John Reid’s appearance with David Cameron on an anti-AV campaign platform yesterday has caused enormous outrage among certain elements of the party’s top brass.
John Denham, the shadow Business Secretary, and a long-time advocate of constitutional tinkering, was one of the most outspoken:
“First-past-the-post supports the dominant two parties and is unfair on the third party. In huge areas of southern England, Labour is the third party.
“The judgment of the Labour No campaign is wrong in principle on electoral reform and bad for the Labour Party politically. It doesn’t take into account the country’s electoral geography.”
Personally, I have never understood the argument that first-past-the-post is somehow unfair. It is hard to think of a system fairer than one under which the candidate who secures the most votes actually wins.
However, Denham’s criticism that FPP is “unfair” on the third party is telling. If you are in with a chance as one of the two top candidates, you are unlikely to complain too much about the current arrangements. If, on the other hand, you know you don’t have a prayer, then you are all the more likely to want to gerrymander the system to make it possible to sneak in by the back door.
AV, put simply, is a loser’s charter. But, fact is, if you’re afraid of losing, you really shouldn’t do politics. I lost in two general elections when the Tory party was in the doldrums. I never regretted a moment of either experience, accepting, as most politicians do, that if you live by the sword, you die by the sword.
And more than 100 Labour MPs agree with me.
