Hmm ‘an end to the old politics’, this ‘broken system’… sounds very Libdem to me. Is this how disillusioned liberals and New Labourists are going to respond to the prospect of the worst cuts in public services since the war? Displacement activity? We need Greek-style protests rather than another failed Charter ’88.

rwillmsen, the problem is that the voting system is part of the reason why a) we have this problem to begin with and b) why we’re likely to swing violently towards cuts as the solution to it. If voting were proportional, we would have near-zero chance of a majority Tory government and therefore much better prospects for a sane approach to public services.

There’s always going to be a more pressing issue than electoral reform at any given moment, but electoral reform is one measure that can help to prevent future problems from arising, and prevent violent overreactions when problems do occur.

How on earth is this displacement acivity? If we’re lumbered with a Tory government making massive cuts ruling with only a minority of the popular vote it will be BECAUSE OF THE VOTING SYSTEM. We’ll need to highlight what a democratic travesty this is in the immediate aftermath of the election.

A ‘sane’ and ‘efficient’ approach to public services is what all three main parties are claiming to offer. The Libdems are even more outspoken, boasting of just how savagely efficient their cuts to our basic public services would be. We do need mass demonstrations, demanding that the rich be made to pay for the crisis that they created. They have proportional representation in Greece, as it happens. Their quarrel is not with the electoral system, but with the political and economic systems, and we should join them with as much force as possible.

Guy @ 3

Many apologies if you’re a Lib Dem/ have been campaigning for electoral reform within the Labour Party – but it’s a bit bloody rich saying that the voting system needs to change because the Tories are coming and you don’t like they’re policies. I wouldn’t say the last 9 years have been a cake walk (Labour’s first term wasn’t too bad, HRA aside), and the last 5 have been particularly rubbish with Labour having received something approximating what I’d expect the Conservatives to get tonight.

There is a very strong case for electoral reform. I’ve always thought that STV would be a better system, with the proviso that I’ve always wanted to deal with it after more important issues have been sorted. However, we’ve now reached a tipping point where 2-party politics is dead and FPTP is no longer appropriate. People like me will argue for this within the Conservative Party – but you make our lives impossible if voting reform becomes an issue about who has got power.

So kindly desist.

As to your other point, cuts are coming from every party – all are agreed that it will be harsher than anything Lady T dished out. We’ve lived beyond our means for a decade, and now we’ve got to pay the price.

Is this “real change”, “change that works for you” or “a vote for change”? I can’t afford the train fare to London; got any spare change? If this doesn’t work out, will you feel short-changed? Will you change your change objectives (for a change)?

I’m fucking sick of “change”. We don’t need to change the system, we need to smash it into pieces.

I agree with @rwillmsen.

(@Guy Aitchison – less than 31% of eligible voters chose New Labour in 1997 – were you out on the streets protesting a “democratic travesty” then?)

I agree with me too, cheers.

Compare and contrast:

“We’ve lived beyond our means for a decade, and now we’ve got to pay the price.”

(A Tory, just now)

‘The age of austerity is over. The wealthy are more prepared to open their wallets than at any time in the past two years, suggesting they have put the financial crisis behind them.’

The Financial Times, April 16 (‘Luxury goods are back in fashion as the wealthy return to the shops’ ).

Who is telling the truth?

At a guess, a Tory maj. govt. will:

1) Cut inheritance tax drastically (trebling the theshold)
2) Increase VAT, one of our most regressive taxes
3) Under-fund local government, potentially leading to council tax rises (also regressive)

If the Tories were forced into coalition with either Labour (similar to the German situation) or the Lib Dems, it is doubtful that any of those measures would pass. They might be forced to adopt the Lib Dem policy of reducing pension relief on higher-rate tax payers, equalising CGT with income tax, or taxing £2m+ properties, or some equivalent Labour policies. There might also be different priorities in what to cut, with non-public-service government spending being a higher priority.

From the perspective of deficit reduction and the wealthy paying their fair share of that, the coalition outcome looks better than the pure majority outcome. Ergo, the voting system matters if you want to change how we pay for the deficit.

but it’s a bit bloody rich saying that the voting system needs to change because the Tories are coming and you don’t like they’re policies. I wouldn’t say the last 9 years have been a cake walk

Well – do you want a more accountable Labour govt or not?

