This will be a short post because I drank too much last night. This doesn't usually happen. I'm typically able to function quite well the next morning. Kinda pride myself on it. But last night there was Soho and then there was some kind of jazz performance somewhere, and then quite late into the evening I remember asking for multiple martinis, at least one of which I smashed on the floor. And now I am in pain. I got a McDonalds breakfast but its usual healing powers are not working and I think I will have to go back to bed and groan and generally feel a deep sense of baseless foreboding.
But just quickly before I go do that:
They made one last attempt to stitch it up. A little while back, in a move which really deserved far more attention than it got, the Conservative party made one final attempt to rig the electoral game in their favour.
Back in July 2021, the elections bill was introduced in parliament. It seemed fairly innocuous. And then, late in the day, ministers proposed an amendment, without prior consultation. They were going to change the voting system in both the mayoral and the policing and crime commissioner (PCC) elections from the supplementary vote (SV) to first-past-the-post (FPTP).
Of course they did. Supplementary Vote actually allows people a high degree of choice. They get to make two preference votes, which tends to translate to one vote with the heart and one with the head. You usually opt for one party you want to win and another you can live with. I find it rather beautiful. It tries to encapsulate people's ideal outcome and their pragmatic one, which is a fine accomplishment.
First-past-the-post, on the other hand, is very binary. Winner-takes-all. It does very well for the Conservative, who usually dominate the preferences of the right. So very quietly, they switched the system. The principle that changes to the electoral system should be treated with particular sensitivity was utterly ignored. They just forced it through using the government majority.
Earlier this month, the deputy director of the UCL Constitution Unit, Alan Renwick, assessed what the impact was in the May 2nd elections in a series of blog posts which you can read here and here.
What was the impact on democracy? Terrible. "SV", he concluded, "is clearly more democratic than FPTP for single executive offices. All the major parties – including the Conservatives – seem to recognise that by using transferable vote systems… to elect their leaders." His conclusion? "The change to FPTP harmed democracy."
What was the impact on the vote? Precisely as you would expect. It was to the Tories' advantage, which presumably is why they did it. It changed the result of at least four PCC races, probably seven, and possibly as many as 12. "Furthermore," he said, "because the left in British politics is currently more fragmented than the right, the switch from SV to FPTP favoured the Conservatives over Labour and other left or centre-left parties. By changing the voting system, the Conservatives significantly reduced their losses."
What a tawdry little stitch-up. And how indicative of an entire way of governing.
I find it particularly satisfying to consider this fact while watching the Conservative flail around at the moment. There's a sense of dark justice to it. "Keir Starmer needs people to vote Reform," the party tweeted recently, "so he can win enough seats for Labour in parliament to open the door to more migrants and stop planes taking off to Rwanda."
Suddenly they're the ones worried about fragmentation. And that's really quite delicious. Almost enough to warm the heart of a man who had too many martinis.
Normal service will resume in the next few days, after I put my addled brain back together. Have a good weekend in the meantime.
I agree with all of this, but we shouldn’t lose sight of Labour’s decisions regarding electoral reform being similarly self-serving. The Tories seek to dominate and have (had?) the geographic spread of voters to enable that. Labour seeks to dominate where it can, but otherwise shifts electoral systems so it can retain a voice.
This leaves us in a strange place. The Tories are awful regarding voting systems but at least they are consistent. Labour is incoherent – and perhaps also cynical. Its efforts do often end up being more progressive than Conservative ones, but that primarily results in a reduction in Conservative dominance and more strength to the Labour position. Hence why PR is considered acceptable to Labour for Scottish and Welsh parliament/assembly elections (bolsters Labour; stops nat dominance) and why SV is preferred for mayoral elections (makes things harder for Con and – usually – easier for Lab), but local and general elections will remain on FPTP (because Labour can, sometimes, dominate on a lowish vote share). See also: the party’s attempts to eradicate crossbenchers in the Lords via PR while, astonishingly, still at the leadership level being against PR in the Commons.
What Labour offers is better than the Tory stitch-up. But let’s not forget that Labour is enacting its own little tawdry stitch-ups too. And until the party ushers in fair votes (which is could do during this upcoming parliament, and from a position of knowing to do so would cost it full control and provably 100 seats), my own support for Labour in this space will never be more than muted.
As an aside, I long suspected that my local PCC is using that role as a stepping stone to being an MP, given the amount of PR she does. Sure enough I've just discovered that she did apply to be the Tory candidate in the constituency next to mine last year. I don't think that the Police Service should be accountable to ambitious politicians from a single party and prefer the previous system of a committee. Another unsuitable piece of legislation introduced by the Tories.