The Myth of a Labour electoral advantage.

One of the arguments we hear from the Conservatives, and now their Liberal Democrat allies, is that UK parliamentary constituencies need to be equalised because they produce an unfair Labour advantage. The evidence does not support this assertion, and there is both a fallacy in the Conservative argument, and a glaring contradiction in their reasoning.

First let's dispel the myth that the Labour Party have some sort of unfair advantage in UK elections. To do this we must of course define what we mean by a fair result. By any objective measure, a fair result in one where a political party wins about the same proportion of seats in an election as the proportion of the vote it receives in that election. What usually happens in general elections is that the winning party usually wins far in excess of it's fair share of MPs, whether the winning party is Labour or Conservative. So in elections between 1997 and 2005 Labour won between 130 and 144 more MPs than was fair. On the other hand, in the 1983 and 1987 elections the Conservative Party won excesses of 121 and 102 MPs above the fair benchmark. I cannot help thinking that Cameron would not be so worried about fairness had he had the unfair advantage that Thatcher enjoyed. For Cameron, then, something is only unfair when it discriminates against him, when it discriminates in his party's favour, he would not be complaining.



Second, let's look at the complaint of unfairness against the Conservatives. It is true that in elections in 1997 and 2001 the Conservatives had a shortfall in fair representation of -37 and -43 MPs, in a fair result, they should have won more MPs. But then, in those same elections, the Liberal Democrats had shortfalls of -65 and -69 MPs, and in 1983 ans 1987 the Alliance had shortfalls of -142 and -125 MPs. I do not remember any Conservatives complaining about the unfairness of the system to the SDP-Liberal Alliance during those elections.

The fallacy in their argument is therefore exposed. This is not a bias in favour of Labour, this is an unpredictable bias in favour of wining parties, and a huge bias against third parties.

To emphasise the point, in every election since February 1974, the Liberal/Alliance/Liberal Democrats have always been massively under-represented, their best result during this time was a shortfall of 65 MPs below fairness.

If any party has a right to complain of unfairness, then it is the Liberal Democrats and their voters, who are routinely disenfranchised.

What, therefore is the contradiction in Conservative reasoning? It is that while Cameron has complained of the unfairness of the plurality voting system (FPTP), he has insisted that we must keep it. His argument seems to be that, when it doesn't suit his party, the system is unfair, but when it does suit his party, the system is fair.

No amount of constituency equalisation can correct the inherent instability of plurality elections. What causes the massive disproportionality that affects all three major parties, is the large vote share that goes to an electorally unsuccessful third party. During the 1950s and 1960s, when the third party's vote share was relatively low, disproportionality was much less of a problem, but with upwards of one in five voters voting for the Liberal Democrats, but with them never receiving as many as one in ten MPs, the winning party inevitably sucks up these seats that, by rights belong to the third party.

The real answer to this question is not to play around with how constituency boundaries are drawn, and it is certainly not to reduce the numbers of MPs (which will in fact exacerbate the situation). The real answer is to introduce a fairer, more proportional electoral system.

The question needs to be asked, therefore, why did the Liberal Democrats agree to a reduction in the number of MPs, when they knew it would lead to less fair elections? They have again and again claimed to be committed to making the electoral system fairer. And yet, when they enter government for the first time in nearly 70 years, they support measure after measure that will make the system less fair.

I am baffled by this self-harm by the party. The proposed changes will further disenfranchise an already massively under-represented Liberal Democrat electorate.

I get the feeling that the party doesn't even understand how much it is about to damage its own electoral chances.

Lib Dems and tuition fees

I've heard a lot of people claim that it's OK for the Lib Dems to support an increase in tuition fees because they didn't "win" the election. The rationale being that it is therefore OK for them to abandon their manifesto commitment as a necessary compromise in a coalition government. The most glaring problem with this rationale is that the promise the Lib Dems made was not merely a manifesto commitment, which I can see might be viewed as something more akin to a negotiating position when it comes to coalition talks. It was, in fact a promise signed by each and every candidate the party fielded as a pledge to the people who voted for them. Viewed in this way, it must therefore be true that each and every Lib Dem who either voted for, or abstained from, the tuition increase has, in fact, broken a promise they made as individual parliamentary candidates to their potential supporters. But I think there's another and different problem with the "we didn't win the election" argument, and it has to do with the UK's electoral system.

