Check 7 - Democracy and Subsidiarity: Elections

The Hidden Power

It may seem like a trivial point, that elections should be representative - are they not already?

Well they may appear to be - but they're not, really, in the UK. Boris Johnson's government took power with less than one third of the electorate. So two-thirds of voters would have preferred not to have the Conservatives in power. But this is nothing in comparison to the take-over of the Conservative party by a group who are in many ways extremists, who slipped in under the banner of Getting Brexit Done. So very far from being representative of electorate, the system we have has resulted in a wealthy, powerful and power-hungry minority taking control.

In this episode we trace the destructive effects of our system of First Past The Post, and explore some systems of Proportional Representation, and the benefits they bring.

Talking points:

Democracy and Subsidiarity in the context of Biosphere and People, as sub-series of this podcast

The current set-up in the UK: First Past the Post as a distortion field

Destructive effects of First Past The Post

Who does it serve?

Politics is an accumulator: hinterland of previous laws

Vulnerability to media manipulation: Rupert Murdoch

Preferential lobbying: the need for limited and proportional party funding

Proportional representation

Why the political extremes should be included

Varieties of proportional representation - Party List, Additional Member, Single Transferable Vote

Electoral boundaries, gerrymandering and the need for extra-governmental boundary setting

Analogy with voter registration

Benefits of proportional representation - fairness, diversity, consensus

Analysis of dysfunction in Italian politics as a counter-example

Positive effects of Proportional Representation in Switzerland

Links:

Why do Italy’s governments keep collapsing? BBC Inquiry Podcast:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-inquiry/id932499233?i=1000513494631

A case in point: the food critic behind Italy's deadliest terrorist attack - Times Stories Of Our Times Podcast:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/stories-of-our-times/id1501716010

More and Less Represented: James Meek (2019) in the LRB on Leavers and Remainers:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n20/james-meek/the-dreamings-of-dominic-cummings

Electoral Reform Society on varieties of election system:

https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/types-of-voting-system/

Make Votes Matter on 3 types of Proportional Representation:

https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk/proportional-representation

Get proportional representation working in the UK:

https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk/join-the-movement

Ed's recent 4-part series of articles on Preferential Lobbying:

1

https://johnmenadue.com/preferential-lobbying-the-rich-get-richer-the-poor-get-poorer-part-1-of-4/

2

https://johnmenadue.com/preferential-lobbying-money-talks-loudly-part-2-of-4/

3

https://johnmenadue.com/preferential-lobbying-no-explicit-deals-all-unstated-understandings-how-it-works-behind-the-scenes-part-3-of-4/

4

https://johnmenadue.com/preferential-lobbying-a-scourge-on-our-democracy-part-4-of-4/

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