Coalition or cabal
Dear Will,
In the mid-1990s your celebrated book The State We're In met the intellectual needs of a country governed by a party running out of steam. But on 2nd May 1997, within hours of the election result, removal vans arrived in Downing Street. John Major announced he was off to the Oval. It was the clean break for which you and the nation had yearned.
At first, you were bowled over by the wonderment of it all. The Observer declared that it was "The Paper for the New Era." But before long your rebellious spirits reasserted themselves. After a brief honeymoon, the Observer did not flinch from criticising the new government. You seem to feel instinctively that there may come a time, however far off, when Tony Blair, too, will deserve the removal van treatment.
But if we implement the system recommended by Roy Jenkins, general elections will only exceptionally lead to the dismissal of sitting governments. The usual result will be the coalition negotiations which have wearied the public in so many countries with proportional representation (PR). The role of elections is to provide a means to elect and, more important, to dismiss a government. This is a more basic function than electing individual MPs.
Since the second world war, British elections have led to the dismissal of the sitting premier roughly once every eight years (1945, 1951, 1964, 1970, 1974, 1979 and 1997). Only once has the incoming government lacked an overall Commons majority (February 1974). Under the Jenkins scheme, nine out of 14 elections since 1945 would probably have resulted in hung parliaments and coalition governments. Liberals would have been in office and would have been able to determine the identity of the premier nine times. Paddy Ashdown and his predecessors would have used their pivotal role to demand fully-fledged PR, which would have allowed them to act as king-makers every time. Any unpopular premier could have remained in power provided he offered sufficient goodies to the Liberal leader in the post-election coalition dealings. (Is this Tony Blair's "insurance policy" for 2006?)
Jenkins's report fails to confront inconvenient facts and arguments. It is of a surprisingly low intellectual standard. Here are some examples. First, Jenkins says that the consequences of his proposed changes would be slight. They would, in fact, destroy the Westminster model. He claims that "it is difficult to argue that what we propose is a predominance of coalitions." He rests this claim on the last four elections, which have been atypical.
Second, the report ignores or misrepresents the discontents against PR systems in countries such as France, Italy, Japan and New Zealand. Jenkins simply ignores France's abandonment of PR in the 1980s. On Italy, he omits to point out that PR was so unpopular that the change in 1993 was to a system far less proportional than the German Additional Member System. On Japan, the report ignores the recent rejection of a semi-proportional system. And on New Zealand, the report says that there is unlikely to be a reversion to first-past-the-post. But what about that country's 68 per cent opposition to the current system?
Third, saying that first-past-the-post is shared mainly with North America and India ignores the use of the system in 62 different countries covering half of the world's voters.
Fourth, the Jenkins report omits to spell out the disproportionalities inherent in the system of top-up seats that it recommends (covering 15 per cent to 20 per cent of the total). The number of voters per top-up MP range from a low of 230,396 in Northern Ireland West, to a high of 592,688 in Sheffield.
Finally, the report does not discuss the possibilities of the rise of racial politics under the new system. I will spell out this point later.
Yours,
Michael Pinto-Duschinsky
4th November 1998
Dear Michael,
It is irrefutable that the first-past-the-post voting system is a crude way of allowing the electorate to exercise its political preferences. It is shot through with inconsistency and unfairness, and it does not permit the expression of the full spectrum of political views. As it has recently developed, it is unfair to the Conservative tradition. Jenkins's proposal is a compromise, but it has addressed these faults while retaining the capacity to throw up non-coalition majority governments.
You seem to believe that the status quo is the acme of democratic perfection. But con-sider your own constituency, Oxford West, which in 1997 swung to the Liberal Democrats. Do you really suppose that there were suddenly some 25,000 Lib Dem voters in Oxford West? Many of your near neighbours voted tactically for their second preference in order to get the Tory candidate out-and they succeeded. Many would have preferred to vote Labour. I doubt that there will be a significant rise in the Labour vote in Oxford West at the next general election, whatever the party's national standing, so the seat will be lost to the Tories for a long time. This is bad for the political life of Oxford. The local Tory party will find it harder than ever to maintain its strength without a sitting MP, and a host of local Tory voters will be disenfranchised.
The Observer organised a poll of 16 marginals the weekend before the election where we felt tactical voting would make a difference; voters in 12 constituencies were lucky and made their votes count. This tactical voting effect has been growing for the last three general elections; it will be bigger still in the next one. Tactical voting advice will be disseminated everywhere, from the internet to digital television. Jenkins does no more than go with this grain. Without reform, Britain will end up having a hotch-potch system of de facto second and third preference voting which works for voters in some constituencies but not others.
