Cameron’s democratic reforms stretch credibility

Published: Tuesday, April 13th 2010

The Electoral Reform Society has expressed profound disappointment at the Conservative Party manifesto launched today. 

“Today David Cameron talks about giving us more control over our lives. Well he could start by giving voters control over their parliament where it really counts - at the ballot box. But the New Politics is impossible thanks to his party’s old prejudices on voting reform.

“The Conservatives seem incapable of understanding the nature of our democratic problems. They want to make “our political system better reflect the people it is meant to represent” but they are not prepared to change to a voting system that would give us a representative parliament.

“Conservatives are stretching credibility beyond breaking point when they talk about “fair vote” reforms and support for our first-past-the-post system in the same breath. This a system that has allowed Labour, with little more than a third of the votes, to do more or less what it liked over the past five years. Could it be that the Conservatives now want their chance to take absolute power without an absolute majority? What about fairness to those who want something different?

“Do they really believe that equalising the size of constituencies will make a big difference? If so, it’s worrying that a party which might be about to go into government has total failed to grasp the problem is simply a feature of the system they want to keep.

“They argue that first-past-the-post makes it possible for voters to kick out a bad government – what we need, however, is a voting system that does not give us a bad government in the first place. “

Contacts
For more information, comment or interviews please contact Ashley Dé on 07968791684 or Dr Ken Ritchie on 07754165551

The Society has recently published findings that suggest the current election is over for over 25 million voters in our safe seats, and has published names of 382 of our new Safe MPs. http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/news.php?ex=0&nid=461

• The Society has listed 382 seats which are ‘Super Safe’ in that they will not change hands even with a landslide on any conceivable scale. The Society points out, however, that there are many more seats where the outcome is a very safe bet, even if an upset is not beyond probability.

• Whole counties such as Cambridgeshire, North Humberside and Northumberland have literally no competitive elections. In many cases a solitary seat is the only area competition such as Surrey, West Sussex, County Durham, Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire

• The Society’s model bases the total voting population at 45,420,808. 26,665,604 live within safe seats where the winner could be declared today. Less than 900,000 live in 3-way marginals.
  
  
• Cities such as Manchester and Merseyside have 3/4 of their seats already decided. London approaches 2/3.

• The make up of the next ‘safe’ Parliament has already been decided. 
  
  

• On a regional basis only East and West Midlands and the South West have more than half their seats in competition. With nearly ¾ decided the North East is easily the most ‘boring’ region in the coming election, closely followed by the East of England