A Solution in Search of a Problem

I confess it ... I'm a bit of an addict when it comes to spreadsheets.  Indeed, I remember one occasion when I said that I think in terms of them.  Certainly, when I'm confronted by a table of figures that's the first thing that comes to my mind.

I've been using this data processing phenomenon for the last 40 years off and on, right from having on my office desk an Apple PC with 5¼" floppy disks and 34KB of usable memory once the program was loaded.  Needless to say, in that time I've developed a degree of skill that is quite widely useful.  One evening this week I participated in a zoom meeting where I was able to offer help in this direction should it be appropriate to their needs.

To keep on top of developments and possibilities, I subscribe to a constant stream of 'daily tips' by e-mail.  These are provided by Allen Wyatt, an acknowledged guru of the system, who lives in Wyoming, USA.  Apart from these skills, which have resulted in many books and on-line courses over the years, Allen has recently opened a YouTube channel, in which he showcases some of the attractive scenery of his part of the United States.  He doesn't post there very often but, in my opinion, he's well worth watching.  As regards many of Allen's daily tips, however, I find my reaction is 'That's useful, but would I ever need to use it?'

The zoom meeting I referred to above was hosted by Make Votes Matter, which I mentioned in last week's post. One question raised was 'how can we make Proportional Representation better known?  When my turn came, my answer was something of a sidestep.  Feeling apologetic, I said, "I'm more of a worker than a thinker".  After all, my offer of help was very much along the lines of 'give me a challenge and I'll deal with it', rather than that of introducing any new strategies.  

Very much in the same vein as my thoughts about Allen Wyatt's Excel tips, I suggested that PR is a solution in search of a problem and I explained this by telling my own story.  Although I've been a voter for more than 50 years, I have never been represented by an MP of my own political persuasion.  I moved from a safe Conservative seat to another safe Conservative seat, and I'm now living in a safe Labour seat.  Never has there been even a remote possibility of my being represented by a Liberal or Liberal Democrat MP.

To my utmost surprise, one of the others in the meeting responded, "You've just answered the question, Brian.  Your personal history is the very way in which we can explain to people who live in safe seats their need of PR.  It's the only way they can have satisfactory representation."  With  a Single Transferable Vote system, a number of constituencies are combined to elect three, four or five MPs.  This means that the votes of those electors who support other than the present firmly-established party are combined and, together, may be able to return one out of all the MPs for this much larger constituency as their own representative.

Irrespective of the political subject under discussion, I came away from the meeting pleasantly satisfied that, although I hadn't realised it at the time, my thoughts and feelings addressed a question that I had felt unable to answer.