The news is today covering a report from the Electoral Commission about the way we run elections in this country. One of the recommendations is for people to register individually on the electoral roll.This makes a huge amount of sense. At the moment one person fills the form in for everyone in the household. Mistakes can and do creep in - people get left off or wrongly included. (Household pets also get included as a joke sometimes). I do think also that there needs to be a little more identifying information - a NI number or similar. I am told that some time ago there were more dead people voting in a particular Liverpool local election than the margin of votes in the ward concerned. And while "personation" is very rare, it can and does happen.
There seem to be lots of consultation going on about elections and election processes at the moment. The government is currently asking for feedback on whether to hold elections on a weekend. We'll be sending a response in from the City Council once we've gathered in opinions from Councillors, but I wonder what other people think. If you've a view, do post it in the comments. My immediate feeling is that weekend voting is a good idea - although it does throw up quite a few organisational problems.
2 comments:
We have been and have allowed ourselves to be pushed into such a rigid tribal system that there is effectively no real democratic decision making any longer. If we go to the polls at all, it is by and large to vote for the person wearing the colour rosette that we believe reflects best our views, though in reality there has been such a dash to the middle of the road they don't. We have little knowledge of what the actual candidate believes, or any real expectation that they would stand up for it if it meant going against the party.
Or views and our votes are not sought by force of arguement but rather by appeals to tribal loyalty and by encouraging fear of the others position. Our candidates do not address us publicly or debate each other in any meaningful way and certainly in no way that forces them to prove to us the depth of their knowledge, quality of their intellect or passion of their views . All of which has made it impossible for the outsider, the visionary or those that might seriously wish to challange the status quo to become elected. A situation which allows the likes of Louise Ellman, an intellectual minow, whose interviews on the radio are pythonesque in their absurdity and whose political career is a shinning example of the triumph of medocrity, to be re-elected repeatedly.
And in response to this, our political class, and it has finally become exactly that, tells us that if feel strongly we need to get engage
all the while creating and re-enforcing a system which prevents engagement. The worst example of this surely must be the MEP elections, where seats are dolled out by the parties on precentage of votes. Yes there is possibly more equity but at the price of increased medicority and moderate view.
The only real conclusion I can reach is that the party system needs complete reform, if not complete dismantling. Politics has been coralled into a system in which its serves party interest and not that of the people, oh and the liberals are just as bad as the others, possibly even worse as you have candidates that rail against the system, that promise change yet your strategy so often is to simply appear bland enough to make people pick yellow instead of blue or red.
This happens at all levels but in many ways I think its the complete failure of local democracy thats the both the worst part and conversely the best way to solve it.
Now I consider myself left of centre and certainly don't agree with all of the conclusions but I was really impressed with the recent tory think tank report.
Its challenge to devolve greater power, money and responsibility aligned with more transparency and accountability to local councillors is one that I would whole heartedly back. Its conclusion that councils fail to attract candidates of sufficient quality as both councillors and officers becuase they are no longer the great agents of change, but are instead bland bureaucracies which spend their time chasing targets or dreaming up projects which aren't actually right locally but will secure govt money can be seen time and again. Something thats easily demonstrable in the HMRI initiatives in Liverpools victorian terrace areas, a council with decent leadership that truely reflected the people might have the courage to tell whitehall that its the wrong initiative in the wrong place and at the wrong time and one with more control over the money might actually be able to do something about.
Instead our councillors will push ahead with it and claim the pludits when everything is new an shiny but in a few more years when its clear they've simply built yet another ghetto, they'll be able to blame central govt for the mess claiming they were bound by their scheme and their targets.
That said we would need a commensurate improvement in the publics willingness to engage and exercise what little rights they have, the people of this city should feel at least a modicum of shame that no elected officials are held to account by the loss of their seat when there is a failure of leaderships, for example in the light of the last minute cancelling of last year Mathew st festival and the national embarssement this caused.
Local democracy at the moment is truly the worst of all worlds.
In my view the system has become far too broken to be fixed by simply opening up voting on weekends, maybe in words of George Washington ' we need a revolution every 2 or 3 generations'
In my view the system has become far too broken to be fixed by simply opening up voting on weekends, maybe in words of George Washington ' we need a revolution every 2 or 3 generations'
Our democracy has failed us and we have failed it.
We have been and have allowed ourselves to be pushed into such a rigid tribal system that there is effectively no real democratic decision making any longer. If we go to the polls at all, it is by and large to vote for the person wearing the colour rosette that we believe reflects best our views, though in reality there has been such a dash to the middle of the road they don't. We have little knowledge of what the actual candidate believes, or any real expectation that they would stand up for it if it meant going against the party.
Or views and our votes are not sought by force of arguement but rather by appeals to tribal loyalty and by encouraging fear of the others position. Our candidates do not address us publicly or debate each other in any meaningful way and certainly in no way that forces them to prove to us the depth of their knowledge, quality of their intellect or passion of their views . All of which has made it impossible for the outsider, the visionary or those that might seriously wish to challange the status quo to become elected.
And in response to this, our political class, and it has finally become exactly that, tells us that if feel strongly we need to get engage
all the while creating and re-enforcing a system which prevents engagement. The worst example of this surely must be the MEP elections, where seats are dolled out by the parties on precentage of votes. Yes their is possibly more equity but at the price of being able to support the views of one
The only real conclusion I can reach is that the party system needs complete reform, if not complete dismantling. Politics has been coralled into a system in which its serves party interest and not that of the people, and the liberals are just as bad as the others, possibly even worse as you have candidates that rail against the system that promise change yet your strategy so often is to simply appear bland enough to make people pick yellow instead of blue or red.
This happens at all levels but in many ways I think its the complete failure of local democracy thats the both the worst part and conversely the best way to solve it.
Now I consider myself left of centre and certainly don't agree with all of the conclusions but I was really impressed with the recent tory think tank report. Its challenge to devolve greater power, money and responsibility aligned with more transparency and accountability is one that I would whole heartedly back, its conclusion that councils fail to attract candidates of sufficient quality as both councillors and officers becuase they are no longer the great agents of change and instead spend their time chasing govt. targets or dreaming up projects which aren't actually right locally but will secure govt money can be seen time and again. Something thats easily demonstrable in the HMRI initiatives in Liverpools victorian terrace areas, a council with decent leadership that truely reflected the people might have the courage to tell whitehall that its the wrong initiative here and one with more control over the money might actually be able to do something about.
Instead our councillors will push ahead with it and claim the pludits when everything is new an shiny but in a few more years when its clear they've simply built yet another ghetto, they'll be able to blame central govt for the mess as they were bound by their scheme and their targets.
That said we would need a commensurate improvement in the publics willingness to engage and exercise what little rights they have, the people of this city should feel at least a modicum of shame that no elected officials are held to account by the loss of their seat when there is a failure of leaderships, for example in the light of the last minute cancelling of last year Mathew st festival and the national embarssement this caused.
Local democracy at the moment is truly the worst of all worlds.
hmm had to post this again cause it seems to have got lost last time.
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