I find it astonishing that at this time of crisis, if not total collapse, that not once have I heard any reference on any TV or radio news programme about the possibility that an 'updated' voting system could remove 'the fog of FPTP' (a brilliant description) and allow future policy decisions to be based on what The People actually want, rather than the blind panic of either trying to appease or assuage.
Proportional Representation doesn't get a mention. I wish your voice was louder!
Hundreds of thousands of British citizens who live abroad are entitled to vote. However, by demanding a UK postcode, your petition shuts off their chance of signing it, however much they may wish support it.
Isn't that rather self-defeating?
Please do something to allow them to sign if they want to.
Whilst I do agree with your general thrust and (can we wait that long) your offered solution. There are several red-flags. Starmer shows time and time again that he simply does not have judgement, let alone a transferable vision of a future UK/Britain/DevolvedStates.
Consultation = a self-selected cohort who decide what those ordinary people are allowed to respond to. We have to move away from tail wagging the dog, to the dog feeding the tail.
The control of £Billionaires, global companies on what 'we' are allowed to do has to be countered. Politics has to come clean and reveal how committed they are to each such outfit.
I think the problem is they do know what the people want but have judged that they know better. This is a problem of a political class completely disconnected from the people and who judge themselves to be morally superior.
Agree. Both Tories and Labour are tribal and consistently put their party before the country, which is why they don't want to get rid of FPTP. PR would make them listen to us and that would entail encountering massive cognitive dissonance. I for one don't care whether these tribes survive or not. I care about the people of this country.
Alastair Campbell, reflecting on the Local and National (Welsh and Scottish) elections to followers of ‘The Rest is Politics’, concludes: “This current crisis for Starmer is about much more than the personalities. It is about what our politics has become, and whether it is fit for purpose.” Why does he need to restrict his characterisation of this event to a ‘crisis for Starmer’? It’s a crisis for all of us. The real question is about whether our politics is fit for purpose. The rational and obvious answer is that it is not.
Our voting systems now result in who ‘the country’ does not want to govern them, rather than choosing who it does want. OK, so being in government is ‘bloody hard right now” as Alastair Campbell so pithily says. Even more so when our parliament is dominated by one party, Labour, with 63% of the seats on a pitiful 34% minority of the public vote.
We are cursed by a political landscape which now operates almost entirely on partial and often misleading perceptions, exacerbated by both the traditional media and the ‘postmodern’ virtual twittering, not to mention dubious if not malevolent funding. Serious policy debate, construction and implementation is left for ‘government’, for which all winning parties have been woefully ill-prepared for the last 20 years.
The 2025 Social Attitudes Survey report on Britain’s democracy opens with “The 2024 General Election occurred against the backdrop of record low levels of trust and confidence in how Britain was being governed.” The report highlights that a record low 12% of those surveyed trust governments always or most of the time to put the interests of the nation above those of their own party. Only 19% think the system of governing Britain needs little or no improvement, unchanged from 2023.
Amid the hype usually accompanying general elections we often forget, de jure, we are only electing our own constituency MP, not a government. De facto, however, the present single cross actually signifies two very different things: first, a preference for (more often against) a political party and its manifesto, and hence for its leader to be the Prime Minister of our government; equal first, a preference for one of a list of candidates to be the MP to represent us in parliament for the next five years or so. Can it possibly do both reliably? What, exactly, is the result supposed to indicate, especially since the winning side hardly ever achieves a 50+% majority of the electorate, and certainly not since the war.
Consider the first question. The Hansard Society (2019) finds that only 1/3 of us express strong or fairly strong support for any political party. Any GE vote has weak and insecure foundations, especially since a good fraction of the votes are actually votes against another party rather than for a government. Our votes for a particular government and its manifesto are largely specious, if not wasted. Is this really a sensible democracy?
The second, equal first question – who to represent us – could and should be more reliable, if only it wasn’t confused and clouded with the first. Here, though, we only get to choose one, and then only from those chosen by the established political parties, with a very occasional ‘independent’, with the only real choice being between two, or at the most three, with any real chance of being elected. So, most votes are likely to be protests in one form or another. Is it really any wonder that we are largely dissatisfied with our governing system, and generally believe that it could be improved?
How? A very simple, but apparently seldom if ever considered alternative would be to give us all more votes. Let us use not just one cross, but ten, and let’s have the option of exercising our ten votes as either crosses (not this one) or ticks (yes, please). The winning candidate would be the one receiving the most ‘net-ticks’, their accumulated ticks minus their crosses. It might also be sensible to ensure that the winning candidate has at least [40]% of the maximum possible net-ticks (i.e. 10x election turnout). If this minimum electable net tick is not achieved by any candidate in the first election, then a re-vote should be held, with any candidate failing to achieve a minimum [10]% net tick in the first round being dropped from the re-vote.
