Echoes

Hey, I'd invite anyone who is actually reading this blog to post comments. I've made it so you don't have to sign in or anything, just write your comment below the blog.

Now, there's been a lot of talk in editorials and comments sections and the like that I've been reading that have been talking about the Lib Dems shouldn't be working with the tories because they don't agree on too many things, most notably proportional representation. These people tend to prefer a "progressive alliance" of the Lib Dems, Labour, and a number of the smaller regional parties. They point to Labour offering the Lib Dems everything under the sun, including, crucially, electoral reform. But I don't think that offer is credible.

A Lib/Lab coalition would also require the support of numerous smaller parties like the northern irish parties, like plaid cymru, like the SNP. But what reason do these parties have to support electoral reform? The current system, with its favouring of regional politics over national politics, suits them fine, I would imagine. This is the point no one is discussing: Labour's offer of electoral reform simply is not credible because the smaller parties necessary for their coalition would baulk at such a prospect. I mean, look at Alex Salmond; he's a perfectly reasonable man, a capable politician and a decent governer, but he would throw his granny under a bus in exchange for power, and he certainly wouldn't want to risk turning his party into a tiny bit part player as would inevitably happen under proportional representation. The SNP received less votes than the BNP or UKIP. You think they would want to become the sixth largest party?

Proportional representation can work, but people need to understand that it's going to require compromises. Here, the compromise might be that we lose proportional representation. IN exchange, we can moderate the extremism in a tory government, we can roll back some of the civil liberty infringements of the Labour party (an area which distinguishes the Lib Dems from labour - heck, almost defines their reason for existence!), we can even get some aprts of Lib Dem policy implemented. The Lib Dems have a lot of power here - top tory people want to work with them, so they'll be willing to compromise on a lot. And that, to my view, is only right, when you consider that it's only the sick voting system that means that the Lib Dems have so little power in the first place.

I desperately want proportional representation, but I don't see how Labour could possibly deliver it. Their offer isn't credible.