Maybe I am not entirely full of crap...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/07/david-miliband-labou...
David Miliband calls for open primaries for UK Labour
Fri, 2009-08-07 14:14
#1
David Miliband calls for open primaries for UK Labour
Fri, 2009-08-07 14:43
#2
Not...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/open-primaries-open-minds/a...
Actually, a simpler way to accomplish much the same thing is to implement an electoral system whereby we cast preferential ballots for a set of representatives in each riding. That way we can choose between multiple candidates competing for the same seats and "hire" a representative that better matches our particular take of the issues and platforms.
STV is one such electoral system.
Fri, 2009-08-07 14:51
#3
Anything we could do to increase political participation would be a good thing...
Fri, 2009-08-07 15:01
#4
...and improve the breadth and quality of representation with respect to the debates and votes in our parliaments and the responsibilty to the electorate.
Enhancing the efficacy of our connection to our representatives will make participation meaningful (worthwhile) and serve to increase it.
Fri, 2009-08-07 15:19
#5
God, David Miliband and the rest of New Labour makes me want to throw up when he throws out such gems as this paragraph chock full of corporate buzzwords and paeans towards "market dynamism" and "radical liberal traditions":
As we look forward to the manifesto, we know the scale of our electoral challenge means we need to be more creative, innovative and forward-looking than ever before, empowering and protecting people by using the government leadership, market dynamism and civic mobilisation that is necessary to solve any big problem. New Labour has been strongest when it has combined Labour's social-democratic and radical liberal traditions.
And I find the whole thing funny that New Labour has wound up selling out every single social democratic principle (aside from selling out, which has been a social democratic principle since before 1914 when their social patriotism condemned the working class of Europe to four years of slaughter), and now they're desperate to try to bring in new people, particularly trade unionists, and try to astroturf some sort of movement after they've sold out their former base. People don't hate New Labour because they're not "creative, innovative, and forward-looking enough", they hate them because they sold out the working class and participated in the Iraq war. If Miliband can't get this through his head, no amount of corporate rebranding can save the Labour Party from being crushed next election.
Fri, 2009-08-07 15:35
#6
I saw Miliband on TV and he seemed pretty full of himself. At one point he said something like "Well, you know, being English, we don't like to talk about ourselves". Then the interviewer started asking questions about his lifestyle and his kids, and he replied with several sentences starting with "You want to.." and "You don't want to..", when he was clearly referencing his own likes and dislikes, i.e. talking about himself.
The hypocrisy of this was deliciously British, and a wonder to behold.
I think Mr. Miliband has a great future ahead of him 
Fri, 2009-08-07 23:24
#7
Maybe I am not entirely full of crap...
Uncle, trust me on this...you NEVER want to give other posters here THAT kind of a set-up...
Sat, 2009-08-08 12:13
#8
what the electorate have to fear is the same bland mush from both parties that fail to address their real insecurities and anxieties caused by an economy out of any democratic and social control.Some in New Labour's ranks, having presided over the ideological and organisational decimation of the party now want to move beyond it through the introduction of primaries. This would have the added bonus of ensuring they are never held to account for their actions. If they can apply primaries to the actual leadership of the party then all the better. Suddenly people who have never cared that the membership has more than halved and its democratic culture has been hollowed out have become interested in change just at the point the party faces obliteration that their policies and leadership created. I'm sure the foreign secretary's motives are honourable but you can't help feeling that some want primaries because they know it's the only way to save their bacon. To call it cynical doesn't do their actions justice.
The big reform that would make a real difference to our democracy and renew it is the introduction of proportional representation. This would burst the Westminster bubble and let competing ideas and parties in. It is the dreary tyranny of middle England and the power of Rupert Murdoch and the City of London that kill our democracy and have destroyed our economy. Today, with weak parties, primaries would just be an open door to people who can write big cheques, gets lots of media and appeal to the lowest common denominator. We would end up with the politics of Rantzen, Berlusconi and hanging.
This does not mean candidates appointed by the leader. Democratic nominations are vital, as guaranteed by law in Germany (no, proportional representation does not mean the leader appoints the list). As Lawson writes, the only real power party members have is to select candidates. Open primaries would take that away. A law requiring democratic nominations, however, would keep MPs accountable.
Sat, 2009-08-08 12:52
#9
...or implement a system like STV that does both, proportional representation and primary-like voter choice.
Sun, 2009-08-09 15:01
#10
...or implement a system like STV that does both, proportional representation and primary-like voter choice.
Indeed many electoral reformers in the UK prefer STV.
It's possible Neal Lawson is not one of them. Some democratic socialists don't like the idea of two Labour candidates competing with each other as to who can get the most second preferences from Liberal-Democrats.
STV is easier to sell in the UK where they have seen it at work in Ireland for 88 years, and understand it. As Jenkins' five commissioners said:
It maximises voter choice, giving the elector power to express preference not only between parties but between different candidates of the same party. It achieves a significantly greater degree of proportionality. It avoids the problem of having two classes of member, as is the case with the Additional Member System. It also avoids the likelihood of fostering a proliferation of small splinter parties, and does this without the need for setting any arbitrary threshold. . . And STV is in addition the system which commands the enthusiastic support of most of those who have devoted their minds and their energies to the cause of electoral reform.
But at least one Commissioner (the only Tory on the Commission) felt
I do not see it as particularly desirable that candidates from different parties, who are different precisely because they do not agree on all issues, should be pulling their punches in order to seek approval from voters who support other parties.
