Ceci n'est pas un blog
Politics & Community
Life, liberty and property
Jan 6th
Ideas can stick around for a long time.
I've been watching some lectures on political philosophy: Justice, with Michael Sandel. The episode below is about John Locke (1632-1704), and his very influential idea of people's inalienable rights to life, liberty and (bizarrely) property, ideas which were (coincidentally) formulated around the time that Europeans were colonising North America, and claiming its land as their own.
It seems that these quirky ideas about private property are still in vogue today, particularly among some (not all) who take the label "libertarian", and that there is a connection between holding these views and denying climate change. At least, that's what George Monbiot and Matt Bruenig say.
Conclusion: philosophy really matters.
Is an interest-based economy a bad thing?
Dec 28th
In case you hadn't noticed, our economy is in a bit of a pickle. And our economy is also built around charging interest on loans of money.
The Old Testament included a ban on lending at interest. Instead, a person's capital could be used by others as part of a profit-sharing agreement, or through a rental or hire agreement.
Way back in 1993, economist Paul Mills published a paper on this biblical prohibition of interest. The paper focuses on the bad consequences of an economy based on lending money at interest, as follows:
- It is unjust and destabilising. Unjust, because the lender gets no reward for lending to a successful business and (generally) suffers no harm from lending to an unsuccessful business. And destabilising, because lending at interest encourages further borrowing and investment during a growth period and places high burdens (causing bankruptcies) when profits are low.
- It encourages the allocation of finance to the safest borrowers (e.g., large firms and wealthy individuals) rather than to the most productive borrowers. This is a consequence of the first point.
- It encourages financial speculation in assets and property. "When the price of an asset in relatively fixed supply begins to rise, buyers borrow to purchase more of it," and I think we know what happens next.
- It leads to an inherently unstable banking system. Banks can guarantee the savings they hold only through the possibility of government bailouts.
- It encourages a "short-termist" investment strategy. "[T]he pervasive influence of interest tends to bias business investment towards quick-return, short-term projects even though longer-term, more risky ones may offer greater benefits in the long run."
- It concentrates wealth into fewer and fewer hands. "Interest automatically acts to transfer wealth from net borrowers to net lenders. Not surprisingly, the former tend to be the less well-off and the latter tend to be the richer members of society."
- It leads to a rapid flow of financial capital across regions and countries.
The question now is: how can ordinary members of society support a shift away from an interest-based (and debt-based) economy? Probably there are some answers out there...
A prayer to the Markets
Oct 4th
Photo by Andrew Magill
A moment's thought may have led you to think that speaking of the markets doing this or that is just shorthand for speaking of people choosing to buy or sell things. So "a downturn in the markets" or "market collapse" would mean that people are choosing to act in ways that have direct and often predictable consequences for other people.
But no! If you thought that, you were thoroughly mistaken. The markets (rather, the Markets) are self-governing and inflict themselves on us in often capricious ways. And lo, we have sinned against the Markets and must repent.
So here I offer a prayer of confession that we can recite to the Markets.*
Almighty and most merciful Markets,
We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sources of woollen garments,
We have followed too little the devices and desires of our own hearts,
We have offended against thy materialist laws,
We have left unborrowed those things which we ought to have borrowed,
And we have bought only those things which we needed to buy,
And there is no debt in us;
But thou, O Sovereign, have mercy upon us, miserable consumers;
Spare thou them, O Gold, which confess their defaults,
Restore thou them that are penniless,
According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Henry, our Ford:
And grow, O most merciful Markets, for our sake,
That we may hereafter live a greedy, irresponsible and profligate life,
To the increase of our eternal prosperity.
Amen.
* with apologies to Thomas Cranmer, and thanks to Phil Walker for various improvements.
Eat lots of meat or feed starving people?
Sep 14th
As part of a very gradual process of repentance, I've decided to cut down on how much meat I eat. The Guardian had an article a few days ago asking Is it time we all gave up meat? and this contained a link to a document on reducing meat consumption from Compassion in world farming. But, in brief, I think we in the West ought to cut down significantly on meat consumption for these reasons:
- High meat consumption is bad news for the world's poor. People in developing countries are starving to death while their fields are being used to grow food for our livestock. Considering the amount of protein for human consumption per acre of farmland, it is a remarkably inefficient use of land first to grow food for animals, and then to eat the animals. If we didn't need so much land in developing countries to feed our cows, the people there might be able to use it to grow food for themselves.