Crosstick voting should mean that the elected MPs are the real preferred choice of their electorates. But how, then, should a government, which ‘commands the confidence of the House of Commons’ be formed? We should charge the resulting HoC to elect its own, and our, PM and Ministers by secret ballot These ministers, together forming the country’s executive, would then be directly accountable to the HoC, both individually and collectively. Here, again, a crosstick voting system might be very appropriate, signalling the intensity and direction of preferred choices much more clearly than other systems. And why would we want our MPs to have their choices of the best people to be our Ministerial Executive limited to those elected as MPs? Surely they should consider the best people available, regardless of their membership of the HoC?
Such a crosstick government election would, I suggest, generate very different incentives from our present system. It would encourage all participants to adopt, adapt and innovate procedures and support systems to continually improve its performance, reflected back to its primary constituents – us – through the elected representatives. It would be able, for instance, to distinguish between rational deliberation, policy development and legislation, and might well be encouraged to reject partisan shouting matches in favour of genuine and informed debate.
We might then want to go further to ensure appropriate accountability and continuity by (re) electing a [fifth] of MPs every year, rather than all of them every [five] years. In the first instance, the proportion of elected MPs with the largest net-tick majorities could be elected for five years and those with the smallest majorities only for one year. Given improved, state supported, arrangements for MP communications and interactions with their constituents, we might also consider procedures through which constituencies could recall an under-performing MP and trigger a by-election. And, of course, re-write the rules on political donations, and supplement them with public funding of basic electoral and constituency activities, with an independent democracy watchdog to ensure accurate and reliable information and communications.
All I know is that I will never ever vote for any party registered in England. I will never support anything British and will do everything to push for Independence from the U.K. And an increasing number of Scots, Welsh and N Irish think this way. The UK is united in name only and trying to kid on otherwise will see further agitation.
The modified D’Hondt, as used for the Welsh Senedd election, has real drawbacks for voters, but is great for centrally controlled political parties, although it did for Labour this time.
Mark Drakeford was warned that the D’Hondt system was not the best but chose it anyway believing that it would entrench Labour in Wales in perpetuity. Another example of my point that the problem is less the voting system and more the fact that our politicians don’t want to hear us because they know best and are morally superior.
D’Hondt was implemented in Holyrood from day 1 because the Labour Gov of the day was convinced it would entrench them and stop the rise of the SNP. Pretty funny when Labour only won 3 Constituency seats last week with the remaining selected from the regional ballot. Hell mend them.
I think this article is 'bang on the button' as to the problems in the UK and how a Government tries (and cannot help but fail) to interpret what the public actually wants. No question the voting system has to change. Excellent article. Thank you. P.S. fully endorse Caryl Swift's post below. We Brits living abroad have already been disenfranchised enough by our own successive governments. Please team take note.
I find it astonishing that at this time of crisis, if not total collapse, that not once have I heard any reference on any TV or radio news programme about the possibility that an 'updated' voting system could remove 'the fog of FPTP' (a brilliant description) and allow future policy decisions to be based on what The People actually want, rather than the blind panic of either trying to appease or assuage.
Proportional Representation doesn't get a mention. I wish your voice was louder!
Hundreds of thousands of British citizens who live abroad are entitled to vote. However, by demanding a UK postcode, your petition shuts off their chance of signing it, however much they may wish support it.
Isn't that rather self-defeating?
Please do something to allow them to sign if they want to.
Whilst I do agree with your general thrust and (can we wait that long) your offered solution. There are several red-flags. Starmer shows time and time again that he simply does not have judgement, let alone a transferable vision of a future UK/Britain/DevolvedStates.
Consultation = a self-selected cohort who decide what those ordinary people are allowed to respond to. We have to move away from tail wagging the dog, to the dog feeding the tail.
The control of £Billionaires, global companies on what 'we' are allowed to do has to be countered. Politics has to come clean and reveal how committed they are to each such outfit.
I think the problem is they do know what the people want but have judged that they know better. This is a problem of a political class completely disconnected from the people and who judge themselves to be morally superior.
Agree. Both Tories and Labour are tribal and consistently put their party before the country, which is why they don't want to get rid of FPTP. PR would make them listen to us and that would entail encountering massive cognitive dissonance. I for one don't care whether these tribes survive or not. I care about the people of this country.
This is spot on, but how can Keir Starmer be made to listen? The Government is deluded if they think they were given a mandate in 2024.
Jane Parsons
Alastair Campbell, reflecting on the Local and National (Welsh and Scottish) elections to followers of ‘The Rest is Politics’, concludes: “This current crisis for Starmer is about much more than the personalities. It is about what our politics has become, and whether it is fit for purpose.” Why does he need to restrict his characterisation of this event to a ‘crisis for Starmer’? It’s a crisis for all of us. The real question is about whether our politics is fit for purpose. The rational and obvious answer is that it is not.
Our voting systems now result in who ‘the country’ does not want to govern them, rather than choosing who it does want. OK, so being in government is ‘bloody hard right now” as Alastair Campbell so pithily says. Even more so when our parliament is dominated by one party, Labour, with 63% of the seats on a pitiful 34% minority of the public vote.
We are cursed by a political landscape which now operates almost entirely on partial and often misleading perceptions, exacerbated by both the traditional media and the ‘postmodern’ virtual twittering, not to mention dubious if not malevolent funding. Serious policy debate, construction and implementation is left for ‘government’, for which all winning parties have been woefully ill-prepared for the last 20 years.
