OR COULD THEY? If only we had, as a nation, listened to various spokespeople from the ‘progressive coalition’ speaking in the weeks before the AV result; then last Friday morning would have seen the beginnings of a new era for progressive politics. If only the electorate had not been so pig ignorant as to dismiss the progressive’s logic in such vast numbers, there would have been no further need or possibility of a Conservative administration in the future; as the country would have been permanently cemented by the liberal elite.
This, anyway was the hope. It would not have happened of course, at least not under AV. But AV was meant to be merely the beginning of the journey. Other more lucrative systems of proportional representation would no doubt have followed. The weaknesses of the AV system was there for all to see. The late Roy Jenkins had dismissed it, as did Nick Clegg before he found that it was all that was on offer after last year’s general election. But this did not stop various Liberal Democrats from throwing a hissy fit when the polls told them that they were on to a loser.
Chris Hune and Vince Cable became over emotional and used unflattering language to describe their fellow coalition partners. Mr Cable described his Conservative partners as “ruthless, calculating and thoroughly tribal”, while Chris Hune was reported as showing his anger in Cabinet by banging the table – we will have to await the publication of his diaries to find out what he actually said to the prime minister.
Poor old Nick Clegg has been dumped on from all sides within his party for his leadership. He has been blamed for being unpopular in the country, for the overwhelming defeat in the referendum. The spurious argument goes like this; the voters had little against the AV system as such, but plenty to turn on Nick Clegg for, and punish him. This particular excuse for failure is perhaps the most pitiful of all presented by the liberals for last Thursday’s AV result.
Thankfully for Mr Clegg it had a short shelf-life. As it began to sink into the progressive coalition’s conscience that the vote was so overwhelmingly against the AV system that it had to be, not the messengers fault, but the message itself; it became clear that the people rejected the system, and any system that is entangled in academic complexity that only certain advantaged people in Oxford, Cambridge, and Glasgow Kelvin would so readily understand, deserves its fate.
Of course, liberal ‘progressive’ types have made a life-long study of the various electoral arrangements, in order to outwit a small ‘c’ conservative nation and allow themselves to govern in perpetuity. Many put such an issue before health, education, defence, and foreign affairs. In other words, to the likes of the Liberal Democrats and the Left generally, some form of proportionality in our system of voting represents a blue print for governance which is needed before those other national issues can be tackled in a progressive way.
THE AV VOTE WAS lost, not through the ignorance or retaliation of the electorate, but because the electorate found the First Past the Post system the fairest and easiest way of electing their representatives - and long may this be the case.
The trouble was, that the electorate understood AV all too well; and it met with the appropriate response. Indeed, I bet many of those who voted for it were, shall we say, less than enthusiastic about it as a proportional system.
This country has always been, and hopefully will remain, traditional and sceptical of change. Its people, I believe feel that any innovation, particularly regarding their role in electing their government, should be both simple and fair. In this country our parliament has always been governed by two great parties: Tories and Whigs, and Conservatives and Liberals in the modern era, leading finally to Labour and Conservative; and through all the great reforms that have accompanied this nation’s development, the nation settled upon a system of election that was equal and rewarded the winner. The First Past the Post system has proved successful and people know this. Whenever the nation has found itself in difficulty all parties have formed coalitions irrespective of any vote. This is what happened during the Second World War and will no doubt happen again at some time in the future, should the nation be imperilled.
People understand that in any race in life; whether in sport, business, and yes, politics; there can only be one winner. For good or bad; in politics the people choose whom they wish to represent them and First Past the Post delivers a winner who can be voted out and replaced.
It is up to the smaller parties to capture the imagination of the voter, if they seek to govern. After all Whigs and Tories, followed by their modern equivalence had enjoyed decades of power between them before the Labour Party replaced one of them. The Conservative Party has managed a permanent presence as one of the main parties because the English, in particular, are conservative by nature (despite 40 years of comprehensive education).
Conservatism, whether in the form of the Labour or Liberal Right-wing will always remain. Time, after all, is all that separates modern progressive policies from tradition and that reactionary behemoth - conservatism.
Probably the biggest conservative in our current parliament is Dennis Skinner, the so-called ‘Beast of Bolsover’ himself. He exemplifies the rakes progress of the progressive. Being an old Marxist class war warrior whose ideological heritage was once described as being ‘progressive’, but now suffers the meant to be ignominious epithet, ‘Old Labour’.
ALTERATIVE VOTING was meant, as a system of proportional representation, to deliver the nation up to a permanent coalition where reason would overtake tribal party politics and deliver right and proper government. But addictive debate would become a hindrance, not to decision making, but to making the right decision. Coalitions have decorated post war European history. In every country, what is right has been replaced by some shabby compromise that rarely solves a problem, but only prolongs its damaging propensity.
This country has been well served on the whole by our electoral system. A single government delivered of the power to govern by a system of First Past the Post will invariably be allowed to govern decisively on behalf of the nation. Any compromise within such a government would be due to the internal politics of the party being elected to power.
The people who rejected the AV system understood all too well what it would mean for the country.
I believe those liberal-progressives who favoured this system, or any kind of such a system, believed that their kind of politics would enjoy support outside of London (for why, otherwise, would they hold such a vote?) and the university cities, where the likes of Polly Toynbee and her ilk fluttered over; believing that such constituencies decided the fate the nation.
I am glad that the British people rejected what was, even by the standards of Nick Clegg, a shabby compromise. But I warn the British people. This is only the beginning of a determined attempt to overcome our First Past the Post system of government.
Remember Ireland and how they were encouraged to vote again and again until they said yes to the Lisbon Treaty? Well the progressives will no doubt come up with another system of proportional representation that they will try to sell to the British people: and we will, I hope, also reject such an intrusion; but sadly we can expect another and another attempt will appear on the horizon, like some never-ending cloud formation. Like a computer virus, the liberal progressives will attack whenever the opportunity presents itself.
The British people made the right decision last Thursday. Their No vote proved overwhelming. It left those supporters of the Yes vote without a plausible excuse that did not take cognisance of the wisdom of the electorate.
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