0:00

Holsters are imperfect profits. We saw

0:02

them humiliated in the Twenty sixteen

0:05

Us. General Election. One survey by

0:07

the Princeton Election Consortium declared that

0:09

the chance of Hillary Clinton defeating

0:11

Donald Trump was over ninety. Nine

0:14

percent. Here. In the Uk and

0:16

the same year, very few believe that the majority

0:18

would vote to leave the European Union, Even among

0:20

those he most desired that outcome. The. Electorate

0:23

is a fickle beast. so what are

0:25

we to make of the latest of

0:27

many ominous polls for the Conservatives? A

0:30

recent You Gov analysis seemingly obliterates Rishi

0:32

soon x chances of victory with Labour

0:34

projected to win over four hundred seats.

0:36

If this prophecy plays out, it would

0:39

see numerous cabinet ministers dispatched including Jeremy

0:41

Hunt, Penny Mordant, and Grant Shapps. The

0:43

results are even worse for the Tories

0:46

than those revealed by a poll commissioned

0:48

by Conservative Britain Alliance in January, which

0:50

drew information from a sample seven. Times

0:53

larger than the norm. We've. Seen pollsters

0:55

get it disastrously wrong in the past,

0:57

but surely the return of labor is

0:59

now an inevitability. And although I'm

1:01

unlikely to vote for either sooner or Starmer.

1:04

I. Would never be comfortable with any

1:06

one party holding such an overwhelming

1:08

majority. Effective government requires effective opposition.

1:10

The dominance of the Snp in

1:12

Scotland should buy now have taught

1:14

us all a lesson about the

1:17

calamities of a one party state.

1:19

So now might be inopportune moment

1:21

to revisit the prospect of electoral

1:23

reform. A new system that might

1:25

usher into parliament a wider range

1:27

of perspectives and keep the excesses

1:29

of the government in check Seems

1:31

long overdue. The first past the

1:33

post system guarantees. That the two major

1:35

parties are forever buying for ultimate control. But

1:38

is this necessarily best for the country? It.

1:40

Certainly isn't democratic. Take the general

1:42

election Twenty fifteen. Having gone at

1:44

three point nine million votes, you

1:46

kip were rewarded with just one

1:49

seat in parliament. By. Contrast,

1:51

the one point five million votes for

1:53

the S M P resulted in fifty

1:55

six seats. Under. proportional representation

1:57

you kid would have ended up with

1:59

83 members of Parliament. Now I was

2:02

never a supporter of UKIP, but I

2:04

was surprised by those who couldn't resist

2:06

the temptation to rebel in the sheer

2:08

injustice of this result. At the time

2:11

we heard many commentators resorting to a

2:13

combination of kazooistry and self-deception to claim

2:15

that it was somehow in the interests

2:17

of the demos to prevent its wishes

2:20

from being realised. Nothing much

2:22

has changed over the years with

2:24

smaller parties often routinely belittled as

2:26

irrelevant or populist. In the case

2:28

of UKIP, David Cameron famously referred

2:30

to them as fruitcakes, loonies

2:33

and closet racists. The

2:35

latter designation sounds very much like

2:37

the kind of amateur telepathy one

2:39

hears from those who habitually accuse

2:41

their political opponents of dog whistling.

2:43

Even if it were the case that

2:45

the electorate was merely some kind of

2:48

basket of deplorables to borrow Hillary Clinton's

2:50

self-destructive utterance, this would not warrant the

2:52

high-handed dismissal of their wishes. Democracy

2:54

is by no means flawless but it's

2:57

surely better than the alternative. One

2:59

thinks of that phrase often attributed to Churchill,

3:02

democracy is the worst form of government except

3:05

for all the others. The novelist

3:07

E.M. Forster came to a similar

3:09

conclusion when he wrote that democracy

3:11

is less hateful than other contemporary

3:13

forms of government and to that

3:15

extent it deserves our support. A

3:18

benevolent tyrant can do wonders for

3:20

society until his ego becomes inflated

3:22

with overfeeding. One thing is

3:24

certain, the current system is not working. A

3:27

trust in government survey by the Office

3:29

of National Statistics last year revealed that

3:31

Parliament and the political parties were the

3:33

least trusted of all public institutions, trusted

3:36

by 24% and 12% of

3:39

the population respectively. This is

3:41

the natural consequence of a rise of a

3:43

technocratic approach to governance, a preponderance

3:45

of careerists rather than truly vocational

3:47

members of Parliament and a paternalistic

3:49

attitude from our representatives towards those

3:51

who have put them in power.

