Our electoral system
Oliver criticises the attempt to defeat Tony Blair personally in the forthcoming election, calling it:An affront to representative democracy that coarsens the political culture and misunderstands its supposed precedent.
I'm not sure whether I agree with this. Certainly it seems to me to set an awful precedent as even if Blair's majority is only reduced sharply then will there ever be a Prime Minister who doesn't face such a challenge? On the other hand it does bring into sharp focus the absurdity of our electoral system, a system which the PM supports.
Advocates of FPTP like to pretend, if only in the background, that MPs are elected because of who they are, not which party they represent (e.g. Mrs Thatcher was persuaded not to bring Cecil Parkinson back to the Cabinet until he had been elected again).
Thus such arguments need to be used against them. If a celebrity candidate can change the face of British politics merely by winning one seat then either there is no democratic affront as he is the preferred candidate of the voters of Sedgefield, or our electoral system is broken and needs changing.
It's the latter obviously. I don't believe there is any chance of Blair being defeated, but perhaps if he and other party leaders faced more challenges like this they would come to realise the electoral system we have is more of a lottery than democracy.
posted by Matthew @ 3/08/2005 08:39:00 AM
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