Will Jenkins make for coalition governments? You say that nine out of 14 governments since 1945 would probably have resulted in hung parliaments. That is not the opinion of other psephologists; in any case, I am suspicious of simple recalculations of past election results which do not take account of how the whole dynamic of politics would have been changed by a Jenkins-type system. Labour would not have lost in 1951, for example, and the socialist wing of the party would have been defeated earlier, by social democrats such as myself, without the debilitating fights of the 1970s and 1980s. The drive to the right under Blair would have been less inevitable, and redistribution and equality would have been kept alive as core concepts in British politics. Equally, the Tories would never have entered the Faustian pact with Thatcher, which brought them victory in the 1980s but may have broken the party for decades. Nor are coalitions such a disaster; as Jenkins argues, they have been successful in both the 19th and 20th centuries. Current political parties are in any case coalitions; many Tory voters will have been dismayed by what they voted for in the 1980s, just as some Labour voters are today. Would it not be better to get these arguments out into the open, so that the exchange of ideas and the building of political coalitions-the stuff of democratic politics-can be done more effectively? And why do you think Jenkins will lead to a racist party? There is not a critical mass of racists in any of the top-up areas? This is scare tactics, Michael, which is beneath you.
Yours,
Will Hutton
5th November 1998
Dear Will,
You make a number of points which are misleading (such as "current political parties are in any case coalitions") or factually wrong. For example, you give no evidence that other psephologists do not accept that, under Jenkins, nine out of the last 14 general elections would probably have meant hung parliaments. One advisor to the Jenkins committee gave the figure of eight, maybe nine.
You assume that the core of the pro-Jenkins position is irrefutable. It is not only the Conservatives who have refuted it, but a large section of Labour, too. Powerful trade unions and newspapers which frequently support the government (such as the Sun) have also condemned it. This debate transcends party politics.
I agree with you about the primacy of democratic rights. But how are they to be assured? One means is to entrench rights within legal documents such as the European Convention on Human Rights. This may indeed provide redress for injustices. Yet the legal process is lengthy, costly and uncertain. Decisions depend upon the interpretations of judges on terms such as "free speech." It is often hard to ensure that legal decisions are implemented.
Another way to protect our freedom is to give electors the means to oust governments. As AV Dicey, the great constitutional lawyer, argued 90 years ago, the political power of individual citizens puts the fear of the Almighty into the hearts of the government and of civil servants in a far more effective and, yes, cruder way than lengthy court disputes about "rights." Liberty and "people power" are best guaranteed by a system that gives rulers reason to fear being ousted if they become too cosy and insulated.
The trouble with coalition government is that all too often it breaks the link between elections and the composition of the governments created after elections. Coalitions, like industrial cartels, remove choices from political consumers. Instead of "wasted voters" there are entire "wasted elections." You will know this from your time in Switzerland, where the almost permanent four-party coalition means that voters have almost nothing to decide in general elections.
Finally, I mentioned the "possibilities of the rise of racial politics" as an unintended consequence of the Jenkins reforms. It was France's flirtation with PR in the 1980s which allowed Jean-Marie Le Pen to establish himself. When France discarded PR, the representation of the National Front in the National Assembly was almost destroyed.
In Britain, there are worrying undercurrents of racial prejudice and racial violence in some cities. Fortunately, overt racialism has seldom entered the political arena. I accept that Jenkins has designed his scheme to minimise the possibilities of extremist candidates gaining top-up seats. He has done this by allocating each top-up to a relatively small geographical area, effectively raising the threshold needed by a fringe party. But the likely consequences in at least three of the proposed top-up areas need to be examined carefully. In raising this, I do not wish to engage in "scare tactics." But responsible and detailed debate now is better than stumbling into reforms whose consequences have not been examined. Roger Eatwell, in Patterns of Prejudice, reports that in Britain, "a little noticed Daily Express-ICM opinion poll published on 8th August 1995 indicated that 9 per cent would definitely vote for a British Le Pen-type party and 17 per cent would seriously consider doing so."
Kind wishes,
Michael
5th November 1998
Dear Michael,
In your view, "kicking the rascals out" is the over-riding concern in a democracy, and first-past-the-post does that best. But you have still not addressed my argument that voters increasingly want to make their votes count-hence the growth of tactical voting in disputed marginal seats and voter indifference in rock-solid safe seats (now mainly Labour). These two factors are the main reasons why Labour could have won the same share of the vote as the Tories last year, but had 74 extra MPs-and why elections increasingly turn on the votes in 100 seats or less. Beyond them the parties hardly campaign, with all that this implies for the vitality of national debate.
