I prefer an ‘open list’ or cellular sytem where the liberal could only get elected (albeit over a bigger area) by getting at least the same number of votes as a single constituency MP. Usually they get a lot more votes to get elected.

Also AMS list MPs are not as bad as people think. Here is a viewpoint.

“I was able to take a regional view and
look at things in a slightly more
strategic way than a constituency
Member who was focusing entirely on
things that were going on in their
constituency. So when I was talking
about rural issues or transport issues, I
was able to take a strategic view across
my region.’– Delyth Evans (Labour’s
only List AM 2000-2003) reporting to the
Richard Commisson.

Hope that is helpful.

What your comments seem to suggest with regards “making every vote count” is that you would want multi-member STV constituencies (as in the Northern Ireland Assembly, councils and MEPs). That’s a nice idea on paper but unworkable in practice - I’m still waiting for STV advocates to tell me how to split my home county (Surrey) into a 5/6 arrangement that makes sense (the clear natural arrangement is an East/West 4/7 based on local authorities with no real room for manoeuvre due to local ties) and doesn’t have a seat stretching from Oxted to Farnham!

Re the system you suggest, I don’t see why, when a Labour person should beat a Liberal in (e.g.) Oxford East by about 900 votes, but despite his rejection by the electorate of his constituency, the Liberal is still elected on some sort of top-up system, and can then spend the next four years being the “Liberal MP for Oxford East”, undermining the actual MP elected for the area, as happens across Wales currently.

You have got a little confused by AV+. I’m not sure whether you actually mean that or AV, which keeps the same constituencies as now, but is not proportional.

AV is better than FPTP because it at least ensures 50% support for an MP in a constituency, but is still open to boundary manipulation/gerrymandering.

AV+ is like a semi-AMS and is better still because it is a bit more proportional than AV because it allows 15% of the seats elected on a regional list basis. I don’t like that it is a ‘closed list’ which is why Helen Mary Jones can lose but still be elected in Wales where they use ‘closed list’ AMS.

A ‘closed list’ means the party selects the list, I prefer an ‘open list’ which is selected by voters or better still cellular constituencies. I promise I won’t mention PR for a while, so you can save your yawns. Cheers.

James W asks
Can selection only take the form of a 1950s division between grammars and secondary moderns?

Well, yes - surely the necessary accompaniment of grammar schools has to be something that is a secondary modern in practice even if not in name - because it would have to cater for children that failed the eleven plus? And in what way is failing an exam that your parents and school may have been preparing you for for months not throwing you on the dustbin at eleven?

I’m also not hugely fond of a a system of specialist / faith / academy schools, so, as someone who enjoyed a classical education, I sympathise with your son’s plight. London dwellers, I take it? Come and move to a provincial city, it’s all much less fraught.

Bloggers for Labour, I don’t doubt that Stephen’s sincere in his support for Labour - it just makes me sad that he, with his views, thinks that Labour is the way to advance them.

Neil, as regards PR, whatever. It was a throwaway comment, I just don’t understand the overriding importance of constitutional reform to some party members. It’s not an issue that I’m passionate about either way, although saying that 100 Labour MPs share them is not the greatest argument - over 100 Labour MPs supported the war, etc. etc. I do hate the Welsh system though - if you can, please explain to me why it is right that the voters of Llanelli reject Helen Mary Jones in the constituency, but then she gets in through the back door on the bloody regional list? I’d support AV+ for single member constituencies - that would make every vote count, wouldn’t it?

Oh, and sorry mate, but what “have merely slowed the process” is referring to is the “Britain is becoming an aristocracy of wealth” at the start of the previous paragraph.

You imply, more than a little tendentiously, that selection means ‘thousands of young people are consigned to the rubbish heap at 11′ but, again, you provide no justification or argument for this. You might be right. But you give us nothing to go on. Can selection only take the form of a 1950s division between grammars and secondary moderns? Are there really no other systems at all in the world? And in any case aren’t schools already selective - following the random lines of geography or income (where those who can afford to go private) rather than the needs or potential of any individual pupil. In what other area of life would one accept that one was simply given what the powers that be decide and which they allocate on a postcode lottery without even beginning to ask what you might need. My son is very keen on philosophy and classics but he can’t go to the school that teaches it because he lives two streets in the wrong direction. While he goes to the school with a great reputation for sport and theatre his friends from two streets away who are made keen on football can’t go to that school. What is just or egalitarian about this? It is merely bureaucraticaly convenient and abstractly appealing to people who don’t want to think but to say what prejudice tells them is the nice, kind, liberal thing to say.

In what other area of life would one not select on various criteria? Universities are selective for specialism and ability. All employers are selective. I am selective everytime I order a beer, hire a lawyer or vote for an MP.

Surely the question concerns not whether to select or not but the criteria and process of selection?

If you look at Pollard’s CV, I think his time at the Daily Express and Adam Smith Institute has had a big effect on him.

However, I say leave him in there, as it is sometimes good to have a closet Tory to rail against!

Antonia, here is a quote from the Nick Cohen article, included in Pollard’s piece;

“All the efforts by New Labour to redistribute wealth, all the Sure Start schemes and working families’ tax credits, have merely slowed the process”.

As for my odd views on PR, they are shared by over 100 Labour MPs.

We realise two things about PR, that we need to foster in the Labour Party.

1. We have a moral duty to majority government not minority government! Most other democracies have realised this and have more equal societies as a result.

2. We are not frightened of the electorate. We know the majority do support progressive views and PR will turn these views into seats, unlike the russian roulette we have at the moment that delivered 18 years of Thatcherism and has destroyed democracy in the Labour party-marginalising the left and working class support.

Last, glad you liked the idea on Oxbridge. Sadly can’t claim it as my own! It was some academic writing ages ago in the paper that Pollard, Norm’s blog and Harry’s Place hate so much -The Guardian.

What do other people think?