It does annoy me when people complain about the political system and then go about slamming those who want electoral reform! FFS.

Jesus I feel like I’ve been in a coma and have woken up in a nightmare world where everybody is a fucking Lib Dem. it’s the final triumph of Thatcher and Blair, not to mention Davids Owen and Steel.

A few tweaks to the electoral system will change next to nothing. Aim higher, demand more. Don’t get fooled again. Don’t believe all their bullshit about how ‘we’ all need to tighten ‘our’ belts, and look at what’s happening in Greece. Etc.

Sunny @ 9

Yes I do – as I think I made relatively clear in my second paragraph. I want more accounatbel politics in general.

But framing the debate so that it’s ‘we need change because the Tories are coming’ isn’t exactly going to help convince anyone but those who are already tribal about politics. Which is very ‘old politics’, no?

We need a new electoral system because FPTP is broken. That is all.

@Illegal immigrant

Ah, an angry white man raging against “evil libruls” and immigration, whilst adopting the handle of “illegal immigrant” – it’s the 21st century political equivalent of those guys who used to black up.

12 @ blanco

a) How do you know I’m white? (I am though – are you watching me?!)

b) Where have I raged against liberals and immigrants? I am one of the former (in the proper sense, a la Mr Worstall of this parish), and my sobriquet is simply the one that I created (when I first started arguing with people I don’t know on the internet) to wind up people on ConHome when they get a thread on immigration.

c) I’m agreeing with the need for electoral reform – which undelies this thread – but disagreeing with the argumentation of some who propose it because it would advantage/ disadvantage one particular party.

So keep your knickers on!

J@ 6

How exactly do you “smash” a system? I’ve never quite grasped the procedure.

@Trofim – permit me to quote you:

“Reminds me of the first time I went to the USSR, and it was exceptionally cold. Our guide told us of how, a few days after Lenin died in 1924, the temperature dropped to minus 40C. Birds dropped dead out of the air. Nature was mourning the death of Lenin, you see. She believed it, too.”

(On another thread, obv.)

If you visited the Soviet Union, you’ll know how it is possible to “smash” one system, though quite what you replace it with really depends. (And you may well end up with worse.)

I suppose you could also consider the American or French revolutions. Or even – at a stretch – the English civil war.

Anyway, check your history. It is quite possible to smash stuff up, as well as playing the lame “reformist” card.

What’s your definition of “change”, comrade? For me, it is not a slightly different shade of grey; nor is it shit which smells more or less the same. There really isn’t much between the mainstream parties, so why not do something differently?

As to the procedure… I’m sure you’re aware that the earliest attempts at “changing” Russia’s political system gave landowners the voting rights of hundreds of thousands of peasants. This is one method. Perhaps, given time, you could negotiate this down to a ratio of one to tens of thousands…

Alternatively, you could shoot the landowners.

J@15

Can i have some of what you’re smoking?

but we agree – the system is broken regardless of whether the Tories are coming or not. It needs to die and be remodeled

Clearly I’m alone in this but I find that I blanch somewhat at the use of the word ‘broken’, It sounds immediately like a Tory word, and one that has a worrying air of the 1930s about it. If something is ‘broken’ (a country, a system, etc) it implies there is a clear and immediate technical solution which once applied will make whatever’s broken function smoothly again. It implies a certain impatience and intolerance with whatever gremlins seem to be causing the problem, components that must be got rid of, discarded if normal operations are to resume. Its gleeful adoption by the tabloids show that it is an inherently authoritarian and conservative concept. In relation to the electoral system, its use implies that the problems we face as a society stem from an unfair system of voting. Now I agree of course that the voting system is unjust, but I do not think that the problems we face (principally the fact that we are one of the developed world’s most unequal societies, with all that flows from that) will be solved by simply electing more Lib Dem, Green, BNP and independent MPs. What the left needs to do instead is engage with organised labour and radical groups throughout society and build an alternative to the Labour Party, one which will struggle outside and hopefully inside Parliament to address the roots and the impact of the horrendous regime of inequality under which we live. One means of doing this is by organising right now so that when whichever Government starts to slash away at our basic public services and entitlements we are prepared to resist en masse and demand that the rich pay for the crisis that they created. Adopting Tory language and Lib Dem politics will not help us in this regard.

