Tuesday, February 09, 2010

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.

4 comments:

Oldrightie said...

Brown will win this. See

http://oldrightie.blogspot.com/

JS.Ray said...

doesn't really matter what he proposed, the timing is fucking appalling. Just a sign of how clueless the Labour Party really is. They could've enacted electoral reform years ago, and probably kept the Tories out of power (and themselves on the gravy train) for decades if they'd wanted.

ModernityBlog said...

Jim,

Just reading a piece on Su blog, apparently the Greens in Barking are intending to stand?

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=5249

Is that right?

Seems like a real bad move eh?

Jim Jepps said...

They've made a mistake