Cicero's Songs

In a blaze of apathy, one of the rarest of British constitutional processes- a referendum- is getting under way. Most voters probably consider the referendum as to whether to adopt the Alternative Vote system- AV- either abstruse and arcane or simply just plain dull. Yet in fact, this referendum is one that will be significant for a generation to come. The current British electoral system- first past the post (FPTP)- gives a Parliament that is only approximately what the voters choose. Several times in the past, the party with the largest number of MPs, and which therefore becomes the government, has received a lot fewer votes than the supposedly second party. Sometimes MPs can be a elected when three quarters of those who voted chose someone else. In other words, FPTP does not accurately reflect how people actually vote- and it therefore fails a major test of democracy. The Liberal Democrats- and many others in all parties- believe that the electoral system should give a result that ...

The political discourse of Britain has become gloomy of late. Rational assessments of the position of the country are being drowned in a flood of negativity and invective. Perhaps it is particularly bad at the moment, as we see the bad news from Japan and Libya filling our screens, but I don't really think so. The fact is that the Brits seem to have become more than a little Eeyore-ish in recent years. For example, despite the clear success of the construction work on the Olympic park, were are encouraged to complain that the games will crowd out London, that things won't be that good and so on. In fact London seems set to give a games that will have a lot more heart than the vainglorious Beijing Olympics, and a lot more commercial nous than the incomplete Athens Olympics. Britain is not a failing country- it is a modern and successful country, for all the various problems that we face. Yet, of course there is the terrible word "still", as in Britain can "still...