Bozo remembers elections where (and memory is imperfect) the Liberals (I am old enough to remember the pre SDP era) or Lib Dems got 18-22% of the popular vote, and managed 14 seats out of 650.
The maths on all that is too complicated.
But basically what it meant was that 20% of the votes got 2% of the seats.
That doesn't look to me like democratic representation of the people.
Now I know all the arguments about local politics and local representatives but the fact is that - and we all know this is true - that campaigns are not by any means purely local and that most people are casting their vote for a national party manifesto.
In the last election...
Tories 10.7 million votes - 306 seats
Labour 8.6 million votes - 258 seats
Lib/dem 6.8 million votes - 57 seats
If we ignore the other parties we can see that 26.1 million votes were cast for the majors and the tories got 41%, Labour 33% and the Lib dems 26%.
You may feel the 57 Lib Dem MPs have too much influence on government (although most Lib Dem activists slag off Cleggy for not having enough!) for 57 seats.
But 6.8 million Lib Dem voters may question why 26% of the votes got only 8.7% of the seats. They may argue that 17% of their voters are going unrepresented.
If I didn't know the 'local politics' argument was so spurious for the majority of voters it might carry more weight in my thoughts, and without it the under-representation of those parties outside the top two is so patently clear and undemocratic it hardly needs comment.
Bozo discussed the practical aspects last week, but the democratic principle aspect seems not to be in much doubt.
Since the demise of the liberal party in the 1920s, if you vote Liberal your vote doesnt count much in the democratic process.
I have heard proponents of first past the post say that liberal voters whould vote differently if they want their vote to count...
That's like a restaurant onwer telling a vegetarian that if they decided to eat meet there would be dozens of options for them on the menu.
I am lucky in that the first time I ever voted LibDem my vote counted - sadly not because i got any form of socialism into government, but because I at least had a voice doing something to restrain the Tories.
We all know Bozo believes in deficit reduction. But he believes in it because we foolishly still allow those total f@@@wits in the banking community to decide far too much. And if we have to believe their views on sound fiscal government (and why we have to given the sub prime CDS CDO nonsense they all believed in amazes me) then we have to have at this stage sound fiscal approaches.
So i am glad at least that we have someone restaining the Tories...
I wish we had had someone restain Maggie
I wish we had had someone restain Tony Blair (Iraq anyone?)
I wish we had had someone restrain Gordon from selling us out to the banks
I find it hard to see coalition as a crime given what a full on mandate to govern has done for us as a country since 1979
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