Nothing fair about changing the voting system (From Winsford Guardian)
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Nothing fair about changing the voting system
3:00pm Monday 4th April 2011 in Letters
DR Peter Hirst writes in favour of electoral reform in the name of fairness. Of course fairness to some means self-serving interest to others. It seems to be the cry of modern politicians that their pet schemes should be regarded as fairness.
I would suggest that what this country is crying out for is political reform not electoral reform. For far too many years this country has been subject to ever increasing political abuse of power at local, national and European levels.
Nominally we are regarded as living in a democracy. However democracy is not the same thing as freedom. The last remnants of democracy in this country have been rendered virtually meaningless by the years of political abuse riding roughshod over the wishes and aspirations of the indigenous majority.
Indeed probably the last remnant left available is the ability to vote out of office an unwanted politician.
The AV system referred to by Dr Peter Hirst will remove even that small benefit. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Dr Peter Hirst only promotes the introduction of the AV system because he thinks it will benefit the parochial self-serving interests of his own political party.
Of course the PR system of the EU is even worse.
If this country is to ever having any hope of restoring its democracy, freedoms and commonsense then it first has to leave the EU, to be followed by a written constitution that supports the interests of the electorate and contains safeguards against the abuse of political power. Ideally such a constitution would be styled on the referendum-based concepts of California and Switzerland.
If local councils were restricted to providing basic core services then local people could be free to vote on the provision of extra services such as nuclear free zone departments, diversity managers, climate change departments, five-a-day coordinators, lesbian outreach departments and all the other non-jobs so beloved of civil service empire builders.
Any vote for the AV system is a vote to put the final nail in the coffin of democracy and move rapidly towards a pseudo-communist state masquerading as a democracy. All in the interests of fairness of course!
DON MICKLEWRIGHT Weaverham
ashcloud says...
7:07pm Mon 18 Apr 11
The view written above appears to do nothing to suggest a greater alternative and dismisses PR without any apparent grounds to do so.
This country does already have a constitution, consisting of both codified and uncodified elements. A wholly codified constitution presents difficulties in the future, as ones codified it becomes near impossible to change, despite what becomes important to the public, and what is needed in the interests of the country changes over the years.
I am interested to hear on what basis the writer believes we should leave the EU? A system which has created a global market place which has seen many businesses flourish and supported countries in need. Britain maybe an island, but this shouldn't mean we act like one.
I also don't see how 'any vote for AV will put the final nail in the coffin for democracy' - surely a referendum supports democracy, through pluralism?
If local people wanted to vote "climate change coordinators" then perhaps we would have seen a greater level of political participation over this years, instead of growing voter apathy.
I don't think political overhaul is what is needed, but instead a system to educate the population on what choices they actually have as a voter.
To totally dismiss a move to a more proportionate system, in my view, is ridiculous.