London's voters have spoken (the 45% of them who voted, anyway). Last week Londoners ditched two-term mayor Ken Livingstone and elected the Conservative Party's candidate, Boris Johnson. There were 10 candidates running for mayor but, as a result of the electoral system, voters did not have to worry about the "spoiler" effect. London uses the Supplementary Vote, which is similar to Instant Runoff Voting, so a candidate can only win by getting the support of a majority as opposed to a bare plurality.
Victory for Boris was a real boon to the already reinvigorated Conservatives. Ken Livingstone is an unorthodox radical, often out of step with the Labour leadership, but he had the misfortune of being the Labour candidate at a time when the party's popularity was at rock bottom. Ditching Tony Blair last year in favor of Gordon Brown did Labour no good. And ditching Livingstone out of frustration with the Blair-Brown Labour Party is not likely to make ordinary Londoners any better off.
One encouraging outcome from the London mayoral election was Sian Berry's performance as the Green candidate. Berry, who won the endorsement of one of Britain's leading daily newspapers, The Independent, and the Sunday Observer, came in fourth with a combined first-and-second preference vote total of 140,000. Berry's campaign helped push Green policies further up the agenda. Ironically it's the Conservative Party (whose trademark color is blue) that has been doing an impressive job of promoting green issues under the slogan "Go Green, Vote Blue."
The Green Party's policy proposals for London included interest-free loans to homeowners for installing solar panels. This policy is eminently sensible, and compares favorably with the pay-now, get-the-rebate-later (maybe) option that we have in Massachusetts. It is already up-and-running on this side of the Atlantic in Berkeley, California, according to E Magazine. Berkeley residents who install solar panels can borrow the necessary money from the city and repay the loan over 20 years via their electricity bills. That is much more affordable than having to front the $20,000.00 for a solar system in Massachusetts in the hope that you qualify for a rebate.
Well, that's all food for thought: A fair voting system, a vibrant multi-party democracy, and sensible public policy proposals to boost energy efficiency and combat global warming. Could it happen here?
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3 comments:
Good post, Peter.
Please tell us more about "Supplementary Voting" and how it differs from IRV. Could it, too, happen here?
Here's the definition that the Electoral Reform Society provides for the Supplementary Vote (SV) and a comparison with the Alternative Vote (AV) which we in the U.S. sometimes refer to as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV):
"All the first-preference are tallied, and if a candidate has a majority, they are elected. If no candidate receives a majority, the top two candidates are retained, and the rest eliminated. The second-preference votes of the eliminated candidates are then counted, and any for either of the top two candidates are added to their first-round totals. Whichever candidate has the most votes after these second-preferences have been allocated is declared the winner.
Arguments in support of SV
* To some extent, SV encourages conciliatory campaigning, as gaining second-preference votes is important.
* It is a relatively simple system to understand.
Arguments against SV
* SV suffers from all of the disadvantages of AV.
* SV does not eliminate the likelihood of tactical voting.
* Unlike AV, SV does not ensure that the winning candidate has the support of at least 50% of the electorate.
* SV strongly promotes voting for only candidates from the main three parties.
* If there are more than two strong candidates, voters must guess which two will make the final round, and if they guess incorrectly, their second-preference vote will be wasted."
I am not aware of any efforts to introduce SV to Massachusetts, although we used to allow cities to use the Alternative Vote in mayoral elections until the early 1970s. The ban on partisan local elections makes the use of the Alternative Vote (or the Supplementary Vote) less compelling than for statewide races.
Your post on "The Price of Coal" is excellent. Coal producers are getting a free ride. They should be taxed to pay the cost of dealing with the pollution caused by their product. This would then allow alternative energy to compete on a level playing field.
Dick Stein
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