I’ve been thinking about politics quite a lot recently, primarily due to the forthcoming referendum on the UK voting system (5th May 2011).

It seems to me that the Conservatives who have promoted the idea of “Big Society” since before the election in 2010, they implemented this when they came into office in a Coalition with the Liberal Democrats (who have promoted a similar concept of “Community Politics“). Both Big Society and Community Politics promote the idea of Local Community Politics, and transferring some power from Central Government to Local Government. [1]

Our General Election currently uses the First-Past-The-Post system, meaning that the candidate with the most votes wins - but this means that less they can win with less than 50% support from their local constituency (and therefore more than 50% of the voters have not supported that candidate). This doesn’t seem right. This is why the Liberal Democrats, when they entered into the coalition, requested the referendum on a new voting system - and the Alternative Vote (Instant Runoff) system was chosen… which allows voters to rank their choices in order of preference. This means that when a candidate has received less than 50% of the vote then the voters which have their first choice as the lowest winners get their second choices counted (and this works up until a candidate has received more than 50% support). I’ve blogged about this in the past (see: “Alternative Vote Referendum UK 2011“) (also see the About My Vote page on the Referendum for the official detail).

It seems to me that if we are to have a truly “Big Society” where local work is fully supported and heard, then both Councillors in Local Government and MPs in Central Government should be elected in a system where they always receive more than 50% of the support of their local wards/constituency. [2]

Footnote

1. As an aside it seems that both Big Society (of the Tories) and Community Politics (of the LibDems and Greens) seem to support “mutualism” and “cooperatives“. It makes you wonder why the Co-operative Party is so aligned with the Labour Party which don’t seem to like the ideas within Big Society or Community Politics.
2. David Cameron and his Conservatives conceived the Big Society idea, yet they support the old ways of First Past The Post - it just doesn’t make sense. The Liberal Democrats, Labour Party, Green Party and UKIP all officially support the change to the Alternative Vote system (via the Yes Campaign). The AV system might not be perfect, but it is a step in the right direction. The Conservatives officially support the First Past the Post system (via the No Campaign), with a minority of the Labour Party MPs also supporting a “No” vote.