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2022-12-04

Another email plopped into my inbox - probably yesterday, maybe before - exhorting me to support their latest project - Proportional Representation! And guess what? I'm invited to send them money!

Well I'll be jiggered, I didn't see that coming ...

Now, I'm all for solutions, but they have to be solutions that work, and we've been around the proportional representation loop before, so what's different this time?

Maybe I'll pass up this opportunity to "make a difference". Still, as a confirmed critic of the current political settlement in this country, I probably ought to explain my thinking.

Before we can address a problem we have to understand it. We have to diagnose the problem, identify the underlying cause(s), and then we can check whether the proffered solution actually addresses the causes - if it doesn't, then we know what not to do.

So what are the problems with our parliamentary system that proportional representation might fix? Oh, and does it have a track record of success?

It is said that the first-past-the-post system:

(a) provides a government that can actually push its policies through (good principle, not necessarily so in practice due to a myriad of other factors in play at any one time - as exemplified so well by our current government) 

(b) stops people voting for minor parties because they are seen as being in an impossible position (also true in some ways, but again it's by no means the only factor)

Proportional representation (it is claimed) will give the minor parties a better chance to get into parliament - a notoriously difficult feat for a number of reasons:

  • The media give smaller parties parsimonious publicity at best, whilst the big boys are given close enough all of the available publicity
  • Sensible potential parliamentary candidates recognise that the party system works against small parties, and to get elected you need to join a big party
  • Ordinary sensible people recognise that adversarial politics is both the bedrock of parliamentary debate and the nemesis of rational debate (viz: PMQs), and that no good is likely to come from getting involved in it
  • Ordinary sensible people have lives to live and find parliamentary politics nauseous and incomprehensible, so vote by instinct, past habit, and what their media of choice suggest, rather than by any analysis of the actual politics at stake
  • Those ordinary sensible people who do vote tend to vote for what they see as the least worst option when they only have two or three major parties to choose from
  • Ordinary sensible people who actually think about it realise that the game is rigged - which ever party you vote in, the people (out of the public eye) who control the party will dictate the policies to be implemented regardless of for whom you voted - money (and many other factors) speak louder than votes
  • Other factors:
    • The Civil Service - regardless of who wins the election, there are hordes of civil servants sufficient to run rings around any and all politicians who want to implement policies at odds with the "advisers" - it's simply impossible to refute the advice and guidance in any practicable time-frame - and then the same civil servants would have to implement those "ill-advised" policies, knowing that the politician is always the fall guy
    • The Media - the mainstream media are also beholden to the same corporate controllers, so you can be sure that any politician that seeks to buck the system will enjoy either awful or zero publicity, as may be thought appropriate
    • The rules - byzantine rules for maintaining "fairness" mean that a politician can't talk to anybody appropriate to his/her needs
    • The rules - these mean that everything you say or do must be recorded for posterity (and may make you look a fool or a criminal if you should by any mischance put a foot wrong or annoy somebody important at some stage)
    • Lastly we must recognise the potential for criminality - bribery blackmail etc - anybody who believes that this potential is not significant when the possible prizes are so huge and the system is so controllable needs to check out the government's procurement habits

So, which of the above problems will proportional representation address, and will it make any appreciable difference? Does the EU Parliament (where PR is de rigeur) work any better than ours?

So why the sudden drive for PR now?

Anybody who supports this initiative is going to be distracted from analysing the real situation and proposing a real solution. Reformers focused on the wrong solution all weaken the reform movement.

It's called "divide and rule".


So what are the real problems?

There are quite a few (well OK, quite a lot), but here goes:

  1. The political parties are a front for the criminal classes.
    They have the power, so they will always attract the criminals who want to profit from that power. They have to be neutered somehow. Politicians must start to represent their constituents and not their parties.
    • At a minimum, constituencies should elect and finance their MP, and have the power to recall and replace them whenever they please
    • Party whips should be stripped of their real power of patronage - the American system where the voters decide who should stand for the Party is designed to help, but it's very likely insufficient
    • Political parties should ideally be abolished, and local candidates should be elected victualled and supported according to local rules
    • The Electoral Commission should be abolished and its functions returned to the constituencies
    • Devolution should match power to capability - central government should never control that which can be performed at a local level

  2. Taxation should be voluntary!
    "Heresy!" I hear the anguished cry ...
    But in times past all public works were financed by public subscription, so if the public didn't value it sufficiently, it didn't get done. I think that idea has much to commend it, and in these internet days the means to crowdfund such matters already exist - they probably just need to be better organised for easier access visibility and accountability.
    In any case the principle of compulsion is well overused today - it needs to be reduced to a rump, and ideally eventually to nothing at all.
    Yes this would be a mammoth change, but the current unaccountable spending from "general taxation" is utterly out of control and gives rise to uncontrollable cronyism at the highest levels.

  3. The corporate stranglehold on everything needs to be broken.
    Easier said than done of course, the whole direction of travel of both government and corporations has for many years been to amalgamate smaller enterprises into bigger ones (by hook or by crook - think lockdown), resulting in what we have now - actual power in the hands of a tiny elite and for the masses, the illusion of choice where many brands are in fact merely fronts for the same controlling corporate entities. Possible solution:
    1. Abolish limited liability for corporate enterprises. Owners should be personally liable for debts however incurred, including damages and restitution of losses as directed by common law courts.
    2. Alongside this there would need to be an adequate defence against Ponzi schemes where huge losses are hidden by ongoing "investment" - obviously a difficult topic, and not adequately addressed in today's world either.
    3. Abolish the monopoly of central banks to issue intrinsically worthless currency. This is an extremely hoary topic too big to address here, but if we can't save the fruits of our labour in a form that doesn't have potential for uncontrolled evaporation then we are being robbed.

In short, actual power needs to be returned from the elite few to the people, in all respects. We have now almost reached peak centralisation, and if we don't like the uncontrollable result, then we must change it.

We must do so before we finally reach Ultimate Peak Centralisation, control by the unaccountable UN and their crony corporates of the WEF, Big Pharma, and the global mafia hiding behind global "charitable foundations" and "independent" (but also unaccountable) NGOs of all kinds.

If you follow the money, these NGOs charitable foundations and political bodies are all ultimately financed by our tax pounds/dollars/euros/dinars etc - abolish taxation - they all dry up - we get to spend our own money on our own priorities.

So what's not to like?!

We need to start thinking about how we get there ...