Friday, May 07, 2010

They would not listen, they're not listening still

So let's see - the one categorical thing you can say about this election is that the two parties which talked most about electoral reform did worse than the one that didn't.

Both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats lost seats and the party that talked about it most of all - the Liberal Democrats - did much much worse than the opinion polls suggested.

That being the case, the only thing you can say about this election result it that it was more about what the British people didn't want more than it was about what they did want - and they have quite clearly rejected any idea of electoral reform.

But having heard the wishes of the people, the two main party leaders have chosen to ignore them and extend the offer of coalition to the Liberal Democrats with the promise of "electoral reform"!

How much of a kick in the teeth do you want the old parties to give you?

2 comments:

JuliaM said...

"...and they have quite clearly rejected any idea of electoral reform."

Let's hope the British public make that known even more succinctly in the referendum, should we get one...

Stan said...

I'm not a big fan of referenda, Julia - they tend to be heavily biased towards the prevailing opinion. As such, the British people are more likely to vote how they are told to vote in referenda than at normal elections - and the opinion that prevails is the one which is most heavily funded.

I don't like votes that are influenced by money (even though our General Elections are increasingly so) - so I don't like referenda.