When the Lib Dems claim they "didn't win the election", one needs to ask oneself what do they actually mean? The Lib Dems should know more than any other party how biased the plurality system (FPTP) is. As a thought experiment, let's take a look at the Lib Dem's best polling figures from YouGov in the run up to the election, on 20th April 2010 the parties looked like this: Conservative 31%, Labour 26%, Lib Dem 34%. Had this been the way people voted in the election, it would have translated into 9.2 million votes for the Conservatives, 7.7 million votes for Labour, and 10.1 million votes for the Lib Dems. But would have resulted in a parliament with 240 Conservative MPs, 238 Labour MPs, and 141 Lib Dem MPs. The question arises, would the Lib Dems have considered this "winning the election"? Would they have demanded that Clegg had the right to be PM, even though his party had the smallest number of MPs of the three large parties, because the party had polled the greatest number of votes? The question further arises, if the Lib Dems demand that they must "win" an election before actually attempting to implement their policies, then they are essentially accepting that a system that discriminates against them is legitimate, and if they accept this, why do they want to change it?

Under the current system it is virtually impossible for the Lib Dems to "win" an election, if winning is defined as having the greatest number of MPs, simply because the system so badly discriminates against them.

It therefore follows that it is disingenuous for the Lib Dems to claim that they cannot keep a promise because they didn't "win", because they know they can never "win", even if they actually poll the largest share of the vote.

The argument is sophistry of the highest order.

What now for electoral reform

Cameron seems genuine in his offer of coalition negotiations to Clegg. That is encouraging, we'll have to see if the Conservative Party is going to negotiate in good faith. The question remains whether electoral reform is a sticking point.

The Conservatives have offered an all party committee on electoral reform, but this seems like a negotiating tactic to me. Remember what Cameron is offering is the basis for negotiations, and Cameron did hint during the campaign that electoral reform was not entirely off the table, though he did spend a lot of time subsequently attacking PR.

So what could we end up with? The Lib-Dems could do a lot worse than propose Roy Jenkins' AV+ electoral system as a compromise. It has elements that the Conservatives would probably like, and it meets some of the Lib-Dems requirements. The Tories will like the fact that the overwhelming majority (80-85%) of the constituencies (or electoral districts) are single member districts (though they are elected by the alternative vote (IRV)). The Lib-Dems will like the fact that there are electoral regions (comprising 5-10 constituencies) which each will have one or two top up members, this top up member will likely be a Lib-Dem in most regions in most elections.

The system will not prevent single party rule if a party gets a good vote share, but when elections are tight then it will be unlikely that any party gains a majority.

That is the sort of compromise coalitions are built on. The Lib-Dems should seriously consider proposing this to Cameron as a compromise electoral reform that both parties can back in a coalition.

Labour's offer of AV was always a non-starter for the Lib-Dems. I'm very surprised that Brown seems to genuinely believe that the Lib-Dems would go for it, AV is not a proportional system, and there is no evidence that it will help the Lib-Dems whatsoever. When Brown asked Clegg in the first debate whether he (Clegg) supported AV I was shocked, Brown seems to have totally lost touch with reality if he thinks this is something the Lib-Dems would go for.

Who should I vote for in Wales.

Take the Who Should You Vote For? Wales quiz

Plaid Cymru				93
Green				86
Liberal Democrat				80
Labour	-4
UK Independence	-27
Conservative	-50

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Your recommendation: Plaid Cymru

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I think these people are missing the big picture here.

Nick Clegg: I could work with Labour, just not with Gordon Brown.

What Nick Clegg actually said:

I just don't think the Britishpeople would accept that he could carry on as prime minister, which is what the convention of old politics dictates when, or rather if, he were to lose the election in such spectacular style

and the Guardian respond:

Clegg's new formula raises the problem of how Labour could replace Brown, as well as the prospect of Labour having a second prime minister who has not won a mandate at a general election.

