Brown's voting reform error

The news that Gordon Brown was proposing voting reform as his parting gift for the Tories probably did not go down as well as he'd hoped. Those who like the current system were never going to be happy, but by putting forward Alternative Voting as a method of heading off Proportional Representation didn't meet with much enthusiasm from reformers either.

What I hadn't realised at the time, although in hindsight it was predictable, it was also a way of Brown proving how rubbish the Labour Party is at unity. The BBC reports today that a number of Labour MPs are intending to vote against the proposals and, assuming the Tories go against it too Brown will have just found a way of inflicting a Commons defeat on himself on the eve of the election.

If you're going to get defeated you should at least make sure it's because you're reforms are too radical, not because people don't like your gruel that much. Oh well, one more nail in the coffin.