deal with this situation even if the Cabinet Secretary thinks it is necessary to have a special contingencies plan in place just in case some constitutional nightmare was about to be acted out on the black tarmac of Whitehall or the red tarmac of the Mall. The electorate may not understand the rarely applied conventions about choosing someone to try and form a Government but it will be the Queens task to find someone in the House of Commons who would enjoy sufficient confidence to form a Government. In such situations that person does not even have to a leader from any of the parties but would in such a case have to be an outstanding character. Unfortunately there are not likely to be many of them in the next House of Commons so one of the party leaders would be the most likely. I can however imagine Vince Cable being considered if the financial establishment gets the jitters at seeing the UK preparing a coalition government. This is rather strange since first past the post voting systems are the exception rather than the rule and probably has more to do with not having a Conservative government more than anything else. In any case the Constitutional Monarch has to tread carefully, lsien to the advice of her Prime Mister Mr Brown and then consult with the other party leaders. She can asl the advice of anyone she likes and has a large number of Privy Councillors to choose from. As most people have no idea that this is the only real political job she has it is bound to be misunderstood by many. Hence the need for caution and her long experience should provide it. That is why a Monarch is never out of the country when an election result is due. If a coalition works then electoral reform will be inevitable as the electorate will want a voting system in which such outcomes are more likely. If so there will be more work for the Queen.

So, will my enjoyment of the prospect of a hung Parliament be translated into seeing the actual thing come to pass. We will know whether it is likely by the small hours of the 7th May,but if it is really on the cards, the following week will be taken up with a lot of toing and froing between Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. Even if all of this is new to the Cabinet Secretary I can assure you that the Monarch will have seen much of it before. It is at times like these that I am pleased that our Chief Executive is not in place because of being an elderly political time server. We have had a glimpse of that model with Speaker Martin's career. Ironically, she is not only elderly but she is pursuing her specialist subject on behalf of her subjects because of an even more unacceptable political device from ancient times, the hereditary principle. Having seen the creatures that modern political systems too often throw up, so to speak, as Presidents, I am at lost to suggest a reliable alternative. Hey ho.

Dacier