It was announced today that Mohammed Asghar is leaving Plaid Cymru and joining the Conservatives. Oscar (as he is known) took the fourth list seat for Plaid from the Conservatives.

Of course elected representatives can change their party whatever the voting system but where does this leave the people who used their party list vote to support Plaid now that the person they helped elect has defected.

STV would give a personal mandate to those who elected and would ensure the individual accountability of representatives.

STV News 09/07

Tony Benn's Letters to My Grandchildren (Hutchinson, £18.99) is as the title suggests a series of letters to Benn's grandchildren Nahal, Michael, James, William, Jonathan, Caroline, Emily, Daniel, Hannah and Sarah. 'Letter 17 explains the advantages of the single transferable vote system'.

Source: Guardian

The Open Rights Group will use STV to elect their directors.

The rules

All-women short lists would be A solution, but not THE solution, to the shortage of women in Parliament.

Although Parliament would look more representative of the nation, it could be less representative in fact because constituency parties would have a restricted choice of candidates. Moreover, voters would have no more choice than they do now. Voters have no real choice in most seats because they are safe. At present, one person (usually a man) is foisted on them however they vote. Under David Cameron's proposal today, they would still have one person foisted on them but it might be a woman.

STV would let voters chose everywhere from which parties and which sex they wanted their MPs to come.

On the one hand, MPs should not get away with claiming excessive expenses from us, the taxpayers, even if the claims are within the rules. Don’t forget MPs set their own rules. On the other hand, it is unfair if Sir Thomas Legg has simply moved the goalposts retrospectively and catches out those MPs whose claims had been agreed under past rules just because he personally thinks their claims are excessive.

It also seems unfair on MPs if their Parties unilaterally deselect them without first giving their voters a chance to decide whether their claims were excessive or, even if they were, whether the excessive claims were outweighed by the MPs’ good performance locally. If they were in most respects good MPs, Party deselection may also be unfair on their constituents because that would deny voters the opportunity of re-electing them. But what is most unfair is for voters in safe seats to have disgraced MPs foisted upon them merely because their Parties want to stay loyal and keep them.

If MPs have not committed fraud and have kept within the rules, it is only fair that they should be judged, not by their Party or Sir Thomas, but by their voters.

The problem is that this is not feasible under the present voting system. Voters cannot vote against sitting MPs without also voting against their Parties and loyal Party supporters will be reluctant to do that. In safe seats, the leading Party’s candidates will nearly always win even if they have behaved badly. In marginal seats, the sitting MPs will probably lose if there is a swing against their Parties, even if they have performed and behaved well. That is not fair on either the MPs or the voters concerned!

There can be similar problems with most voting systems, but STV uniquely empowers voters to differentiate between good and bad MPs of the same Party. It would let voters sack the bad MPs without having to vote against their own Parties. It would also protect good MPs from being treated unfairly by their Parties without reference to voters.

Let us give STV a try; it will be fair to voters and those MPs who perform well.

What a squeak after the loud roar of the Labour Party’s manifesto in 1997 to hold a referendum on electoral reform! The media releases about Gordon Brown’s manifesto pledge in his speech on 29 September for a referendum on the Alternative Vote (AV) if Labour wins the next General Election say it all (see Vote For A Change below). Definitely not PR – for Parties or, as we prefer, for People - but perhaps a step in the right direction. After all, there are two basic principles in STV, the first being preferential voting on which AV is based, and the second, multi-member seats without which there cannot be PR of any kind.

Nevertheless real progress of a kind there has been, albeit not promising much at the moment. This is the first time in recent memory that a Prime Minister has declared that First Past The Post has deficiencies and that the voting system might have to be changed.

Some cynics, though, have even suggested that the split into two at the fringe meeting was exactly what Brown intended - to kill off within Labour's post-reform ranks any chance of the kind of real change the country needs: a split between the pragmatists (who think a referendum on AV might begin a process that would lead to PR), and the true believers (who reckon it would kill the chances of meaningful reform for a generation).

We fervently believe that STV is the best voting system for all public elections - and in many other elections too. Even so, if it is not possible to persuade Parliament to move from single member constituencies to multi-member ones, then AV is a better system that FPTP as it can more easily be converted to STV later than any of the other systems being proposed.

As Which? would say, “not our Best Buy, but worth considering”!

If you would like to know more about AV, I recommend you to visit http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/article.php?id=55 for the Electoral Reform Society’s explanation.

If Brown is really serious about reform (unlike Blair in 1997), he will introduce legislation before the general election for a referendum and challenge the Opposition to repeal it if they win the election.

Vote For A Change Media release:

“Gordon Brown today said that we faced the biggest choices of a generation. With his manifesto pledge of a referendum on the Alternative Vote he’s offered one of the smallest.

After all we’ve seen of the Westminster Gravy train what our politics required was a giant leap. But what Brown said today isn’t even a small step. This is just another empty promise to take that step. Labour promised a referendum in 1997, they didn’t deliver. There is little reason to view this as anything more than another worthless manifesto commitment from a party that may be heading for defeat anyway. Sunshine, lollypops and rainbows may as well be in that manifesto. It amounts to the same thing. A lack of action, and a lack of nerve from a Prime Minister unwilling to embrace real reform.

We are pleased to have won this commitment from the Prime Minister. But if you are committed to the principle of a referendum on the system then you should be principled enough to deliver it when it’s with in your power to do so.

People do well to judge politicians on their actions not their words. Today Brown's speech demonstrated he’s not serious about reform. He has time between now and the Queen’s Speech to build up from amounts to a promise to do nothing.”

In response to The Sun newspaper’s declared support for the Conservatives, the Prime Minister said the views of voters, rather than newspapers, counted at the ballot box. The BBC reported that he said, “the British people will decide the election.” Would were that true, Gordon!

Under our crazy, undemocratic and inefficient voting system, the present Government was supported by only 35% of voters at the last general election while 65% voted against it. The last Conservative Government was elected by only 42% while 58% voted against it.

Let the voters really decide!