Hello again. Think I was a little burned out on politics after Thursday night and Friday, hence no posts over the weekend! Anyway – we’re now in the depths of the squalid horse trading that was inevitable with a hung parliament. I have many thoughts on the matter but, for now, I’m just going to post a rebuttal of a few fallacies flying around and contributing to the furious spinning that have really got on my nerves.
1) A Labour – Liberal Democrat alliance would have legitimacy due to share of popular vote!
Oh dear, where to begin? Many seem to think that as Labour and Lib-Dem votes added together exceed those cast for the Tories, then this gives legitimacy to a Lib-Lab “Progressive Alliance”. Errrrm… No. Our democracy is not based on popular vote, but on seats in the House of Commons. The Lib-Lab seats added together would not have a working majority in the Commons, and would be forced to rely on regional minority parties to pass legislation.
Now, by all means this could be taken as an indication we need a more proportional voting system – fair comment. But this election is running according to the current rules.
2) The majority of people voted against the Tories, so they shouldn’t get into power!
Even more nonsensical. By that argument, an even greater majority voted against Labour, so they shouldn’t get into power either. There seems to be a lot of confusion around this “Progressive Alliance” concept. Many people are assuming that because both Labour and the Lib-Dems are left-wing-ish, and the Tories are right-wing-ish, then it makes more sense for Labour and the Lib-Dems to work together – right?
Well, no. All three parties are pretty close to the centre ground – there’s nothing like as much differentiation as there used to be. Sure, Labour & Lib Dems share some values – but so do the Lib Dems and the Conservatives. Having said they share values, the three parties are all different in philosophy, worldview, and policies. If I was a Lib Dem right now, I’d be pretty irritated to just get lumped in with Labour automatically.
So much for the “natural progressive alliance” idea.
3) It doesn’t matter that we haven’t elected our Prime Minister!
This first reared its ugly head when Gordon Brown first became PM. It’s true that in the UK, by convention the leader of the party in government becomes the PM, and is not elected in their own right as PM – they merely have to be elected as an MP.
(In the past, they didn’t even have to be that. Up until the early 20th century, PMs were relatively often unelected members of the House of Lords.)
(Edit: Ooops, I forgot about Lord Home, chosen as PM from the Lords in 1963. However, he was previously an elected MP, and subsequently renounced his peerage and stood as an MP in a by-election to give him legitimacy as PM.)
Due to this electoral quirk, as when Blair resigned, it’s entirely possible and correct for a PM to be selected according to the rules of their party constitution, without any direct mandate from the electorate. Again this is something we might want to review, but under current rules that’s how it works!
If you’ve been hiding under a rock and not heard, Brown has now said he will step down as PM – presumably to make the idea of a Lib-Lab alliance more palatable to the Lib Dems. Again, this is all strictly speaking OK by the conventions of Parliament. He has said that he will give way to another leader of the Labour party chosen according to their rules.
However… This means that at a time of great economic turbulence, whilst we are at war in Afghanistan, the country would once again be led by somebody who has not even led their party through a General Election and won the right to form a government. As with the MPs’ expenses, this may be within the rules, but it’s not right. The person a party selects as its leader says an awful lot about that party, and we the public deserve to know who will be running the show when we vote.
So, strictly speaking this isn’t a fallacy – there isn’t anything by the rules wrong with David Miliband, Ed Balls or anybody else taking over as PM following a Labour party leadership contest. But I cannot think of much that would do more to anger and disillusion the British public than having yet another PM who has never won a General Election.
That’s one piece of electoral reform I’d wholeheartedly support – some way to give the public a referendum on choice of PM if this doesn’t happen at a General Election.
That’s probably enough for now! I’m sure more will emerge over days to come – if you have a particular pet hate political fallacy, why not drop me a comment?