You’re not “disenfranchised” by FPTP

It’s a scandal: in the 2008 US Presidential Election, 47% of the votes counted for nothing! Rather than granting each candidate a slice of power proportional to his or her vote share, America inexplicably uses an antiquated “winner takes all” approach. Consequently, over 50 million voters received no representation whatsoever in the White House.
That [...]

Voting - a right or an obligation?

We are entering a very interesting time in British politics – aren’t we? That’s the statement that seems to be on lips of many politicos at the moment. Blair’s marathon premiership is coming to a close and a shake-up in British politics approaches. Brown versus Cameron, ‘clunking fist’ versus ‘New Conservatism’, question marks over the [...]

Good Lord(s)

This is almost a seamless transition from the discussion of Britishness we see above, into a questioning of the proposed changes to the House of Lords as outlined by Jack Straw. The House of Lords is that old cliché, peculiarly British. Its role has been relatively unclear since at least 1867, though I’m not going [...]

The real elephant in the room

While there may be a baby European elephant in the room (see Owen’s article below), the real, rampaging, galumphing, trumpeting elephant is climate change.
But don’t worry; this isn’t a post on climate change, it’s on electoral reform. My premise is that the adversarial, first-past-the-post (FPP) system of election in the UK is [...]