But I think that's wrong, Labour don't need to replace Brown. Clegg didn't say that he couldn't work with Brown, only that Brown can't be PM. But what if a Brown led Labour Party offered to support a Clegg Prime Ministership? Brown could be in Clegg's government, just not as PM. Labour would then have some time to elect a new leader.

Cameron accused Clegg of:

Cameron accused Clegg of wanting PR "so we have a permanent hung parliament, a permanent coalition, so we never have strong and authoritative and decisive government".

Which is a bit of a weird argument. He doesn't explain why it is in Clegg's interests not to have "strong decisive government", or why it is in the UKs interests to have a "strong decisive government". In my experience "strong decisive governments" often make the wrong decisions, and the rest of us are stuck with them. I'm for weak consensual multi party government that actually has a mandate myself.

Cameron then says:

It's now becoming clear he [Clegg] wants to hold the whole country to ransom, just to get what would benefit the Liberal-Democrats.

Which is possibly the most hypocritical thing I have read during the election campaign. I mean why does Cameron support FPTP? It couldn't be because it benefits the Tory Party? i.e. a majority in parliament on a minority of votes. It's frankly odious when politicians try to take a high moral stance like this and don't even appear to notice the massive hypocrisy in what they say. Labour and the Tories like FPTP because it has allowed them to stich up politics, and ignore the wishes of the majority of voters for the last 65 years at least. To claim that the Lib-Dems support PR because it suits them is a statement of the bleeding obvious, but PR doesn's discriminate in favour of the Lib-Dems, it only gives their voters an equal voice to Labour and Tory voters. Clearly Cameron thinks those voters don't deserve an equal voice. Then he has the effrontery to ask progressives to vote for him? I could never vote for a party that is so elitist, and treats voters with such great contempt that they seem to think we don't understand when we are being patronized.

UK journalists really are ignorant about ho coalitions work.

Jackie Ashley in the Guardian today displays a real lack of understanding about how coalition politics can work. Some of what she says is just plain ignorant. Here's my response, another small 'c' conservative Guardian journalist displaying their utter incomprehension about how coalition politics works. Jackie Ashley, like many at the Guardian, just doesn't seem to be able to get her head around the idea that coalition politics is about compromise.

So imagine if all those left-leaning voters produced a Cameron-led government?

So what if they did? We're not talking about a Tory government, we're talking about a coalition. Many on the left are fed up with Labour because of social and liberty issues, if a Lib-Con coalition can scrap ID cards, and give us our freedom back, many on the left would be happy with that, even if they don't like the coalition's economic policies.

What would the Lib Dem grassroots make of it all?

What indeed? The Lib-Dem grass roots are in fact the most enthusiastic about PR, and PR would mean always having coalition governments. In fact PR would mean that the Lib-Dems would sometimes be in government with Labour, sometimes with the Tories and sometimes in opposition. Lib-Dems understand that because they support PR. Is that a difficult concept to understand?

First, he has let it be known he has an open mind about some kind of electoral reform. I think it's a honey-trap and that the Conservatives would block change.

You don't seem to understand how politics would work in a coalition. The Lib-Dems have already forced the Conservatives to move on PR by showing that they may well hold the balance of power. Coalition politics will always be a negotiation between parties, if there is a Lib-Con coalition then the parties will be partners, not adversaries. If a deal were made then a reform of the electoral system would be government policy. It was claimed in Wales that a referendum on increasing the powers of the NAfW was a "honey trap" by Labour to get Plaid support. But guess what, now we're going to have that referendum. The Lib-Dems must make sure that any coalition has a properly negotiated agreement before entering, like Plaid did with it's One Wales agreement. But reform of the electoral system will itself be a negotiation, the Lib-Dems want STV, but we might get something else because the Tories might have their own ideas. Whatever we get it must be much more proportional that what we now have. I think AV+ is out of the question as not proportional enough for the Lib-Dems, but the Tories might favour MMP or some such system.

The more I look at the prospect of a Con-Lib coalition, the more I think it is not sustainable for long.

