Political View: A 'new politics' needs to be about more than just electoral reform

"I will work to build a new politics. The country is crying out for it. We might enjoy the ‘point scoring’ against others. The public don’t. How can politicians point fingers when living standards are falling and politics, as a whole, isn’t working for them? It infuriates them and makes them switch off" - writes Nick Sandford, Communications Officer, Peterborough Liberal Democrats 

Liberal Democrats have put forward  arguments like this for decades.   But the above quote isn't from a Lib Dem MP but from our new prime minister, Andy Burnham, on assuming the leadership of the Labour party less than two weeks ago.  

The Labour government of Tony Blair some thirty years ago put through some important political reforms, including creation of new parliaments in Scotland and Wales and legislation on freedom of information and human rights.   But some real "hot potatoes" such as reform of our voting system, proper democratic reform of the House of Lords and real devolution to local communities were all unceremoniously  kicked into the long grass.

We have a voting system,  called "First Past the Post", which is designed to work in a system with just two main parties, usually giving one of them a majority of seats in the House of Commons.   It started to malfunction when a third party, such as the Lib Dems or the Greens became strong and it denied them their fair share of seats. Many areas of the country became almost one party states for either the Labour or Tory parties.  Now we have a five or six party system,  First Past the Post just can't cope,  parties can win seats on less than a quarter of the votes cast and voters are left trying to second guess the result to avoid their vote being "wasted" on a candidate who has no chance. 

Andy Burnham has said many times that he supports a change to a fairer electoral system where seats received by parties more closely reflect how many votes they get.  Many Labour party MPs, including our own Peterborough MP, Andrew Pakes,  are supporters too.  Change is needed also in local council elections and Peterborough City Council, which now has six party groups plus a host of independents is a classic example of the need for reform.  There is talk that Burnham may set up a royal commission to look at alternative voting systems but that may take too long and the time for change is now, if we are to prevent Reform grabbing power on a very small percentage of the vote at the next general election.  Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, has offered to work with the PM to deliver electoral reform  in this parliament, while he still has the power to deliver it.

A "new politics" needs to be about more than just electoral reform,  but making everyone's vote count in a fairer voting system could be the key that unlocks the door to a different type of politics in our country.  The challenge for our new prime minister is whether he is prepared to use that key and take us through that door into the healthier more open democracy that lies beyond.