- High meat consumption requires unnaturally cruel farming of animals. I don't want to get too sentimental or soppy about this, but if I had any animals I would never want them to be treated the way they are treated in factory farming. So I don't want my money to be used to pay other people to treat animals in that way either.
- Cows smell. And this contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions.
To that could be added the fact that we don't need to eat meat at all in order to have a nutritious diet, that too much meat is not good for you, and that eating less meat saves money.
Why would a Christian join the Green Party?
Sep 13th
Yesterday I joined the Green Party. I said a bit about my journey from political indifference to to political ... difference (?). Today I want to say a bit more about why I chose the Green Party.
There are Christians in all the major parties (see the resources at SUSA). I see this as a good thing, and I can see many positive features in the other parties. But for me, the core values of the Green Party resonated particularly strongly with my Christian beliefs, as I'll show below.
But first, here are a couple of other Christians who explain their own involvement in the Green Party:
- Stephen Gray has a post on why he joined the Green Party. It's a very good post so go and read it now. Welcome back.
- Andrew Basden describes his own spiritual journey into Green things, and has written plenty about the topic.
In what remains, I'll quote the core values of the Green Party in full, interspersed with my comments.
Our core values
Green politics is a new and radical kind of politics guided by these core principles:
1. Humankind depends on the diversity of the natural world for its existence. We do not believe that other species are expendable.
Absolutely. But Christianity takes this even further: part of the purpose of humanity is to care for the natural world.
2. The Earth's physical resources are finite. We threaten our future if we try to live beyond those means, so we must build a sustainable society that guarantees our long-term future.
3. Every person, in this and future generations, should be entitled to basic material security as of right.
4. Our actions should take account of the well-being of other nations, other species, and future generations. We should not pursue our well-being to the detriment of theirs.
These chime very strongly with the central Christian value of love for one's neighbour. And this is something that is not limited to the people living next door: my actions have direct effects on the other side of the world, and for generations to come.
My only quibble with point 4 is that it reads as though we should not pursue our well-being to the detriment of the well-being of other species, which could lead to some extreme interpretations (it might well be detrimental to the well-being of the ant species if we destroy one of their nests to improve access to a hospital, for example).
5. A healthy society is based on voluntary co-operation between empowered individuals in a democratic society, free from discrimination whether based on race, colour, gender, sexual orientation, religion, social origin or any other prejudice.
This point sounds very nice, but it's difficult to know exactly what it is saying. I would say that democracy is my preferred means for a state's politicians to be selected, that it is nice when people get on with each other, and that the law should ensure that—except when it is directly justifiable—people are not treated detrimentally because of any characteristic (or prejudice!) they may possess.
6. We emphasise democratic participation and accountability by ensuring that decisions are taken at the closest practical level to those affected by them.
Believing in the importance of meaningful relationships (flowing ultimately from the relationships between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit), I very much agree with this.
7. We look for non-violent solutions to conflict situations, which take into account the interests of minorities and future generations in order to achieve lasting settlements.
Seeing mass-armament as one of the greatest evils on the planet (and the pernicious arms trade at the heart of that), I'm in strong agreement with this.
8. The success of a society cannot be measured by narrow economic indicators, but should take account of factors affecting the quality of life for all people: personal freedom, social equity, health, happiness and human fulfilment.
As above, on relationships.
9. Electoral politics is not the only way to achieve change in society, and we will use a variety of methods to help effect change, providing those methods do not conflict with our other core principles.
This is a very important point. I see a political party as an engine for change in society, focusing on, but not limited to, the work of elected politicians. The state is but one part of society, and there are many, many things that do not fall within the remit of the state. However, a political party can have a coherent vision for society, encompassing what the state should do (in terms of making laws and enforcing justice) and what individuals should do (in their economic activity, for example). How this works in practice, I'm not yet sure.
10. The Green Party puts changes in both values and lifestyles at the heart of the radical green agenda.
As above, I strongly agree with this: the green agenda cannot (and absolutely should not) be enacted by a green dictatorship, however democratically elected. You and I need to be the driving force, and Christianity strongly emphasises the need for a deep change of heart and attitudes.
I've joined the Green Party
Sep 12th
Apparently, "In 2005, only 1.3% of the [UK] electorate [44 million] was a member of one of the main political parties", with a few tens of thousands in the smaller parties.