It depends how much good faith there is, right? If one party or the other is negotiating in bad faith, and is not prepared to compromise, then it can't work. The Tories will have to understand that a coalition with the Lib-Dems is not synonymous with Lib-Dem support for an entirely Tory programme. Most politicians know this though, most have worked with politicians from other parties in the past, it's only for show that they take these diametrically opposed stances because the electoral system demands that politicians pretend that they hold no views in common whatsoever. If anything the debates have helped demolish that by showing Cameron agreeing with Both Brown and Clegg. But even if a Tory/Lib-Dem coalition fails, then the question is, do we have another election, or does the Labour party try to form a government with the Lib-Dems? If the Lib-Dems hold the balance of power, and a Tory/Lib-Dem coalition fails, there is no call for a new election, the Labour Party would be within it's rights to try to form a government with the Lib-Dems. Of course it'd be up to the Queen in the end, if Cameron dissolved the coalition and demanded the dissolution of parliament, the Queen could say no (especially very early on in the parliament), and ask the new leader of the Labour Party to try and form a government. This happened in Ireland, right? With their Rainbow Coalition.

Proportional Representation.

Electoral systems that are specifically designed to produce a result in which a party's proportion of seats closely reflects the proportion of votes it receives in the election are collectively known as proportional representation systems. Whereas the single transferable vote is technically not a proportional system, but a preferential system (as is the alternative vote), because it was not specifically designed to produce party proportionality, the results it produces are broadly proportional and in some special circumstances it will produce identical results to party list proportional representation.

List PR.

List PR is the simplest form of proportional representation, it is used in many European countries, and is used in the UK to elect members of the European Parliament. Electoral districts (constituencies) are multi-member, and each party will elect the same proportion of members as the proportion of votes it receives. There are many ways to determine how candidates are elected, Finland and the UK use the d'Hondt method, which is marginally less proportional than some other systems. The simplest implementation is the largest remainder method. Firstly theelectoral quota must be calculated, there are several ways to do this, but the simplest is the Hare quota, this is simply the total number of valid votes divided by the number of seats to be filled. So if there are 100,000 votes to fill 10 seats, then each candidate needs 10,000 votes to be elected. Then we divide the total number of votes each party received by the quota, and the party is allocated the the number of seats equivalent each whole quota it has received. For example if there are four parties, Red gaining 28,000, Blue 34,000, Yellow 31,000 and Green 7,000 votes respectively. Red gain 2 seats (2.8 quotas), Blue 3 seats (3.4 quotas), Yellow 3 seats (3.1 quotas) and Green 0 seats (0.7 quotas). Only 8 seats have been filled, so now we look to the largest remainders for the four parties. Red has a remainder of 0.8, Blue 0.4, Yellow 0.1 and Green 0.7. So Red gains the first of the two remaining seats, and Green the second. The election result is Red 3, Blue 3, Yellow 3, Green 1.

There is also a distinction between open and closed list systems. In the UK European elections are fought on a closed list system, which means that the order of candidates on the list is determined by party officials and voters simply vote for a political party, so in UK European elections voters can only choose between parties and not candidates. This provides party officials with plenty of patronage to hand out. Most parties can expect to gain at least one seat, and so being at the top of the list is equivalent to holding a safe seat. This encourages party loyalty, which is the purpose of patronage. On the other hand in Finland elections are always conducted on open lists. Although the party still decides which candidates are included on the list, it is the voters that decide the order of candidates on the list. Voters choose one candidate from a party, the vote goes to the party, but the candidate also receives a vote on the party list. The candidate with the most votes from people who voted for the party is placed at the top of the list, and is therefore elected first, as long as the party elects one person, it will be the person at the top of the list. Open lists dramatically reduce party patronage, although it is still the party that chooses who goes on the list.

List PR is an extremely versatile electoral system, it can work with large or small districts.Finland has 14 districts (excluding Åland) that vary from 32 members (Uusimaa) to 7 members (North Karelia). The whole country can even be one single electoral district, as in Israel. Voting is easy, either a vote for a single party or a single candidate. It usually produces very proportional results. When a high electoral threshold is applied to parties in list PR (that is, when parties are forced to gain a high percentage of the vote before they are entitled to elect members), it can be much less proportional.