They all said of Ireland's MPs
they are very loath to vote for a necessary but potentially unpopular measure until they know that their rival/partner from the same party in the same constituency is doing so too. There thus develops what may be described as an 'after you Cecil, after you Claud' mentality.
So after listing "a number of counterbalancing disadvantages . . . which are fairly formidable in combination" the five Commissioners came down against STV. "It would also, particularly in the less densely populated areas of the country, be difficult to reconcile with the fourth of our terms of reference requirements - 'the maintenance of a link between MPs and geographical constituencies'."
Lord Jenkins was a founding member of the Social Democrats, who then merged with the Liberals to become the Liberal Democrats. The other members included a Labour Whip, a mandarin trusted by Labour, and a journalist later appointed as a Labour peer. You'd think Labour would have implemented their report by now. Maybe there's still time?
Sun, 2009-08-09 15:43
#11
And, of course, the so-called "Social Democrats" were a group of right-wing elitists who quit the Labour Party because the left-wing majority of the party dared to challenge their belief in their own infallibility and natural entitlement to run the Labour Party forever. They were actually going to have to(horror of horrors)LET THEIR OWN CONSTITUENCY PARTIES, the people who were responsible for doing all the work of electing them, decide if they should continue to be renominated for reelection to Parliament. How dare anyone question the elites? How dare anyone who works for a living, let alone works to elect Labour candidates, actually expect to have a say in the Labour Party? So they stopped the Labour Party from getting in during any election in which a Labour victory would actually have mattered.
It was solely the responsibility of the Social Democrats that it became impossible to defeat the Tories until Labour agreed to keep all Tory policies in place. There was little if anything that happened during the Blair government that wouldn't have happened if Major had stayed in power. It's thanks to the SDP that elections are now meaningless in the UK.
Sun, 2009-08-09 15:57
#12
You got a cite for more detail on that?
Sun, 2009-08-09 16:27
#13
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_(UK)
The section about the "Manifesto Group" is informative, as was the statement in the article that the SDP supported Thatcherite economic policies such as the weakening of the trade unions(while pretending that they made up for this by being slightly more "welfarist" than the Tories). It has to be said, also that the entry I quoted has a heavy pro-SDP bias that you're going to have to wade through.
The SDP got what it wanted...politics without any real differences between the major parties.
The most sickening figure in all the SDP was Shirley Williams, whose mother, Vera Brittain, devoted her life to working for disamament but who herself was an unquestioning backer of the Cold War and the Bomb. Williams, who was given a peerage for her services to the rich, made Thatcher unbeatable just to save nuclear weapons.
Sun, 2009-08-09 16:30
#14
Wilf:
Candidates seek votes from any and all voters. If they do attract them, then they have a mandate from and a responsibility to that constituency. That's not a bad thing. In fact it's what we want.
Multi-member districts do feature a direct link between voters and their representatives -- that's how the relationship between to two becomes more accountable.
During the CAs we were told that designing electoral systems would involve some compromises -- to arrive at an optimal balance of achieving what might otherwise seem to be competing goals. The degree of proportionality, quality of representation, tightness of localization, number of sitting members, etc... one can reach reasonable balance all within STV or some such similar system.
So would you rather have open primaries or STV?
Sun, 2009-08-09 16:53
#15
Does that have to be "either-or"?
Can you not have STV AND open primaries? With STV, you'd still need some way of deciding how candidates were chosen by the parties.
Sun, 2009-08-09 17:05
#16
So would you rather have open primaries or STV?
STV, no question.
Sun, 2009-08-09 17:09
#17
Does that have to be "either-or"?
Can you not have STV AND open primaries? With STV, you'd still need some way of deciding how candidates were chosen by the parties.
But why bother.. you'd just be selecting 'em twice.
Parties should have autonomy in offering candidates.
Mon, 2009-08-10 00:44
#18
Does that have to be "either-or"?
Can you not have STV AND open primaries? With STV, you'd still need some way of deciding how candidates were chosen by the parties.
But why bother.. you'd just be selecting 'em twice.
Parties should have autonomy in offering candidates.
The interesting point with STV is how many to nominate. Irish parties have an interesting time with that. It's a local decision, except when it isn't. And if a party decides to nominate only its two incumbents, that will work -- unless someone who wanted to try for the nomination runs as "Independent (Liberal, or whatever)" and the voters may just agree with him. For fear of which, the party may back down and let them all run as party candidates. Or in the last election, when a critic of the leader won the Labour nomination in a district, suddenly the party was running two candidates. Of course the internal friction meant that neither won, and a "safe" seat was lost. But at least the critic was put down. All of which shows that it's hard to be definitive about how STV works. There is a degree of interplay between the party and the voter that is unique to STV. An open primary would not be very "open" if the party headquarters decided how many candidates to nominate.
So Miliband's "open primaries" are, again, a distraction from real electoral reform, whether STV or a mixed member system.
Mon, 2009-08-10 09:21
#19
The interplay you mention is through the electable candidate whose stock and influence in the party necessarily rises.. or the candidates go elsewhere c/w their support and mandate... to a degree.
In a multi-member riding wouldn't parties run as many candidates as they think they can win and then some? It's the "and then some" that should give voters a good modicum of choice. Parties would run fewer candidates only if they couldn't attract enough candidates to run (a party in trouble or a marginal one anyway) or they're being cheap.
Under STV, parties that are still thinking in terms of safe seats would be still thinking in terms of the unfair "cut corners" of FPTP. That kind of thinking will not be rewarded.
STV is not hard to figure -- playing straight is rewarded; spin is not.