3:54

These are combustible times with many of

3:56

us now joining that growing tribe of

3:58

the politically homeless. The failings of

4:01

both our major parties are not going

4:03

to be remedied by the electorate lurching

4:05

from one to the other, a kind

4:07

of seesaw that swings according to desperation

4:09

and fatigue. Events of recent

4:11

years have disclosed an unappealing truth.

4:14

Many of the political class no longer

4:16

believe in democracy. Consider

4:19

what happened in the post-Brexit years when

4:21

MPs on both sides of the House

4:23

were brazenly attempting to subvert the result

4:25

of the largest mandate in political history.

4:28

The demos had voted the wrong way and

4:30

had to be stopped. Rather

4:32

than reflect on why the public vote

4:34

the way they do, many politicians have

4:36

instead sought to gain the system and

4:38

work around the wishes of the people.

4:41

Former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg wrote

4:43

a book called How to Stop Brexit.

4:46

It may as well have been called How to

4:48

Stop Democracy. Political philosopher

4:50

Jason Brennan was more explicit in his aims. His

4:53

book Against Democracy argued that voters

4:55

were too fickle, ill-informed and easily

4:58

manipulated to be interested with major

5:00

decisions. He favoured an

5:02

epistocracy, rule of the knowledgeable, a

5:05

notion reminiscent of Plato's ideal of

5:07

the philosopher king. Opponents

5:10

of this view, by contrast, remind

5:12

us that it is natural and

5:14

healthy for politicians to fear the

5:16

might of the electorate. The British

5:18

socialist Tony Benn was fond of

5:21

asking five key questions regarding democracy.

5:24

What power have you got? Where

5:26

did you get it from? In whose

5:28

interests do you use it? To

5:30

whom are you accountable? How do

5:32

we get rid of you? This final

5:34

question strikes at the heart of what it

5:37

means to live in a society free from

5:39

tyranny. In a democracy, those

5:41

in political authority are servants of the

5:43

people and may be dispensed with at

5:45

their collective whim. Perhaps the

5:47

future of British politics lies with the

5:49

smaller parties who might effectively elevate the

5:52

voices of the demos rather than strategise

5:54

to see them stifled. This

5:56

will require a system of proportional

5:58

representation. Not in the

6:01

interests of either major party to countenance

6:03

such an eventuality, A

6:05

referendum on P R might have

6:07

been a condition of a few to

6:09

coalition between Labour and the Liberal

6:11

Democrats, but these latest polls make

6:13

this outcome highly unlikely. The. Last

6:15

serious attempt to the electoral reform with

6:17

the referendum on the Alternative Vote a

6:20

the which came about due to the

6:22

conservative and lib dem coalition government that

6:24

formed after the Twenty Ten General Election.

6:27

It seems like a fudge, a

6:29

system of ranking candidates in order

6:31

of preference that occupied a kind

6:33

of middle ground between first past

6:35

the post and proportional representation. Nick

6:37

Clegg called it a miserable little

6:39

compromise. Explanatory leaflets from the electoral

6:42

Commission made the a the system

6:44

attain needlessly complicated. Those who were

6:46

team for reform will be asked

6:48

to settle for second best. Little

6:50

wonder that the boat is one

6:52

persuaded. It has been said

6:54

that our first i suppose system protects

6:56

us from the ineffectual and volatile nature

6:59

of coalition governments, and one might point

7:01

to Italy as a cautionary tale, but

7:03

Germany, Finland, and the Netherlands seem to

7:05

make it work. And. There's no

7:07

reason to think it would be preferable

7:09

to the instability we've experienced under off

7:11

two party system. I. Mean could

7:13

it really gets any worse? The.

7:16

Tories will rightly be dropped in

7:18

the next election, Most significantly, by

7:20

those who are fully aware that

7:22

a Labour government will ensure that

7:24

the decline interest continues. Such is

7:26

the strength of feeling against the

7:28

Conservative party's betrayal of it's principles

7:30

that it's traditional supporters would rather

7:32

seen punished them prevent a Labour

7:34

victory. But. All of this back and forth

7:36

gets us nowhere. We. Surely require

7:38

a former democracy than is workable

7:40

for our times. The. Dominance

7:43

of these two parties is why electoral

7:45

reform is so needed. But. It

7:47

is also why it is unlikely to

7:49

materialize. In other words, the

7:51

nature of the problem works against it's

7:53

own solution. These. Circumstances are

7:55

far from ideal. But. It looks as

7:57

though we're going to be stuck in this maddening cycle.

8:00

The foreseeable future. Like

8:02

this of us will just have to keep

8:04

on rolling that rock up the hill until

8:06

someone finds a way to break it apart.

8:09

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