If that’s true, then First Past the Post would be even better – over 50% supporting a party that is opposed to these crazy free market reforms, and the rest split between two parties well out to the right.

I don’t see why this affects radical right-wing reforms but not radical left-wing reforms. Plus the Tories went through the last election campaign denying they were going to do loads of the stuff they are actually doing – so if it does apply doesn’t it just encourage parties to be less up-front about what they want to do?

I think tim f has a point there – doesn’t the need for second preferences encourage dishonesty and deception to some extent? It’s no longer enough to gather the support of those who believe you are heading in the right direction; you now have to gather those who are not happy with your direction. The best way to do this is to disguise the nature of your plans more than politicians currently do.

The original post makes this point nicely: “If a large proportion of the population receive money from the system, then it is difficult to imagine them placing their second preferences for a party that will withdraw social benefits, ahead of one that pledges to retain them.” That is to say, there is an inbuilt bias towards reactionism in a system like AV (this could work the other way – if a large proportion of the population pay taxes to support others, then it is difficult to imagine them placing their second preferences for a party that will increase taxes ahead of one that pledges to reduce them for example), which mean radicalism of all types loses, and the norm becomes goverments focussed on consensus politics comprised of people with more concern with attaining power than enacting solutions (of whatever type – remember the right wing is trying to solve problems in government as well). If you regard radicalism as a bad thing, this is no problem, but otherwise this is a problem that needs to be addressed by supporters of AV.

Heh, are they saying what us loonies have been saying for years, that the British electorate is actually more lefty than we’re led to believe ?

S. Pill,

No – just that the electorate is not as right-wing as they would like. Since elections since 1970 tend to show the electorate rejecting left-wing (unless you really want to make the case for Mr Blair) alternatives except in 1974 (when the alternative was Edward Heath!) and 1997 (when Mr Blair still sounded vaguely radical in some ways) in favour of right-wing or centralist, I think we’re pretty safe in saying that over the last four decades the British electorate as a whole has not shown many signs of being particularly left-wing. Could be lack of credible choice of course, but still.

@Watchman

Surely “not as right-wing” = “more left wing”? Or am I committing a grevious sin of logic here?

Shorter right wing.

We don’t need no stinking democracy. We just demandt free market bullshit.

Change rightwards isn’t really “reform” is it? Not how the term would be understood historically, anyway.

Heh, wasn’t this the entire premise that Naomi Klein revealed in her book The Shock Doctrine? That the majority of people in representative democracies will always vote against these measures because they’ll be harmed the most by them, so best make damn sure they can’t make such decisions?

Is Denmark a figment of my imagination? A country with a centre right government, a very liberal economic and employment culture and PR elections via a list system? If the IEA was being true to its professed beliefs, it would be having wet dreams about AV.

* AV will create different results to PR via list system, but it will almost always demand creation of a coalition government. The Danish system is slightly clearer to voters: government there will always be conducted by a coalition.

As with @ 2.

I can’t see that AV kills radical right wing reforms any more than it kills radical left wing ones. Anything off the current centre ground, anything off the current “way we do things” gets killed.

“We don’t need no stinking democracy. We just demandt free market bullshit.”

Absolutely. IEA people might reflect a little on just how damning their argument against electoral reform is.

Don – I’m frankly astounded you could post this in the present situation. The received wisdom we heard for years from people who favoured voting reform is pretty much what you describe above. But the mechanism by which this moderating influence was supposed to be delivered was coalition government. Failing to recognise this and concentrating on the mechanism is strictly for the anoraks. You’re reminding people what Thatcher got in 1983 when we now have a government tramping where she feared to tread – and they couldn’t even win a majority under FPTP? If this doesn’t make people wake up to the fact that too much is claimed for voting reform, I don’t know what will.

Try: Choosing an electoral system – a British Academy report:
http://www.britac.ac.uk/policy/choosing-electoral-system.cfm

@7, 12

“We don’t need no stinking democracy. We just demandt free market bullshit.”

Well, since a free market would need a democracy (free market in government – any other way to do it, since government is not something that can be bought?), I think that makes no sense. For the upteenth time, free marketeers are democrats. Totalitarian regimes favour business interests over freedom of markets. After all, how many truly free markets are not democracies (possibly Singapore, but I am not convinced)?