As of today, I'm one of them, having just signed up for the Green Party.
What this will mean in practice, I'm not sure. Being a party member needn't mean more than £2.60 leaving my bank account each month. But hopefully I'll find some way to be involved. (However, joining the Green Party doesn't mean that I hate everything about all of the other parties, or that I will from now on act merely out of tribal loyalty, in case you were wondering!)
I chose the Green Party because I found that its core values resonate with my Christian beliefs. I'll say more about that in a future post. In addition, my personal contact with the Green Party has left good vibes.
In this post I want to indulge in a bit of introspection, and trace out some of my journey towards this point.
I suppose that 10-15 years ago, as a new Christian, my views would have been something like this: the only thing that really matters is hearing the gospel, believing in Jesus, and waiting for Jesus to return (maybe tomorrow). As such, I had no particular inclination to do anything to help tackle the structural problems with the world. In fact, I was very cynical: if Christians put much effort into political issues, then they clearly had their priorities mixed up, and if non-Christians were pushing an agenda for change, then clearly that was contrary to God's will. So I defaulted to a (small-c) conservative position, combined with general indifference and apathy.
So what happened?
- I came to appreciate that everything on this world has significance. This came largely through my contact with L'Abri, first through reading some Schaeffer around 1998, and then, from 2002, through hearing L'Abri speakers giving occasional talks at Calvary Evangelical Church in Brighton, and a couple of stays at the English L'Abri in Hampshire, including a week in the summer of 2006. At L'Abri there is a strong emphasis on the whole of life being under the lordship of Jesus Christ, and that being a created human being with a bodily existence on the earth is a good, significant and meaningful thing.
- I came to appreciate that everything on this world has enduring significance, in other words, that the Christian hope is to spend eternity on the earth (not in heaven), and that there is deep continuity (as well as a discontinuity) between the present age and the age to come. Moreover, I came to appreciate that through Jesus Christ and his resurrection, the age to come has entered the present age, bringing (partial) healing and transformation to this present world. These emphases came largely as a result of reading and listening to things by N.T. Wright, starting in 2005 with What St Paul Really Said.
- I suppose those two factors led me to pay a tiny bit of attention to political matters, and I eventually found myself thinking that politics is important and interesting. My church in Brighton was seeking to serve the local community, and this led to contacts and constructive relationships with people involved in local politics. Being part of that church as we wrestled together with the issue of Christian involvement in politics helped me greatly in shaping my own views. (One friend from that church who was very involved in that is now a Green Party councillor in Brighton.) The 2010 General Election was the first that I really paid much attention to, with stimulating discussions on Tom King's blog, with the help of the Jubilee Centre's Votewise Now! book, and with the Green Party being very strong in Brighton, going on to win their first ever seat in Westminster in the constituency I was living in. Since then, I paid significant attention to the referendum on the Alternative Vote in 2011. And a couple of WYSOCS events in Leeds helped me considerably: a talk on the arms trade by Alan Storkey in October 2010, and a day in March 2011 on The Gospel's Green Light: Motives for Environmental Care.
Massive arms fair - subsidised by your taxes!
Aug 30th
Video from Britain! Stop arming the world! Among the hard facts:
In 2010, the UK sold tear gas, crowd control armament and sniper rifles to Libya and Bahrain.
If you're not too happy with your taxes being used for this kind of thing, then...
Hat tip: Make Wealth History
"Does York Need a Mega Mosque?"
Aug 26th
So began a bizarre and anonymous sheet of paper that came through the door yesterday.
Bizarre, because no one is asking that question. (And a building for 300-400 people is no more a "mega mosque" than are many of York's churches "mega churches".)
Anonymous, well, perhaps for obvious reasons.
A more accurate translation of the question would be: "Should the City of York Council actively discriminate against Muslims?"
To which I answer (as a Christian who thinks Islam is very wrong): "No!" Council planning departments exist to ensure that private developments do not have too detrimental an effect on the rest of us. They do not exist to adjudicate on matters of religion.
Of course, the author(s) of the sheet of paper know this, so they muster a whole host of vacuous arguments against the development of the mosque, encouraging me to regurgitate them in a letter to a Council planning officer. For example:
- "We [who?] feel that the existing mosques adequately cater for York's Muslim community." Well, evidently some people "feel" they don't. Perhaps "we" also feel that you don't need a loft conversion? Or "we feel that you don't need a new car"?
