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Electoral System

With great respect, my Lords, they are not the noble Lord’s Members of the European Parliament. We do not have constituency Members of the European Parliament; we have swept away that link. There are six or seven Members in the west Midlands, and I would be hard put to name the two who happen to be Labour. I certainly cannot name the others. That is immensely damaging to the process. At every other election, we knock on doors, mention the name of the candidate and ask whether the person will support that individual. In the European elections, we stand all this on its head and say, ““No, you can’t do that. You don’t have an MEP in that sense because there is a heap of them and you get whoever turns up””. That is very wrong. Voting for individuals and not for parties is at the core of an electoral system. I kept a scrapbook during the election to look back on what the pundits, political editors and others who under the present electoral arrangements so confidently forecast the result of the election that took place just three weeks ago. The experienced and distinguished Simon Hoggart in the Guardian of Saturday 26 February, in his diary column gave it as his opinion that,"““it could be a victory so marginal that it looks closer to defeat””." Thank you, Mr Hoggart. Bruce Anderson wrote in the Independent on 28 February under the headline, which I know he did not write:"““The Tories have recovered their nerve and could yet make this a close-run election””." He went on to say:"““But it is not inconceivable that there could be a hung parliament””." That view is shared, incidentally, by my former colleague and friend, Mo Mowlam. In the same paper on 4 May, the very eve of the election, she said:"““I cannot go along with the view . . . that the Blair government is set for a 50–100 majority  . . . we could be facing a hung parliament””." Let us not overlook another soothsayer: the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. In a letter to the Guardian, modestly signed ““Martin Thomas””, he said that,"““the Liberal Democrats will win a mass of Labour seats””." More accurately, he might have said that voting Liberal Democrat would hand Labour seats to Conservative Members of Parliament, which happened in so many unhappy cases. There are other soothsayers whom we should not overlook. On 6 April, Patrick O’Flynn wrote as political editor of the Daily Express. This is the political editor and not just some political hack jobbing it on the odd afternoon in the Gallery down the other end. He wrote that,"““for Mr Howard to win a Commons majority would be a sensational feat. But the momentum is with him now and it is possible he could do so””." The very distinguished W F Deedes said in the Daily Telegraph of 6 April:"““It’s so long since we had a proper hung parliament . . .  the most recent polls suggest it could very well be the outcome on 5 May””." Frank Nelson of TheBusiness predicted,"““a minority Labour government””." Simon Heffer of the Daily Mail of 15 April told us:"““Coupled with the rise in Tory fortunes, this means that the hung parliament scenario is increasingly possible””." Just to show that it works the other way round, Ian Kirby, in the News of the World of 17 April, confidently told readers that,"““Tony Blair is on course for a massive 152-seat majority””." Well now, I wonder what any of those will say in the coming weeks about how they made those mistakes and misled their readers to such a grievous extent. It is a good job that none of them is on the team led by Michel Howard, Tory leader, because they, like him, would have been fired for not doing their job properly. So why did the election lead to such comments about its outcome? Goodness gracious me, I have noticed the clock. I am sorry, I will finish now. I believe that one of the main reasons for cynicism about politics is what I call the ““Daily Mail syndrome””, the attitude that anyone in public life is doing it only to feather their own nest; the system does not work; it is all falling to pieces; and you cannot do anything about it. That all-pervasive cynicism, reflected, I am sad to say, by those in the BBC and elsewhere in the media, eats away at people’s belief in the system, and we must do something to change that before the next election.