( Kapital-i, in 'I, myself', now spels Il as in isle or aisle.
Leter y spels sym for seem or seam and partys for parties.
Leter w spels swn for soon. )
( Kombin'd from tw nws-grup postings: 10 and 17 Jun 2000. )
It's al very wel for British Premier, Mr Blair to talk about individual oportunity with respekt for the komunity - demokrasy, in other words - but his government has shown no respekt for proper demokratik ruls in British elektions.
Much of the fault for this is the il legasy of the Plant report, wich rekomended diferent elektoral systems for diferent British elektions. Konsequently, the British government has byn pre-empting the reform debait by instituting its own 'PR' and other methods, at varius levels of government.
The British main-land now has haf a dozen undemokratik voting methods wer uon demokratik method wud do.
The Jenkins report got the mesaj that the German system, adopted by
New Zealand, alow'd a smal party, holding the balans of power, to
chws a ko-alition.
Did the komision desId to abandon aditional member systems? Not a bit of
it.
As a last ditch atempt to promot a hybrid system of monopolistik singl
members and party list monopolys of the proportional kount, the report
kobl'd together an even mor komplikated system of 'alternativ
vot top-up'.
The efekt of this, spyking of suksesiv elektions as days of the wyk, wud be that on sundays, tusdays, thursdays and saturdays, the larjest minority party wud monopolis or hog government. And on mondays, wensdays and fridays, a krucial smal party kud desId the ko-alition.
So, the Jenkins komision's idea of justis was to trI to enjinyr a Bugin's turn betwyn thys tw tIps of unjust government.
This is a system virtualy no-uon wanted but wich British reformers
larjly ar kampaining for, bekaus they ar afraid that's al ther's on ofer.
As a result, AV top-up gos notisably unkritisis'd by reformers.
But the anomalys of AV top-up ar so rIf that they wud be
expos'd as a lafing stok in a referendum. As a konsequens, the
referendum result wud at best be indesisiv and aford no lasting
konstitutional setlment that wud sekur jeneral respekt from the pepl
or the politicians.
Mr Blair's alej'd suport, for the alternativ vot ( as yus'd in Australian elektions ), fals bak on a system thot by analysts to bind the splits of the left in Labor's favor. But the alternativ vot, minus a top-up of the smal party boses kandidats, is dyply flaw'd, on its own akount.
As elektoral expert, David Butler pointed out to the Jenkins komision, the
alternativ vot is arbitrary.
Even uon voter, chanjing betwyn tw runers-up ( nek and
nek ), kan chanj wich kandidat's sekond preferenses ar re-distributed,
and giv a disproportionatly diferent komplexion to the final result,
inkluding a diferent winer.
Also, Churchill's famus remark, about the alternativ vot, wil always stik: the worst vots for the worst kandidats. The worst kandidats ar thos with the fwest first preferenses and yet ther sekond preferenses ar the uons desiding wich lyding kandidat qualifys as having an over-al majority.
And Roy Jenkins' notorius remark in favor of the alternativ vot kan not be defended with justis. He said words to the efekt that pepl must often tak sekond or third best in lIf, in jobs, housing and uon's wIf, and ther is no ryson wI this shud not be so in the elektoral system.
This kontention is grosly mislyding. The point of the singl transferabl vot, STV ( wich yuses a proportional kount of a preferens vot ) is that a larj majority of voters in a multi-member konstituensy ar ensur'd ther first preferenses ar elekted.
Even in quIt smal Irish multi-member konstituensys of thry or for syts, som tw-thirds of the representativs wil be elekted by first preferenses, and nyrly al the rest by sekond or hI preferenses. So, it's fair to say that som-thing in the order of twIs as many voters wil hav ther first preferenses elekted, yusing STV kompar'd to AV.
Even the publish'd submisions to the Jenkins report show'd substantial suport for STV. And the report gav no statistikal brek-down of the mas of 'ordinary' pepl's preferenses - making the exkus ther wer tu many of them.
Richard Lung.