- "If these plans are given the green light, the historical, picturesque city of York would be scarred with this eyesore." Hmm, let's look at the part of York they are talking about. Ah, those beautiful picturesque warehouses! In fact, the sheet of paper goes on to suggest that the current building could be redeveloped "to fit in with the architecture of the surrounding buildings"!
- "The area would not cope with an influx of worshippers", which is strange given the first point.
Of course there are valid considerations that must be taken into account, but one can't help but see this sheet of paper as an attempt to use the force of the City Council to oppose the freedom of Muslims to express their faith. Which is something I find deeply worrying.
A rant about riots
Aug 10th
At times like this it is difficult to resist the temptation to make unsubstantiated generalisations and rant uncontrollably about what you think is wrong with our society.
So I won't.
Lots of people have done lots of very bad things. It's their own fault and they are responsible for their actions.
But they didn't commit these crimes in a vacuum. Our society is screwed up, and that's something all of us are responsible for.
In the audio clip below, "Camila Batmanghelidjh, who founded the charity Kids Company, calls on society to understand why inner-city teenagers riot."
Two questions. Leave your answers below. (1) What is the problem? (2) What do we do about it?
Here's my first guess.
(1) The main problem is the disconnectedness of our society, with consumerism and individualism valued much more highly than meaningful relationships within local communities. This runs through all levels of society. There is no real connection between me, the place I live in, the people I buy things from or the people who employ me. All that matters is whether I'm a "have" or "have not". Can I as an individual live out my consumerist lifestyle? If I'm a "have" (job, money, possessions, opportunities), then that's fine. But if not, and if there's an opportunity to take from "them" and change from being a "have not" to being a "have", then why not take that opportunity? In other words, there are communities of "have nots" who feel no connection with the "haves" (such as owners of retail businesses), and that is one of the factors contributing to the recent rioting and looting.
(2) A big part of the solution is for each of us to let go of consumerism and individualism, and to think about what all of our actions do to strengthen the relational connectedness of our society. This includes what we do with our money. How does the way I use my money strengthen my local community? Are the banks and shops I use helping to create jobs for those who live in the deprived areas of our cities? Or are they bothered only about getting a low price and a good return on their investments, with no regard for the effect on fragile local communities, which amounts to keeping the poor as poor as possible and making the very rich even richer in the process? (Actually, am I bothered only about getting as much as I can for as little money as I can get away with too?) It's just one part of the solution, but I'm convinced that what we (relatively ordinary people) do with our money can make a real difference to whether our society is characterised by unfettered greed and consumerism (from the greedy bankers down to the opportunistic looters, with most of us somewhere in between) or by something better. For example, if most of the businesses we dealt with had social and ethical principles like those of the Co-operative Group, then wouldn't that make a difference?
Sure, there are other things to be done to deal with the symptoms — state investment in deprived areas, better policing, giving to charity, etc. — but I don't think these go deep enough to challenge the attitudes that permeate our society.
What do you think?
What are universities for?
Jun 22nd
I've had this lecture opened in my browser for months, and have just got round to listening to it. Here's a sentence to whet your appetite:
And yet, if it is true that university education — especially in the arts and humanities — is not about the growth of certain intellectual and social virtues, then it does become very hard to see why the study of landscape painting or medieval North African history or Byron’s reception among women is anything but a private and rather frivolous indulgence.
Lots of stimulating stuff there. And a full transcript. What are Universities For? by Professor Nigel Biggar, a talk for to the Oxford Graduate Christian Union on 17 January, 2011.
Why vote yes to AV?
May 2nd
Just a reminder that, for me at least, May is the month for saying "Yes!"
And here is why I would recommend a "Yes!" vote in the alternative vote (AV) referendum this Thursday.
- Pretty much everything you've heard against AV is not true. It's not complicated, it's not expensive and it's not unfair, for example.
- AV will deal effectively with the problem of tactical voting. Currently, if you want your vote to count most effectively, you need to guess how everyone else will vote so you can figure out whether you need to vote for candidate A in order to prevent candidate B from winning, even though you'd ideally like candidate C to win. You won't need to do that kind of thing any more under AV. That is a Good Thing.
- AV will deal effectively with the problem of splitting the vote. Currently if there are two similar candidates, they might split the vote, meaning that neither of them wins, and a third candidate - a generally disliked candidate - wins instead. That won't happen under AV, which guarantees that a generally disliked candidate cannot win. That also is a Good Thing.
