From Both Sides Now

I confess, I was out yesterday and completely forgot that it was Friday - the day when I usually write my blog.  Consistency is important, though, (and that's a phrase that has current significance, I realise) so here are a few thoughts about something that has been on my mind for the last ten days or so.

When Boris Johnson was finally persuaded to resign, one thing was inevitable ... an election to find a successor to him, both as party leader and, de facto, as Prime Minister of our United Kingdom.  I'd forgotten just how long and protracted a business this is although, apparently, the 1922 Committee have taken measures to speed things up a bit.

Essentially, the process is in two parts, rather like a French election.  Firstly the current MPs of the party reduce the many candidates to just two.  Secondly, these two are presented to the membership of the party countrywide, to determine which of the chosen two will be the new leader.  The first part of this process can take up to two weeks.  At the start, any candidate who can't find among his or her fellow MPs a required minimum number of supporters is eliminated.  Then the MPs vote in a succession of ballots at each of which the candidate getting the least number of votes is eliminated, until just two remain.

When I first heard how this was being done - I think it was when David Cameron resigned after the Brexit vote in 2016 - I thought, 'How stupid'.  If they were to use a Single Transferable Vote, all unpteen candidates could be presented to the membership from the word go.  It would then take, say, three weeks for the votes to be returned, each showing the voter's preferences and the new leader could be in post within a month.

After all, the MPs' selection process puts into human form part of the counting procedure in an STV election.  The candidates getting the lowest number of votes are eliminated and their votes go to their next preference.  In the actual Conservative party process, they have to decide who else to vote for; with STV that decision process is expressed at the outset.  What's missing in making this comparison is the re-allocation of excess votes over and above the minimum required to elect the winner (the Quota).

My own criticism of the system ended at this point with a declaration that, of course, the Tories would never decide to use STV.

The non-partisan activist group advocating proportional representation, Make Votes Matter, goes a stage further than I did.  Stripping the whole consideration back to first principles, their most telling analysis is simply this.  If the Conservatives really believe that First Past the Post is the best system, the only good way, to hold an election, then they would use it to elect their leaders.  They would send out the complete candidate list to the membership and whoever came out with the most votes would be the winner.

But they don't.  As MVM's leaders have pointed out, 'If FPTP is not good enough for them to use themselves, why should they force the general electorate to use it to elect our MPs?'