2 July 2010

What If The Electoral Gamble Goes To The Shitter...

Evening all,

So it looks as though we are going to get that much vaunted referendum on electoral reform – and the alternative vote (AV) model – and much earlier that we all thought it would be, with Mr Clegg having been able to persuade Call Me Dave to go for 6th May 2011, as reported by the media this morning.

If this was easy it would have been done by now, but voters inconsiderately insist on getting on with their own lives and moving jobs/homes without regard to constituency boundaries. The more they move from city to suburb and beyond, the more Conservative votes pile up to no additional purpose – and ditto with the lorry loads of Labour votes stored in the urban areas of deprivation.

And there is the serious possibility that Clegg loses the vote. 

If Clegg were to lose his referendum, he would be put in a situation where overnight, massive party management problems among his MPs and activists could cause an implosion not just within the Parliamentary party but to the coalition – and at a time when the Lib-Con cuts would be biting deep into public services and jobs. Many activists have already jumped ship and joined myself with Labour. 

Worse still, even if he was to win, Cameron might be able to hold the promised 2015 election under FPTP and the current boundaries. 

If we are locked in deepening economic crisis – and we may well be – it may all look a bit frivolous, as the AV deal offered by the Labour minority administration to Lloyd George's Liberals did in 1931.

It's all a gamble, as life so often is.

And it can be argued that he already taken the biggest gamble of all.  Jumping into the same dirty bed as Cameron.

Beautiful.

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