See the Electoral Commission website for details about the referendum and what AV is, and the Electoral Reform Society website for more about why AV is better than our current system, first past the post (FPTP).
No more tactical voting under AV
Jan 26th
Since last week's voting flowchart I've been pondering whether tactical voting is sensible under AV. I don't think it is.
Under FPTP, tactical voting is not at all uncommon. If your favourite candidate isn't going to be one of the top two, your vote could be used to support whichever of the top two candidates you prefer.
Under AV, however, a tactical vote would be sensible only under the following circumstances:
- It's a close three-way contest.
- These three candidates lie along a clear spectrum (call it left, centre and right).
- Your favourite candidate is either the left or the right candidate.
- In the penultimate round the outcome will be as follows: the opposite candidate in the lead, then your candidate second, and the centre candidate third. And the next-preference votes of the centre candidate won't cause your candidate to win in the final round (in other words, the centre candidate is not much closer to your candidate than he/she is to the opposite candidate).
Now, none of this is particularly unrealistic, except point 4, which assumes a totally unrealistic level of knowledge. Having been in a three-way marginal constituency in the 2010 election, I can confidently predict that it will be pretty much impossible to predict the order of the candidates. All three of the main candidates were predicting different orders for the final outcome, based on opinion polls, historical voting patterns in the constituency, and the national situation (I think all three were wrong in their predictions!) and the more impartial onlookers were similarly divided. Tactical voting requires you to guess how everyone else will vote, and if that is not possible then neither is effective tactical voting.
But what if (for some reason) I think it is likely that all of the above conditions will be satisfied? I could either cast a "sincere" vote (remember that under AV you get to rank the candidates in order of preference):
- My candidate
- The centre candidate
- The opposite candidate
or I could cast a "tactical" vote, effectively deserting my candidate, and hoping that the centre candidate will defeat the opposite candidate:
- The centre candidate
- My candidate
- The opposite candidate
Then what might happen?
- Sincere vote, my candidate wins. Hoorah!
- Sincere vote, the opposite candidate wins, but a tactical vote would have given victory to the centre candidate. D'oh!
- Sincere vote, the opposite candidate wins, but a tactical vote would have made no difference.
- Sincere vote, the centre candidate wins.
- Tactical vote, the centre candidate wins against the opposite candidate. Hoorah!
- Tactical vote, the centre candidate wins against my candidate. D'oh!
- Tactical vote, the opposite candidate wins. Slight D'oh! (people looking at the counts of the votes will assume my candidate had less support than he/she really had)
- Tactical vote, my candidate wins. Hoorah! (but slight D'oh! as above)
So really it would be your call, based on how confident you are in your predictions for the order of the three candidates in the penultimate round, based on whether other supporters of your candidate will also vote tactically (your vote alone is unlikely to swing it), and based on how much weight you give to the various "Hoorah!" and "D'oh!" exclamations above. But once again, I seriously doubt that it would be possible to predict the outcomes sufficiently well to be able to cast a confident tactical vote.
So I stand by the flowchart: in AV you need simply to rank the candidates in order of preference then write these preferences on the ballot paper.
How complicated is the Alternative Vote?
Jan 17th
I've been slightly bemused by claims that the Alternative Vote (AV) is more complicated than the voting system we currently endure in the UK, First Past The Post (FPTP). So I made a flowchart to show how to vote under each system. You can decide for yourself which is simpler. And (if you are eligible) on 5 May you can vote for whichever system you prefer to be used for UK General Elections, whether you vote "Yes" to introduce AV or "No" to keep FPTP.
The life you can save
Nov 3rd
I wouldn't say I'm the biggest Peter Singer fan in the world, but this is pretty powerful (hat tip: Make Wealth History).
Is there no alternative?
Oct 5th
For a long time I've been aware of the Jubilee Centre in Cambridge, but only recently have I started to delve more deeply into their resources.
Tonight's reading was a Cambridge Paper from September 2009 by Michael Schluter, entitled Is Capitalism morally bankrupt? Five moral flaws and their social consequences.
My immediate reaction to that kind of question is "Yes, probably, but I think we're stuck with it." Now, according to the Jubilee Centre, there is an alternative towards which we can move; that will have to wait for another day. Until then, here are some reasons why we might dream of finding an alternative. First, the five moral flaws of capitalism that Michael Schluter identifies:
- An exclusively materialistic vision
- Reward without responsibility
- Limited liability of shareholders
- People disconnected from place
- Inadequate social safeguards
and then the two social consequences:
- Family and community breakdown
- Giant government and giant corporates
Definitely worth reading.
