Electoral Reform

[borusa]

There's been quite a lot of talk about electoral reform of late, and there's the possibility of it actually happening in some way or another, with the indecisive result in the General Election.

Comments

[spikydavid]

Historically, this makes sense, and is in many ways quite natural. Each community votes for someone to send to parliament, and off they trot, to do the best job they can (or not - Isaac Newton I am looking at you). When communities are fairly disparate, and relatively homogenous, this works quite well.

It's not really suited to the modern world, though. People are less tied to their geographic community. Populations are less homogenous in any sense. The role of the leader has taken on increasing importance, because of his or her ability to contact and be seen by the whole population.

Maybe, but I think you've jumped a couple of steps in the logic here that I don't necessarily agree with

To start with, whilst I agree that populations are less homogeneous than previously, and so the election of an MP is less likely than previous to be someone representative of a majority of their constituents' views, this is not the sole reason for a local MP

Local MPs give people a first point of contact for matters relating to their government - this is, I believe, always going to be an important factor for MPs.

So, local MPs good.

I also think that whilst the role of leader has become more important, I think it is unrelated to the homogeneity (or otherwise) of constituencies. Though I would probably have agreed with "because constituencies are bigger, and more people can vote, so fewer people are voting for Naz Sarkar or Alok Sharma, and more people are voting Red box, Blue box"

So, with that minor aside, to the meat. I'm confused as to what exactly the elected 'leader' would do in your example?

If the leader takes over the executive roles (forming a cabinet, appointing ambassadors, preparing the budget, signing treaties) that seems like a lot of power to centralise into a role that doesn't currently exist.

One downside (which exists with the US system, of course) is that the cabinet would no longer consist of MPs, necessarily, removing power from the people. This does currently happen with advisers, of course, but it would have greater impact in the future.

Finally, of course, it further entrenches the 2 party system, and marginalises the, well, the marginal parties. If there's a leader, then everyone else is a loser, and there's no place in the the executive branch for the losers (though there still would be in the legislative, of course). Given the slow rise to prominence of the Green Party, for example, winning their first seat in this general election, that would be a bad thing.

Overall, to me, it seems like quite a high price to pay for a fairly marginal benefit - which would only have had relevance about four times in the last forty years (2 hung parliaments, 2 party leader changes while party is in power)

[spikydavid]

PS - Conflagrated rather than conflated? Or was that just to check if we were reading it all carefully :)