Reflections on a fat lady
The proverbial fat lady singing and Doctor Who are the strangest of bedfellows, but both were used this week by journalists discussing the (presumed) end of the US election “process” (if you will excuse the euphemism).
For the past five weeks, American politicians from both main parties have tried to describe the events as “democracy in action”; that isn’t how it looks to the rest of us, as can readily be seen by Channel 4’s use of footage of a well-built lady singing The Star-Spangled Banner at the start of its news on Wednesday night. It has been, frankly, a farce.
Everyone else knows it, and even in America a lot of the people know it. I suspect the politicians do, too — but American politicians have never been good at admitting that anything about America is less than perfect, and they’re not going to start with the political process.
What the whole thing has done for me is make me realise just how good some aspects of the British political system are. It is by no means perfect, but it is inconceivable that the ludicrous events in the USA could happen here: for all its faults, the British system does work.
Not perfectly, though. One of the results of the American election can be, and has been, mirrored here, namely the winner losing. It is clear that Al Gore won the election by a margin of two to three hundred thousand votes. Similarly, the Labour Party under Neil Kinnock lost a general election despite polling more votes than the Tories. They did not complain about it, though, for two reasons.
The cynical reason is that this type of result is possible because of the use of the “first past the post” system. On one occasion, the Labour Party might lose despite winning more of the popular vote than the Tories — on another, it might well win despite polling fewer votes. Of course, changing the electoral system to a fully proportional one would ensure that the group with most votes got the most seats in Parliament.
The snag, and the reason why neither Labour nor Tories will support electoral reform even when the current system happens to work against them, is that proportional voting systems are unlikely to deliver the sort of solid majority both main parties want to get. Better, in their view, to lose this election and win the next with the ability to implement their manifesto in full than never again to form a government with that ability.
The principled reason — and, despite all cynicism regarding politicians, it is a matter of principle for many politicians — is that the current system at the UK level is a truly representative democracy. MPs are elected as representatives of the constituency. Moving to a proportional system would, some claim, break the tight link between Member and constituency to the detriment of our democracy.
The way the system works is that party which has most members elected forms the new government. If it has a substantial majority, its programme can be implemented. If it has a small majority, there may need to be some modification of the programme. On the occasion when it does not have a majority, the party may be able to form a loose alliance with another to stay in power, but the chance is high that another general election will follow soon, as in 1974 with its two general elections. Usually, though, the first-past-the-post system delivers a working majority by giving disproportionately high returns of MPs from the two main parties and squeezing out the third and fourth parties.
My own view is that a democracy should be organised to reflect the views of the people, the demos, and so a proportional system should be implemented — if that results in an unclear result and a government which needs to negotiate its programme, so be it.
Having said that, it is clear that there are reasons why a British government may be legitimately elected on a minority of the popular vote. It is difficult to see any justification in the case of the election of the USA’s president, since he is directly voted on by the people of the entire United States. The electoral college has no justification beyond that nation’s founders’ desire to prevent “mob rule” — that pesky demos again.
Another reflection prompted by the election fracas is that the extensive politicising of public life in the USA is a very bad thing. In particular, we are fortunate in Britain that judges are not appointed on political grounds, nor do they have to stand for election (so there is no pressure to make judgements which serve career, not justice).
I can think of fewer events more unimpressive than the US Supreme Court making its decision on purely political grounds. Whatever might be wrong with the British judiciary, I don’t think anyone would imagine that it would decide a similar case — if you can imagine such a thing — for party political reasons.
I say “if you can imagine such a thing” because I cannot see how such a position could be reached in the UK. In an election, we don’t have Labour and Conservative counters of votes, we just have people counting votes (usually bank staff, I believe). If there is a dubious result in a count, the candidates can request a recount. Of course, this is always at the constituency level since the prime minister is not elected directly, but is simply the MP leading the largest party in the Commons. (A bit of a simplification, but basically true.)
Another good reason why it is not likely to happen here is that the UK uses a simple and uniform system: a ballot paper on which a cross is marked with a pencil. This is then counted by scores of people in the presence of the candidates and political parties’ observers. There is no such thing as an absolutely perfect system, but the margin of error is going to be similar across the country because the same system is being used.
In the USA, it seems, a number of different systems are in use with different margins of error. It is interesting, not to say troubling, that some of the most heavily Republican areas use a system with a very low error rate, while some heavily Democrat areas (Palm Beach for one) use a system with a much higher incidence of error.
I think it is obvious that I don’t believe the UK system to be ideal — but, flaws and all, I think it works without discriminating against voters from one particular sector of society. If the move was made to proportional representation, then the reflection of the voter’s wishes in the resulting parliament would be much improved, but even without that the position is not hugely unfair most of the time.
For most of the time Neil Kinnock was leader of the Labour Party, many people in the country had serious doubts about his qualities as a potential prime minister. On the other hand, it is likely even Kinnock could have won the 1997 election — the country wanted the Tories out, even to the extent of voters voting tactically in some areas to ensure they were dislodged.
It is interesting, even refreshing, to see for once the good points in our own political system rather than the flaws.
Anyway, the Fat Lady has sung, probably — despite moves to persuade the electoral college to vote Gore rather than Bush. It has been an odd, and, to those of us not in the USA, entertaining few weeks, during which a couple of strange quotes surfaced.
Who would have thought, for instance, that we would ever see an American carrying a placard quoting Joseph Stalin? Yet there it was, during all the hubbub of a demonstration:
It’s not who votes… it’s who counts it!
– Stalin
When it came to consideration of the mental, er, equipment of the loser who won, the Glasgow Herald made several comments on Dubyuh. It noted:
And he’s not a bigot. Bush truly doesn’t know the meaning of the word, “intolerance”. But then again, he doesn’t know what continent Mexico is on … or where he was for a year in the national guard.
On the other hand, the Herald also warned us against underestimating (misunderestimating?) him, using the unusual medium of a quote from Doctor Who:
“I don’t think he’s as stupid as he seems,” hisses Count Scarlioni’s wife in Dr Who and the City of Death. “My dear,” says the count, “no-one could be as stupid as he seems.”
© DC 2000. All rights reserved.