AV again: support or preference?
Oct 4th
As I mentioned a few days ago, I'm strongly in favour of electoral reform, and given the choice between the Alternative Vote (AV) and First-Past-The-Post (FPTP), I would choose the AV any day. There are plenty of good reasons for that.
But those good reasons do not include the oft-repeated mantra that the AV guarantees that MPs "would have the support of a majority". It doesn't.
First, and most obviously, there is the matter of exhausted ballot papers; I was addressing that last time.
But another issue is what we mean by "support". When I put a cross (or a number) on a ballot paper, I am not thereby expressing support for a candidate. Rather, I am expressing a preference. I might loathe all umpteen of the candidates, but I still have a responsibility to use my vote for damage-limitation (unless I spoil the ballot paper as an act of protest, or shoot all of the candidates and force a by-election with fresh nominations). So the "support" I have for my first-choice candidate might simply be that I loathe all the other candidates more than I loathe him or her. That's hardly saying much.
So, under the AV, suppose that all of the voters assign preferences to all of the candidates, so that there are no exhausted ballot papers (unrealistic, but there's no good reason not to do this). Then the MP will indeed have the "support" of a majority of the voters. But we need to be clear exactly what majority "support" means.
It means that a majority of the voters dislike at least one of the unsuccessful candidates (including the second-place candidate) more than they dislike the successful candidate. Or that they like the successful candidate more than they like at least one of the unsuccessful candidates. Or that they have a preference for the successful candidate over at least one of the unsuccessful candidates.
But not that the successful candidate has majority "support"—unless it is possible simultaneously to hate someone and be their "supporter".
So I wouldn't use the "majority support" argument, except in this sense: that the AV explicitly prevents the least-favoured candidate from getting elected. FPTP leaves this as a very real possibility, through vote splitting, which opens the door for the likes of the BNP to be elected, even when the majority would rank them last in any sensible (preferential) voting system.
Does the AV guarantee majority support?
Sep 30th
The "Alternative Vote" is clearly a huge improvement on the "First Past The Post" system currently used to elect MPs in the UK, mainly (in my opinion) because it means I can simply write down my order of preference on the ballot paper, rather than having to second-guess how everyone else will vote and deciding to vote for my second-choice candidate in order to keep out my third-choice candidate, only to find that my first-choice candidate fails to win by one vote.
So I'll be voting "Yes" in the referendum on 5 May 2011.
But it doesn't exactly help the cause when the main proponents push inaccurate claims such as this:
All MPs would have the support of a majority of their constituents
and this:
Choosing the Alternative Vote means when a winner crosses that finish line on Election Day they’ll have to bring the majority of voters with them.
Phil Walker does a nice job of explaining all this (it's quite simple really) and Wikipedia has a real example, in which the winner of a mayoral election in the US, held using the AV, had the support of 48.6% of the voters.
Save the crêperie!
May 19th
The best café at Sussex University is facing closure. Do sign up to show your support. However, I was intrigued by this comment:
In a letter to Michael Farthing, one member of university staff wrote: “I feel that many people amongst the predominantly left-wing community at this university will be offended at the shutting down of a thriving independent café, to create a forced monopoly of institutional food with negative impacts on many people’s lives.”
What does "left-wing" mean in this context? Surely any true left-wingers should be entirely in favour of enforced state ownership and equality (of outcome) and opponents of an open competitive market? Or does "left-wing" mean "right-wing" now? (Tom, what do you think? Not sure anyone else will read this far!)
Defending first-past-the-post?
May 14th
Just read Is this the time for electoral reform? on Times Online, in which Ken Ritchie, chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, says "Yes", and Lord Norton of Louth, Professor of Government at the University of Hull and a Conservative peer, says "No". I want to comment on that word "No".
Those two simple letters encapsulate an argument that goes something like this. (1) The electorate would always prefer a single-party majority government to a minority or coalition government. (2) First-past-the-post (FPTP), our current electoral system, is more likely to produce a single-party majority government, and is therefore better at reflecting the will of the electorate.
