Proportional Representation

The argument against the current first past the post voting system is that smaller parties such as the Greens, UKIP and the BNP do not get a look in (although the Greens had a famous victory in Brighton) as their votes are spread thinly across constituencies. Likewise the Liberal Democrats gain a lot of votes but their distribution means that the number of seats the party wins is disproportionally low when compared to the Conservative and Labour parties.

The second major problem is the way in which constituency boundaries are drawn. That the current boundaries favour Labour is what all the professional commentators have said for years.

Full blown PR would sweep away both these problems and there is a certain attractiveness in the idea of 'fairness'. There are however a number of potential disadvantages.

1. PR would give representation to parties such as the BNP. Is it a risk worth taking?

2. The current horse-trading taking place behind closed doors between the political parties would happen after each general election.

3. The power of the electorate through the ballot box to dismiss governments would be lost. Power would transfer to the political elites of the larger parties.

So whilst there may be the appearance of fairness in a PR system, the overall effect will be to transfer power from the people to a small group of politicians.

One way round this might be to move to a complete separation of the executive and the legislature by having an elected president as in France and the USA.