The alternative vote re-visited
Electoral reform re-emerged in the 1980s as a significant issue in British politics. After a long spell in which the established system was very widely accepted, warts and all, political developments in the last ten years have undermined satisfaction with the system. The 1983 and 1987 general elections produced a particularly disproportional relationship between the parties' votes and seats, and thereby highlighted the inherent unfairness of first-past-the-post. The Liberals and Social Democrats presented electoral reform as a central feature of their Alliance programme, and the Nationalists and Greens advocated systems other than first-past-the-post. Since 1987 growing concern over the Conservatives' electoral dominance has prompted renewed interest in electoral pacts between out-of-office parties, and thus in electoral systems which might facilitate such pacts. As well as doubts about the adequacy of the electoral system for the House of Commons, the proposals to create Assemblies for Scotland, Wales and the English regions, and Labour's recent proposals to establish an elected Upper House, involve the question of the electoral system that should be used. The 1990 Labour Conference recommended that the party consider the creation of a Speakers' Conference to examine the whole issue of electoral reform.
Fairness and Electoral Reform
First-past-the-post is often seen as unfair. But this reflects a narrow understanding of fairness. Several ideas of fairness exist, some of which help to defend first-past-the-post. Two key parts of the British electoral reform debate are discussed: the translation of votes to seats, and the translation of votes to power. Several arguments about fairness by both critics and defenders of first-past-the-post are questioned. Tensions within and between certain ideas of fairness are addressed. Stronger justification of different notions of fairness, and more rigorous empirical assessment of normative claims, are advocated. Conceptual clarity requires that protagonists identify explicitly which ideas of fairness they favour, or preferably, that they simply avoid the misleading and overly rhetorical language of fairness.
Lloyd George: The Goat in the Wilderness, 1922-1931
The Lloyd George coalition, 1918-22 the aftermath of the coalition, 1922-23 Liberal reunion, 1922-23 the first Labour government, 1924 Lloyd George under Asquith, 1924-26 Lloyd George, Asquith and the General Strike, 1926 Lloyd George as a Liberal leader, I, 1927-28 the Liberal "Yellow Book" Lloyd George as a Liberal leader, II, 1928-29 the second Labour government, I, 1929-30 the second Labour government, II, 1930-31 the formation of national government, 1931.