In response to (1), is it really the case that the majority of voters in the last election would have preferred a majority Conservative government to what we currently have? That is the implication. Let's test it out. Let's ask a typical Lib Dem voter: "Given the choice between two alternatives, and only two alternatives, would you prefer a majority Conservative government or a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition?" The answer: "Coalition." Now here's a typical Labour voter: "Coalition." QED. The electorate would not always prefer a single-party majority government to a minority or coalition government.
In response to (2), if the chief advantage of FPTP is that it distorts the wishes of the electorate so as to produce a single-party government with an overall majority, then are proponents of FPTP open to considering alternative voting systems that similarly distort the wishes of the electorate? Why not have an STV election, with all of its advantages, and then selectively replace successful Liberal Democrat candidates with unsuccessful Conservative and/or Labour candidates? That would produce the same desired effect (a single-party majority government), and could be done in such a way as to overcome some of the undesirable outcomes of the last election, such as the following, from Ken Richie's piece:
On May 6 the Conservatives won only one of Scotland’s 59 seats. In the eastern region, Labour won only two of the 58 seats. Yet one in five Scots backed the Conservatives, and the same proportion of voters wanted Labour in the East of England. That’s what representative democracy means under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system.
I think it's time for a change.
On The Christian Institute's Election Briefing
Apr 25th
How should Christians vote in the General Election?
That's not an easy question to answer. Politics is messy, government is messy, politicians and political parties are messy. Many issues are involved, and it can be daunting to wade through them all, weighing one cause against another, and deciding which option (if any) is most worthy of one's support.
That is where Christian organisations can be a great help. One such organisation is The Christian Institute, which (in my opinion) does a fantastic job at highlighting and campaigning on certain moral issues that affect the UK political and legal scene today.
Within the last couple of weeks The Christian Institute has launched their Election Briefing for 2010, with the laudable intention of helping Christian "voters reach an informed decision on how to cast their vote" on 6 May.
Here's my summary of the document
- Christians should decide how to vote in the 2010 General Election on the basis of "three touchstone issues": "religious liberty, the sanctity of marriage and the sanctity of human life" (p. 5, 7). Other issues exist, but are much less important.
- The parties' track records and manifesto pledges should be examined on these issues.
- However, Christians should find out what their own local candidates think about these issues, rather than just looking at the parties, as some candidates do not toe the "party line".
There follows an evaluation of the major parties, and their policies on these issues. In short, this is how the parties perform (let the reader decide which he/she thinks is the "least worst option" [sic.—twice!—p.3, 8]):
- Labour: mostly abysmal
- Conservative: mostly good (though bad in some areas and allowing a free vote in many others)
- Liberal Democrat: largely dreadful
- SNP: mixed but often good
- Plaid Cymru: mixed
Brief descriptions are given for:
- UKIP: fairly good
- Green: pretty awful
- The Christian Party: very good
- Christian Peoples Alliance: very good
What are we to make of all this? Some comments:
- The narrow focus of the Election Briefing is nothing short of shocking. What about the economy, criminal justice, healthcare, education, the environment, international order, race relations, tax and benefits, employment and housing, to pick a few examples? Is God even remotely interested in any of these? Reading the Election Briefing, one could be forgiven for thinking that these issues are completely irrelevant and should have no bearing on where we put the cross on the ballot paper. Why is that? "When it comes to the economy, Christians can legitimately disagree about the best way to tackle the UK's deficit" (p. 5). But "The issues we have highlighted are those where we believe the Bible is clear" (p. 4). So Christians should leave complex issues to one side—however important these issues are, however close they are to the heart of God—and instead should focus on a few clear, black-and-white moral issues. Admittedly, there is a thin veneer in the Briefing acknowledging the existence of these weightier matters, but where can I go to find more? Which Christian organisations have produced material to help me understand these? Where is the "Further Reading" section? Where are the tools to enable me to evaluate policies on these issues?
- In some cases, the approach to the narrow range of issues is itself questionable. For example, "Easy divorce laws have led to a lax attitude to marriage" (p.6). Or has a lax attitude to marriage led to easy divorce laws? If it is primarily the latter (and I suspect it is), then I see no reason to believe that good divorce laws will lead to a better attitude to marriage. Good laws are to be preferred to bad laws, of course, and Christians should be campaigning and voting for good laws to be made, but we are fighting a losing battle if we think that the statute book is an effective means to shape the attitudes of society. Maybe there are bigger fish to fry in this election?
How will you decide on how to vote?
I live in York and I'm a research fellow in 
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