Mixed Member PR (MMP)

The system used for the German Bundestag, the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament. It can be thought of as a special case of List PR. In this case not all elected members are drawn from the list. The list region is also sub-divided into UK style single member plurality (SMP) voting districts. A proportion of the representatives are elected by SMP, and the remaining members are drawn from the list. Voters are given two votes, they vote for a candidate in the SMP portion of the election, and vote for a party in the list portion of the election (all current MMP elections are from closed lists, though there is no reason why open lists could not be employed). This is done so that the final assembly is proportional, parties that have members elected from the plurality portion of the election lose list seats. So a party that meets or exceeds its electoral entitlement will elect no list candidates at all. For example in the Welsh Assembly election of 2007 the Labour Party won all seven SMP seats in the region of South Wales West, and so elected no list candidates whatsoever. It is instructive to note that the Labour Party was only entitled to six Assembly Members (AMs) for the region based on it's vote share, the fact that it gained all seven SMP seats means that it has an overhang seat. This is a systemic problemwith MMP. In Germany the a party would be allowed to keep it's overhang seats, but the list would also be completed in full, this means that the Bundestag can vary in size from election to election. In Wales this is not the case, whereas Labour was allowed to keep it's overhang seat, the Conservatives failed to elect a list AM that they were entitled to because the size of the Assembly is not allowed to vary, and SMP elected AMs take precedence over list AMs

The proportionality of MMP is also influenced by the proportion of top up members. The Bundestag is 50% SMP elected and 50% list elected, making it a truly proportional body. On the other hand the Welsh Assembly only has a 33.3% list element (20 out of 60), the Welsh Assembly can therefore at best be thought of as semi-proportional. For example the Conservative Party in Wales actually received more votes than Plaid Cymru in the 2007 Assembly elections, but Plaid gained more seats as the Conservatives lost out on the list portion of the election to overhang seats in South Wales East, South Wales West and North Wales. The proportionality of the Welsh Assembly could be dramatically improved by abolishing the regional lists and having a nation wide list. Labour managed to elect 2 list members from one electoral region, even though they were already over-represented from the SMP portion of the election, they would have received no list members had there been a national list. A further improvement would be to increase the size of the list portion to 40 members, and therefore the size of the Assembly to 80. A national list and 50% top up would produce a much more proportional Assembly.

Single Transferable Vote (STV)

STV is a preferential voting system, electoral districts are multi member and voting is by listing candidates in order of preference, as in the alternative vote. The main distinction between the alternative vote and STV is that constituencies are multi-member (an STV election in a single member district is simply an AV election) and that excess votes are transfered as well as votes from candidates that have been eliminated. Because there are multiple seats per constituency candidates from the same party are in competition with one another, just like in open list PR (but not in closed list PR). The big distinction between STV and list PR is that in STV a voter is able to transfer their vote between parties, the system is designed to reduce vote wastage and to elect the preferred candidate of the voter and not the preferred party, however the evidence from Ireland is that the overwhelming majority of voters vote a strict party line vote, making the vote identical to an open list vote. Variations on STV are used in Ireland, Malta, the Australian Senate (which has a very quirky version) and elections to local authorities in Scotland. In 2004 the Richard Commission recommended that the Welsh Assembly be elected by STV.

Once voting has finished and the votes counted the electoral quota is calculated, just like in largest remainder list PR. If a candidate reaches a quota of first preference votes then they are immediately elected. If no candidate reaches the quota, then the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and their votes redistributed.

When a candidate is elected their excess votes are redistributed. For example if the electoral quota is 10,000 and a candidate gets 15,000 first preference votes, then they are elected and the 5,000 excess votes are redistributed to second preference candidates. There are several ways that second preferences can be redistributed. For example in Ireland it is simply a random sample of 5,000 votes from the 15,000. Another way is to transfer all 15,000 votes at a rate of 1/3 of a vote each.

This elimination and redistribution of votes continues until all open seats are filled. If seats remain open with no candidate able to reach a quota, then candidates continue to be eliminated until the number of candidates remaining are the same as the number of seats to be filled.