And what of coalitions? John Curtice (Strathclyde) calculated for The Economist that of the five elections since 1979, only 1992 would have been hung under the Jenkins system. Presumably your unnamed psephologist must think that in the 1950s and 1960s there would have been lots of coalition governments. This defies common sense; the two main parties commanded almost all the votes then, and Britain would not have had Tory/Labour grand coalitions. Had the elections been "hung" the dominant party-Tory or Labour-would have been so big in relation to the Liberals that they would have held or threatened a new election had the junior coalition partner insisted on unacceptable policies.
You fail to mention the 1951 and 1974 elections. In 1951, the Tories got fewer votes than Labour but embarked on 13 years in government; in 1974, Labour won on a lower vote, setting up its own long period in opposition and the dominance of Thatcherism. Are you happy to live with such perverse results?
And why don't you consider the Labour and Conservative parties political coalitions? There are social liberals (Blair), social democrats (Hattersley) and socialists (Livingstone) in the Labour party; and Thatcherites (Redwood) and liberal conservatives (Clark) in the Conservative party. Nor is coalition government necessarily flaccid or anti-democratic. As Jenkins argues, for 43 of the last 150 years there have been coalition governments in Britain; political coalitions limited the power of the House of Lords in 1911 and took Britain into the then EEC. British politics has never been about two great political tribes with near uniformity of view. It has always been more subtle than that; it will become more so.
The whole purpose of democratic politics is argument, expressing ideas, building coalitions to prosecute them and taking on vested interests to achieve those ends. Yes, under Jenkins there may be a few more coalitions; but when opinion moves decisively absolute majorities will still emerge-and we will have a system in which everyone's vote counts.
Best wishes,
Will
5th November 1998
Dear Will,
Until 1997, defenders of first-past-the-post wrongly ignored the reformers. But since 1997, Jenkins and his committee have worked within a PR ghetto and have hardly consulted those who disagree with them.
A few more specific responses. First, how will votes "count" under PR if the formation of governments often depends upon deals between party leaders? Second, why assume that regions that were "electoral deserts" for a party will remain so for ever? In 1997 Labour picked up dozens of seats in what had been the "desert" of southern England. Third, the anti-Tory bias in the current system is partly caused by the over-representation of Scotland and the slow pace of boundary reviews. There are remedies apart from PR. Fourth, you stress the growth of tactical voting under first-past-the-post. Why is this an argument against it and not in favour of it? Why do you assume that the proposed "Alternative Vote" system would eliminate tactical voting? Fifth, my source for the number of coalitions had the Jenkins proposals been in force is also John Curtice. We both agree that there would have been hung results in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1964, 1970, February 1974, October 1974 and 1992. Coalitions would have been the norm, and the Lib Dems would undoubtedly have insisted on fully-fledged PR as the price of their support. Sixth, the difference between a temporary coalition between parties after an election and the "coalition" of views within a political party is akin to the difference between a one-night stand and a marriage. Seventh, when parliament legislated to join the EEC, there was a one-party government under Edward Heath. In 1911, there was a one-party Liberal government. The former had a Commons majority, the latter did not. Your error in calling these governments "coalitions" arises from your trust in the accuracy of Jenkins's report.
Finally, you mention the British election results of 1951 and 1974, when the party with slightly fewer votes obtained more seats; but there are much grosser anomalies under PR: West Germany 1969-losers CDU (46.1 per cent); winners SPD (42.7 per cent). I would be happy to place a large bet with you that I can unearth more anomalous election results under PR than you can under the British and other Westminster systems. Is it a deal?
Yours,
Michael
9th November 1998
Dear Michael,
Is the only effective way to make one's vote count to throw the rascals/bastards out-a right exercisable in only 80-100 marginals? You protest that PR gives power to party cabals as they forge coalition governments. But you have the more elitist approach: between occasional regime changes you seem to believe that government should be in the unchecked hands of whichever political tribe controls the Commons. Britain should continue to be governed by a political class in supreme control of the executive and legislature.
This might have been acceptable 100 years ago, but it won't do today. We want politicians who can respond to as many interest group and voter concerns as possible; who can assemble a majority for change through argument and compromise; and who recognise, in an era when so many issues resist the old left-right distinction, that any single party's philosophy may not have all the answers. Your finickety point over the politics of EEC entry and House of Lords reform reveals your blinkered view of the democratic process. It was coalitions reaching out beyond the tribe that was crucial on both occasions, just as they will be again over the euro and PR itself.
Jenkins will widen the terms of political debate, make our political tribes more porous and enfranchise all our citizens-while preserving historical continuity and allowing a single party to win overall control of the Commons if the public mood so wills.
Yours,
Will
