Thursday 24 April 2008

New policy?

Given that collective cabinet responsibility means that when a Minister speaks the Government speaks, are we to understand from yesterday's Scottish Questions that the London Labour Government has a new policy on elections?
Willie Rennie (Dunfermline and West Fife) (LD): Would the organisation of elections in Scotland not be made much simpler if we adopted the same voting system for all elections in Scotland and throughout the UK? Would the best system not be the single transferable vote by proportional representation, which was agreed by the Minister’s party and mine when we were friends together in the Scottish Executive?
David Cairns: I agree with the hon. Gentleman to the extent that things would be much easier if there were one system for all elections, and if that system were first past the post.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Speaking of first past the post being
the preferred way for Westminster
to keep their controlling ways , this gels very much with George Foulkes.

17th Oct 2007

"Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for not giving a birthday present to the noble Baroness. I tell my noble friend, the noble Baroness and her colleagues that the introduction of proportional representation in Scotland has been an absolute tragedy. We have seen chaos, confusion and cuts. At local government level, we see the Liberal Democrats in an unholy alliance with the Scottish National Party. Will my noble friend assure us that, because of this experience, we will stick to the tried and tested system of first past the post, which has given us stability in this country for decades and centuries?"

tinyurl.com/378suf

Basically they would rather have the "tried and tested system" that
brought Thatcher than a PR system
the brings a Scottish Government
like the SNP.