One of the drawbacks of STV is ballot design. All proportional systems work best when electoral districts are relatively large, which allows for the election of smaller parties. Having large constituencies makes little difference to voting and ballot design in party list PR. But STV requires that the names of all candidates be printed on the ballot. So with a theoretical district of seven members, and five parties contesting it, this produces 35 candidates, all of who will have to have their names printed on the ballot, and a voter will have to find and rank all of those candidates they wish to vote for (though ranking does not need to be exhaustive). It would seem impossible for STV to have 32 member constituencies such as the Uusimaa constituency. It has been proposed that STV districts in the UK should be between 5 and 7 members. This would be something of an improvement on the situation in Ireland where districts are between 3 and five members. It is also a problem that the order of candidates on the ballot can affect the chances of election (fails to achieve independence of irrelevant alternatives) and STV, like all preferential voting systems can fail monotonicity (i.e. a second placed candidate can be eliminated before a third placed candidate, though it has been estimated that this would be very rare indeed). The newly invented variant CPO-STV seeks to remedy many of the shortcomings of STV.

Alternative Vote Plus (AV+)

AV+ is an electoral system invented by Roy Jenkins when he undertook his review into electoral reform in 1997/98, the Jenkins Commission. AV+ is very similar to MMP with a couple of good refinements and one deep flaw. Under AV+ the single member district (SMD) portion of the election would be conducted by the alternative vote, as opposed to SMP. This would mean that all SMD members would be elected on majorities. A further refinement of the system was the proposal to use open lists for the list portion of the system. Therefore the voter would be required to rank candidates for the SMD (AV) portion of the election, and choose a specific candidate for the list portion of the election. The flaw is the lack of real proportionality. Jenkins proposed a 15-20% top up element for the parliament, meaning that in a best case scenario only 130 members out of a parliament of 650 would be list members. This compares to 299 out of 598 (50%) in the Bundestag, 56 out of 129 (43%) in the Scottish Parliament and 20 out of 60 (33.3%) in the Welsh Assembly (which can be considered at best semi-proportional). It therefore follows that even a best case scenario 20% top up element would not produce anything resembling proportionality. Indeed the Jenkins Commission report estimated the results of the 1992 and 1997 elections if AV+ had been used as the electoral system, giving far from proportional results.

All electoral systems have good and bad points. There is no perfect electoral system. For myself I see no real reason to use MMP when the open list PR is available, you might as well elect MPs from the whole electoral region on a list rather than only half. Likewise for me AV+ is only really an option if 50% of parliamentarians are elected from the list portion of the election.

That leaves open list PR and STV. I really like STV, it's my favourite electoral system because it is so elegant. But on balance I tend to think it is not very practical. I'd like a system where our electoral districts are between 10 and 20, and that's not possible with STV. Because the electoral regions are so small (electing 3-5 TDs) in Ireland it has lead to the dominance of a single party for much of the last century, and there are only really two and a half effective parties in the Dail. On the other hand Finland with open list PR has a large number of effective parties and electoral regions are much larger, mostly between 10 and 20 members (though there is one much larger one and three smaller than 10, excluding the special case of Åland). It has three large parties that each gain 20-25% of the vote, and a couple of medium sized parties, including the Green League and the Left Alliance, both of which poll between 5 and 10% of the vote. There are 8 parties represented in the Finnish Eduskunta, compared to 6 parties in the Irish Dail. The Dail has 5 independent TDs, and STV makes it easier for candidates not affiliated to any party to get elected. But the distribution of votes and seats is much more skewed in Ireland than it is in Finland. The biggest party in Ireland, Fianna Fail, gained 41.56% of first preference votes, and ended up with 46.6% of the seats in 2007. The biggest party in Finland, the Centre Party, gained 23.1% of the votes, and ended up with 25.5% of the seats. This disparity may well be due to the small electoral regions of Ireland, and if Finland had many more small electoral districts, each electing between 3 and 5 representatives, Finnish politics might well produce a similar pattern. When one takes into account that in STV elections voters overwhelmingly vote a straight party line vote, this effectively turns the vote into an open list vote because the competition becomes between candidates within the same party vying for first preferences from party loyalists. On the other hand STV does give voters the option of transferring votes between candidates of different parties. STV has the big advantage that voters vote for individuals and not parties. On balance though I think an open list system would produce a more balanced parliament.