@18: “One means of doing this is by organising right now so that when whichever Government starts to slash away at our basic public services and entitlements we are prepared to resist en masse and demand that the rich pay for the crisis that they created.”

But it isn’t the rich collectively who are responsible either for the recent international financial crisis or for the particular fiscal mess the previous British government created despite warnings by independent commentators, going back to 2001, about the structural deficits in successive annual budgets.

@19

So is it the poor then?!

It’s governemnts slavishly following an agenda which promotes the interests of the very richest at the expense of everyone else. As Mandelson helpfully made clear all those years ago.

According to the Tory media our Harry Potter (Nick Clegg) has a choice of fagging for Malfoy (Cameron) or moving in with Hagrid (Brown).

I think he has another choice. Telling them both to get lost for the moment.

@20: “It’s governents slavishly following an agenda which promotes the interests of the very richest at the expense of everyone else.”

You’ve not noticed that the rich don’t all have the same agenda then? That’s why Warren Buffett said this:

“Warren Buffett, the third-richest man in the world, has criticised the US tax system for allowing him to pay a lower rate than his secretary and his cleaner.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article1996735.ece

and this back in 2003:

“The rapidly growing trade in derivatives poses a ‘mega-catastrophic risk’ for the economy and most shares are still ‘too expensive’, legendary investor Warren Buffett has warned.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2817995.stm

Btw:

“American house prices rose 124% between 1997 and 2006, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell by 8%; half of US growth in 2005 was house-related. In the UK, house prices increased by 97% in the same period, while the FTSE 100 fell by 10%.” Source: Robert Skidelsky: Keynes – The Return of the Master (Allen Lane 2009) p.5.

The rich don’t appreciate falls in stock market indices and such falls certainly aren’t welcome in company pension schemes which are major holders of corporate equity.

The fact is that governments have behaved negligently and regulatory authorities failed to restrain the pursuit of greed by individual bankers through prudent regulation of financial markets and institutions. You obviously didn’t read accounts of Greenspan’s testimony to the US House of Representatives Oversight Committee:

“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122476545437862295.html

Bob B: as was mentioned last time we went round this loop, Buffet is a) unusual an b) also not dumb; he’s still sitting on a pile of cash higher than Mount Rushmore, even if he thinks the US Govt should have taken a few hundred feet of it off him.

Warren Buffett certainly isn’t dumb and what he says is certainly worth listening to. He got to be rich by making shrewd stock investment decisions over decades and by investing for the long-term, not through speculative trading.

His warnings about lack of transparency in derivatives trading blows up myths about rational markets and should have been heeded by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic.

Least any readers think Buffett was exaggerating in what he said about derivatives trading, try this recent news report about Goldman Sachs at the US Senate hearings:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/richard-adams-blog/2010/apr/27/goldman-sachs-senate-hearing-live-blog

Blaming it all on the rich really isn’t illuminating analysis or a useful diagnosis for policy reform.

My favourite quote from Warren Buffett: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

I think the guy sees himself as some sort of maverick truth-telling sage. Bill Gates gives away his money to alleviate some of the suffering the system that has created in the same process that made him unaccountably wealthy, Buffett, tells Da Troot. The superrich can afford to indulge themselves in their quirks. It certainly doesn’t mean that Warren Buffett has any intention to follow through on the consequences of what he says. George Soros is a similar example of course.

I don’t think that the rich as a cackling group of Machievallian individuals are responsible for the crisis. As I said earlier, it is an ideological question. Two years ago we saw the theoretical collapse of neoliberal ideology, as Alan Greenspan helpfully pointed out. The parties that are supposed to represent our interests and wishes chose to wilfully ignore this and continue pretty much as before. We need to have the courage to face this new reality, draw the necessary consequences and act accordingly: to fight the war that, as Warren Buffett helpfully points out, we are, like it or not, engaged in. http://davidharvey.org/2010/05/interview-on-bbcs-hardtalk-are-we-seeing-the-end-of-capitalism/

As for the long-predicted, inevitable death of capitalism, all I can say is that the ultimate demise of capitalism keeps getting postponed while socialism has mostly collapsed in those places which claimed to have socialist economies, such as the Soviet Union and its satellites.

