The Alternative Vote is Wrong for Britain- The Politicizer

On May 5th the people of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland will go to the polls for local elections and be asked whether they support undergoing the largest change to parliamentary elections in the history of the United Kingdom. If the referendum is passed Members of Parliament would no longer be elected under a first-past-the-post system but instead by a form of alternative voting that forces voters to rank all of the candidates on the ballot in order of their preference. If a voter’s first choice is eliminated then their vote is passed along to the next indicated preference still in the running. This continues until one candidate has at least 50% of the total vote. Proponents for this change argue that this will ensure that MPs have the support of the majority of their constituents as well as make the main parties to compete for fringe voters even the safest districts. Currently whichever candidate receives the most votes is elected.

The proposed move to the alternative vote is not the right medicine for the electoral issues in the United Kingdom. In reality, this referendum was the main price paid by the Conservatives to their partners in Government, the Liberal-Democrats, in exchange for their support. Ironically enough alternative voting is actually the black sheep of electoral reform proposals in that the Liberal-Democrats originally preferred a proportional representation system (similar to the one utilized for elections to the European Parliament) and the Lib-Dems are not actively campaigning in favor of the switch to AV. The Labour Party leadership has officially endorsed the AV system. However, over half of the Labour Members have signed onto the No to AV campaign in a show of defiance against what many consider ineffective reform and a political win for Liberal-Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. The Conservatives are united against the alternative vote and have been aggressively pushing to keep the first-past-the-post system.

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Don't Count Cameron Out- The Politicizer

It has been a rough few months for British Prime Minister David Cameron. As if keeping the first coalition government in forty years united wasn’t hard enough, Cameron recently lost his Communications Director Andy Coulson amid scandalous allegations that he was involved in cell phone hacking while working at News of the World. Although the student protests of the Fall have subsided and Conservative Party Headquarters is no longer under siege from thousands of tuition fee crusaders, the effects of the deep austerity measures implemented by the government have begun to drag Cameron’s Conservatives down in the opinion polls. A Com Res poll issued on February 9th shows the Conservatives now trail the Labour Party by seven percentage points.

Less than a year ago the Conservatives won a plurality of seats in the House of Commons, besting Labour by over five percentage points. So what happened? Cameron’s “full, comprehensive” offer to the Liberal Democrats to join in an official governing coalition was met with concern from party faithful and the spending cuts promised in the Conservative Manifesto have proven tough for the nation to swallow. Several British commentators are already speculating that this is just the beginning of an even bigger slide in the polls for Cameron and one that will result in the Labour Party reclaiming their majority in the Commons.

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David Cameron, The Post Political Prime Minister?

As the dust finally settled following Britain's 2010 General Election Conservative Party leader David Cameron was invited by the Queen to become Prime Minister and form a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. In the spirit of full disclosure this was not the move I was hoping for on the part of the Conservative Party. I was a fan of a Conservative minority government in which Cameron's message to the Lib Dems and to Labour was "try to stop us from governing." However, I can't help but be impressed with how effective Cameron has been at creating a government that better reflects the voters wishes and insulates the Conservative Party partially from blame. To elaborate on the latter point I found it interesting that the areas of compromise (many of which Lib Dems will head as ministers) were already included in the Conservative Manifesto.

From a political point of view the coalition may turn off Labour voters who tactically voted Lib Dem in order to keep the Tories out of government. Further I believe the coalition puts Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems in a terrible spot in terms of campaigning. First they will not be able to profess a new politics and instead will be inevitably wedded to the role of third party. No longer can they claim to blow the wheels off of the two party system as was there rallying cry in 2010. A cycle in which the Liberal Democrats lost nine seats and there share of the popular vote dropped two percent.

While the Lib Dems will have to create a new electoral narrative when the next election is called, the Conservatives have a huge opportunity to build upon one they have already established. Assuming the economy improves David Cameron and the Conservatives will have the chance to argue that "Conservative-Lite" has saved the UK just wait until you see a full fledged Conservative Government can do. Lastly, the Conservatives are the only party in British politics with the money on hand to run an effective campaign anytime soon. Both the Lib Dems and the Labour Party are cash poor and this provides further incentive for the Lib Dems to make the coalition work and possibly make concessions they otherwise would not.