Just over two years ago, in February 2011, I wrote about AV, the Alternative Vote, suggesting it amounted to a Second Past the Post system. Pleasingly, the electorate roundly rejected it. Our system, for all its faults, tends to produce clear winners and to marginalise the smaller parties.
The consequences of retaining it are being illuminated by events in Europe, where PR is widespread. It's been apparent for a while that the damage done to southern Eurozone economies by the currency mismatch with the north is going to be played out in terms of domestic policies. Mario Draghi's OTR mechanism has put the lid of bond yields for the moment, but austerity is driving up unemployment and increasingly making it clear to the richer nations that there will be a price to be paid in terms of bailing out the south. On both sides of the divide this is having political ramifications which can only grow. Extremist parties, mostly on the far right, are flourishing in Greece, Italy has Beppe Grillo and now in Germany there is a new party, Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD), calling for a Eurozone split. These countries' electoral systems give fringe parties a real chance of power in a coalition government.
It couldn't happen here. UKIP may be on the rise in the polls, but the most they can do is derail the Tories. And actually this illustrates a way in which First Past the Post works rather well. Whether you like UKIP or not, their increasing popularity encourages elements in the Conservative party to demand an adjustment in policy rightwards. When Labour lost repeatedly in the 80s and 90s it made an adjustment rightwards to accommodate the public. So when it is said that FPTP leads to monolithic, OK duolithic, politics, that demands at least the observation that the two biggest parties don't remain the same. They are in fact consistently shifting like trees in a wind to catch the smallest gust in voter sentiment.
PR can of course work much more quickly than this. I don't like it much, or AV, but it may in the end bring down the Euro. A consummation, to borrow from Hamlet, devoutly to be wished.