The 2025 Social Attitudes Survey report on Britain’s democracy opens with “The 2024 General Election occurred against the backdrop of record low levels of trust and confidence in how Britain was being governed.” The report highlights that a record low 12% of those surveyed trust governments always or most of the time to put the interests of the nation above those of their own party. Only 19% think the system of governing Britain needs little or no improvement, unchanged from 2023.
Amid the hype usually accompanying general elections we often forget, de jure, we are only electing our own constituency MP, not a government. De facto, however, the present single cross actually signifies two very different things: first, a preference for (more often against) a political party and its manifesto, and hence for its leader to be the Prime Minister of our government; equal first, a preference for one of a list of candidates to be the MP to represent us in parliament for the next five years or so. Can it possibly do both reliably? What, exactly, is the result supposed to indicate, especially since the winning side hardly ever achieves a 50+% majority of the electorate, and certainly not since the war.
Consider the first question. The Hansard Society (2019) finds that only 1/3 of us express strong or fairly strong support for any political party. Any GE vote has weak and insecure foundations, especially since a good fraction of the votes are actually votes against another party rather than for a government. Our votes for a particular government and its manifesto are largely specious, if not wasted. Is this really a sensible democracy?
The second, equal first question – who to represent us – could and should be more reliable, if only it wasn’t confused and clouded with the first. Here, though, we only get to choose one, and then only from those chosen by the established political parties, with a very occasional ‘independent’, with the only real choice being between two, or at the most three, with any real chance of being elected. So, most votes are likely to be protests in one form or another. Is it really any wonder that we are largely dissatisfied with our governing system, and generally believe that it could be improved?
How? A very simple, but apparently seldom if ever considered alternative would be to give us all more votes. Let us use not just one cross, but ten, and let’s have the option of exercising our ten votes as either crosses (not this one) or ticks (yes, please). The winning candidate would be the one receiving the most ‘net-ticks’, their accumulated ticks minus their crosses. It might also be sensible to ensure that the winning candidate has at least [40]% of the maximum possible net-ticks (i.e. 10x election turnout). If this minimum electable net tick is not achieved by any candidate in the first election, then a re-vote should be held, with any candidate failing to achieve a minimum [10]% net tick in the first round being dropped from the re-vote.
Crosstick voting should mean that the elected MPs are the real preferred choice of their electorates. But how, then, should a government, which ‘commands the confidence of the House of Commons’ be formed? We should charge the resulting HoC to elect its own, and our, PM and Ministers by secret ballot These ministers, together forming the country’s executive, would then be directly accountable to the HoC, both individually and collectively. Here, again, a crosstick voting system might be very appropriate, signalling the intensity and direction of preferred choices much more clearly than other systems. And why would we want our MPs to have their choices of the best people to be our Ministerial Executive limited to those elected as MPs? Surely they should consider the best people available, regardless of their membership of the HoC?
Such a crosstick government election would, I suggest, generate very different incentives from our present system. It would encourage all participants to adopt, adapt and innovate procedures and support systems to continually improve its performance, reflected back to its primary constituents – us – through the elected representatives. It would be able, for instance, to distinguish between rational deliberation, policy development and legislation, and might well be encouraged to reject partisan shouting matches in favour of genuine and informed debate.
We might then want to go further to ensure appropriate accountability and continuity by (re) electing a [fifth] of MPs every year, rather than all of them every [five] years. In the first instance, the proportion of elected MPs with the largest net-tick majorities could be elected for five years and those with the smallest majorities only for one year. Given improved, state supported, arrangements for MP communications and interactions with their constituents, we might also consider procedures through which constituencies could recall an under-performing MP and trigger a by-election. And, of course, re-write the rules on political donations, and supplement them with public funding of basic electoral and constituency activities, with an independent democracy watchdog to ensure accurate and reliable information and communications.
All I know is that I will never ever vote for any party registered in England. I will never support anything British and will do everything to push for Independence from the U.K. And an increasing number of Scots, Welsh and N Irish think this way. The UK is united in name only and trying to kid on otherwise will see further agitation.
The modified D’Hondt, as used for the Welsh Senedd election, has real drawbacks for voters, but is great for centrally controlled political parties, although it did for Labour this time.
Mark Drakeford was warned that the D’Hondt system was not the best but chose it anyway believing that it would entrench Labour in Wales in perpetuity. Another example of my point that the problem is less the voting system and more the fact that our politicians don’t want to hear us because they know best and are morally superior.
D’Hondt was implemented in Holyrood from day 1 because the Labour Gov of the day was convinced it would entrench them and stop the rise of the SNP. Pretty funny when Labour only won 3 Constituency seats last week with the remaining selected from the regional ballot. Hell mend them.
x
I think this article is 'bang on the button' as to the problems in the UK and how a Government tries (and cannot help but fail) to interpret what the public actually wants. No question the voting system has to change. Excellent article. Thank you. P.S. fully endorse Caryl Swift's post below. We Brits living abroad have already been disenfranchised enough by our own successive governments. Please team take note.