Moral Panic #101: Deficit Leaves No Time For Electoral Reform

Having limped in first over the electoral finishing line, and needing support to govern, the Tories have been understandably meek in setting an agenda for this Parliament. And after decades of dodging the issue, they are truly appalled at the thought of electoral reform as the price for Liberal Democrat support.

But commit to it they must: it's a travesty that 23% of the national vote could produce only 9% of the MPs. And it is small consolation to the people who comprise that 23% (not to mention the 29% who voted Labour and the 11.9% dismissed as voting 'other') - that 'their' 57 MPs hold the 'balance of power'.

The general election would have been more engaging and vastly more inclusive if the 63.9% of voters who did not receive their first choice could have nominated the candidate they'd have preferred to win instead. That's what Proportional Representation is all about.

Despite moral panic designed to dodge the issue yet again, electoral reform will not 'distract' anyone from cutting the £163bn public deficit. All are agreed that economic reform will be business as usual for this government. In fact, as a result, it should be 'less busy than usual'. So there'll be plenty of time to work out the move to one style or other of Proportional Representation.

Commitment to electoral reform might even lead the unlucky 63.9% to work much more willingly with the lucky 36.1% to cut the budget deficit.

Image from VoterPower

We Have MPs Where We Want Them

In many ways the UK general election has not gone the way anyone wanted.

Sure, we have a hung Parliament, 149 MPs from the last scandal-ridden pit did not stand, Jacqui Smith lost her seat, and the BNP didn't get any at all.

Yet the politicians and their party machines have not been able to control the result. And, while voter turn-out increased slightly, voters were angry at being turned away as polls closed and already a campaign has begun to "take back Parliament" by reforming an electoral system that nullifies vast numbers of votes.

So one thing seems assured: this Parliament is in for a bumpy ride.

And this is a great outcome. We have MPs exactly where we want them. They are not in control. They have little alternative but to listen and respond to our issues bottom-up.

Independent forums like Power 2010, 38 Degrees, and TheyWorkForYou, are genuine attempts to gather and share everyone's views without regard for 'party lines'. The politicians would do well to engage with them instead of relying on their own party 'research' to validate policies they want to impose from the top down.

But we too need to participate by sharing our concerns: we'll only get the government we deserve.

Image from The Original Hog Roast Company

Social Media Explained Simply?

The internet is the spaghetti, social network services the sauce.

Image from FeedYourself

Big Media: Do You Really Facilitate What People Want To Do?

It's illuminating to compare Alan Rusbridger's recent presentation of the Guardian's collaborative business model, with Facebook Open Graph.

Both the Guardian and Facebook initiatives seek to capitalise on people's desire to socialise (to summarise many subsidiary activities) by offering the opportunity to socialise on their respective advertising platforms. But we are still seeing a stark difference between an institution seeking to solve its own problem, top-down, and that of a facilitator focused on solving people's problems, bottom-up.

The links in the content on the Guardian's site are almost entirely to Guardian content, rather than to source material or the digital presences of people/organisations named. So, while the Guardian is moving towards a more collaborative model, it patently wants to 'own' that collaboration - promoting Guardian content, centring on the Guardian's favoured topics and on the Guardian's advertising platform. So if you wish to socialise on the Guardian platform you must surrender your 'voice' and identity to the Guardian.

By contrast, Facebook Open Graph facilitates the various activities that comprise 'socialising' without dictating location, content and whether it involves creating links away from Facebook, or even to Facebook.

It seems obvious to me which approach will ultimately attract more people and advertisers. The question is whether the Guardian has the institutional skill and courage required to reinvent itself as a genuine facilitator before everyone moves to a more facilitative platform.

Image from Logic+Emotion.

Inverting The Insitutional Narrative Part 2: Telling It Bottom-Up

In Part 1, I suggested that to properly understand our motives at the ballot box the election narrative needs to be told from the bottom-up, not top-down.

How is that going?

False outrage in the headlines of certain newspapers is merely a top-down attempt by those institutions to influence how people vote (I won't dignify that rubbish with any links). And while pieces from Dispatches and Charlie Brooker genuinely expose the party leaders as institutional machines, they do nothing to reveal what individual people actually care about.

Ironically, Gordon Brown and the TV media came close to revealing what individuals think when he was caught expressing his annoyance off camera when a Rochdale resident expressed her own views instead of letting him list his government's achievements.

So what do people actually care about? And how does that resonate with candidates?

The team at TheyWorkForYou have bothered to find that out. By doing a quick survey yourself you'll find out the most common issues in your constituency and where your candidates stand - at least those candidates who've bothered to respond (1156, when I did it). Tellingly, the Guardian's report on this initiative focused on the Tories' refusal to complete the survey rather than people's issues, which were dismissively and condescendingly referred to as "everything from CCTV cameras to gay parenting."

Sadly, VoterPower have also done the analysis to explain just how little most people's votes actually count in the UK electoral system:

"The average UK voter only has the power of 0.253 votes. This is because most of us live in safe seats, where the outcome is pretty much certain regardless of how we vote... [for example] 57.60% of those who voted in Hammersmith in 2005 did not vote for the winning candidate. These votes count for nothing in the First Past the Post system."

There's clearly much work to be done before we'll see Politics 2.0!

Photo: 'expectant crowd' via BBC.