In China, the president, Hu Jintao, is careful to claim that they are committed to the path of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” – which seems to allow much scope for private enterprise and the profit motive, albeit with the Communist Party retaining its monopoly over political power:
http://chairmanmaozedong.org/article/522.html

Those of us who followed closely the news on the recent international financial crisis found Marxist texts of no use whatever for analysing developments while Keynes and keynesianism provided many useful tools.

The apathy and despair that has surrounded this election and the popular desire for a purely managerial solution to the crisis is for me another indication that Western democracies are moving more in the direction of capitalism with Chinese characteristics. I would recommend here the work of David Harvey as a means of explaining the crisis but i can see that this is turning into one of those utterly pointless internet debates between two people with very entrenched points of view so I wont bother

“Western democracies are moving more in the direction of capitalism with Chinese characteristics.”

I profoundly hope that isn’t intended to suggest some political parties are seeking, and will be successful at attaining, permanent monopolies over political power.

It happens that I’ve not championed capitalism with “free markets”, which I’ve long held to be a silly notion since to function markets require supporting infrastructures of laws, regulations and enforcement agencies. The intelligent discussion is about what kind of infrastructure is most conducive to economic prosperity.

“I profoundly hope that isn’t intended to suggest some political parties are seeking, and will be successful at attaining, permanent monopolies over political power.”

Clearly not,rather that the level of disinterest and often disgust that I encountered during the election campaign at the very notion of democratic participation, followed by the post-election campign to get the parties to work together to manage the economy in some sprurious ‘national interest’, suggests to me that a great deal of people prefer not to be faced with political choices, either individual or collective, and would rather that a technically able elite did so for them.

“The intelligent discussion is about what kind of infrastructure is most conducive to economic prosperity.”

Conducive to economic prosperity for whom? Have you heard by any chance of a book called The Spirit Level? Or did you watch the David Harvey interview I linked to earlier? I don’t want to repeat myself too much, but this provides evidence that the headlines warning of imminent economic collapse unless we start slashing away at basic public services are not telling the whole story, to put it very (very) mildly.

It’s a truly fascinating insight for us when political activists are so disdainful of ordinary voters.

IME many voters suspect that political parties in government make public spending decisions to create narrow political advantage, by creating client groups for example, rather than on the substantive merits of spending programmes, which is why they hope coalition politics and alliances will act as a non-partisan filter.

“Conducive to economic prosperity for whom? Have you heard by any chance of a book called The Spirit Level?”

I’ve surely heard of The Spirit Level and have often referred to it in threads here. With a greater GDP in real terms, there’s at least the option of fiscal redistribution to make most citizens better off. As avowedly socialist governments have learned, it’s not too difficult to impoverish a country, which is why the East German regime had to go to such lengths to stop the flow of migration to the west.

Btw did you read this passage in a review of the Spirit Level?

“One question that comes to mind is whether the world’s most equal developed nations, Japan and Sweden, make sufficient allowance for individuals to express themselves without being regarded as a threat to the health of the collective. Critics of the two societies would argue that both make it intensely difficult for individual citizens to protest against the conformity both produced by, and required to sustain, equality.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/13/the-spirit-level

And this in another?

“Indeed, it’s when you try to join up all the material in this book that the problems start, because it’s only then that it becomes clear how messy it all is. Sometimes inequality is bad for almost everyone, and sometimes only for certain people; sometimes it is worst for the people at the bottom, and sometimes it is just as bad for the people at the top. Different societies are equal or unequal for different reasons, sometimes by necessity, sometimes by choice. The evidence points in all these different directions, and if you try to fit it all together then it’s easy to get lost.”
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n20/david-runciman/how-messy-it-all-is

One obvious question is why didn’t New Labour governments act to better regulate the financial services industry, one of the major sources of income inequalities? The short answer is because they were fearful least more regulation led to less buoyant tax revenues, which were being used to finance all those welfare schemes:

“Labour has added new welfare entitlements costing more than £8bn a year since 1997, the equivalent of 2p on the basic rate of income tax, according to Financial Times research. The entitlements range from free bus passes for everyone over 60, to baby bonds and education allowances to encourage 16-year-olds from low-income families to stay on at school.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2d9011f4-5312-11df-813e-00144feab49a.html