Episode 1 – Mum and the NHS
In which I talk to my mum, a retired GP, about the problems with the NHS and how they could be addressed.
Voting and Cake
A while back I was asked to put together a brief talk on electoral reform, and my quirky speaking style immediately jumped to the topic of cake. I like cake, most other people do as well, so I thought I would equate voting to getting a slice of cake at a party. In this example, I asked the audience to think about what might happen if they were tasked with dividing a cake among attendees at a children’s party, but with an additional reward for the winner(s) of a race. Under our current system, First Past The Post, the division is simple: the whole cake goes to the winner of the race, and every other participant gets nothing. What did I suggest the outcome of this would be? In short, the cakeless children would be infuriated by this turn of affairs, recognising that this method of division was woefully unfair for everyone and that only the winner would be happy at the outcome. This analogy is fairly good for the elections which happen in each Constituency, as only one candidate will ultimately be returned to Westminster to represent the electorate, and they will have the same authority whether they receive 100% of the vote or tie with second place and then win a coin flip (I wish this was a joke, but it is actually how an MP is chosen when there is a tie). Continuing the analogy, how could we come up with a system of dividing the cake which is fairer to all participants? As parents, presumably the logical next step is to consider whether it makes sense to simply divide the cake equally, and I would suggest this is indeed a suitable approach in real-world examples. There are other options though, including dividing the cake into equal slices and giving a certain number of slices to each participant in proportion to their performance. This encourages both competition and participation, so it may well be the ideal solution to a competitive event like a vote. Where the analogy is slightly weaker is when the national representation is considered, but this is largely because children’s parties rarely pit winners of races against one another in any way, but if they did the outcome would likewise be unfair by design. Essentially the system is designed to be easy to understand and implement, and it is far more likely to produce a majority than not despite the fact that most elections do not result in a majority of the actual votes going to one party. Clearly this system is unfair, and I would argue it is contrary to the basic principles of democracy, in that it is designed to lead to over representation of some parties at the expense of others. If we want our government to reflect the actual votes cast – in other words if we want proper democracy – then we need to bring in a form of proportional representation to make sure that the government is the one chosen by voters. Doing so would be an acknowledgement that democracy is important to our society and would enfranchise many currently disillusioned voters whose voice currently is completely ignored. As a final point, I want to reiterate just how bad the current system is by considering a system of electing a government that would actually lead to better representation of the electorate, namely picking our MPs at random from the electoral roll. Mathematically we would expect a sufficiently large sample to accurately reflect society at large. The fact that this is a better system than the one we currently have emphasises just how inadequate our current method of selecting MPs really is. If you agree with this assessment then the only way to bring about a change for the better is to vote for parties which have wholly committed to bringing in a form of proportional representation. The future of our democracy is ultimately in the hands of the electorate.
Who To Vote For
In one sense the answer is simple: me! But this post isn’t just about that, it is an exploration of how you can best use your vote. Maintaining the Status Quo If you are happy with how things are currently going in the country, then you probably already know how to vote. A vote for the conservatives is a vote for a continuation of how things are currently going. Turning to Labour, my belief is that this is a more sensible immediate vote for those who want change, but as things currently stand a vote for Labour is a vote for continuing the current chaos, just maybe not right now. Labour want to continue: First Past The Post, a system which all-but guarantees that the Conservatives will eventually get back into power (NB, the Labour conference passed a motion to change this system of elections, but the leadership currently opposes it). Brexit, which has frankly been an unmitigated disaster, but Labour has indicated that they have no intention of rejoining the European Union, instead trying to make the most of Brexit. Current Tax Systems, which are fundamentally broken but subject to tweaking by both Conservatives and Labour whenever they are in power, but neither seems to have any appetite for widespread tax reform that is necessary for progression as a society. In short, I believe the choice between Conservative and Labour is a false choice, in that both options will eventually lead to another Conservative government and neither is going to result in a fairer electoral system or the necessary tax reforms to make society fairer. Voting Your Conscience Moving beyond the two main parties in the UK (and ignoring the region-specific parties where there are genuine opportunities for voters to gain decent representation), there are a few options to choose from, mostly parties with very specific aims (e.g. Greens, Reform, etc). The worry here is that the votes could very easily be wasted, which gives a huge advantage to the largest parties, who then get all the power if they are able to win, with all other votes going wholly unrepresented. It therefore makes sense to vote for the largest party which best meets your personal ethical position and also advocates for electoral reform to allow minority views to be represented at Westminster. In my case, this is the LiberalDemocrats – we do not necessarily agree on everything, especially the details, but the overall goals of fairness and equality resonate with me and they support electoral reform, tax reform and ultimately undoing Brexit. Or, to summarise, who should you vote for? Me, as I said at the start of this post! In case you want more, here are some testimonials: Just as an addendum, I am aware that it should probably be “Whom To Vote For” rather than “Who”, but that feels really pretentious somehow, and since I am writing this from North America, it feels like a more informal style of writing is warranted.
Electoral Reform
Hello from Canada! What a week it has been for UK politics – a new Chancellor as the culmination of a week of incompetence after incompetence, and musings now that the Prime Minister is finished one way or another. Frankly this is a shambles, and sadly it is unlikely to be the last from the Conservatives before the next election. Here’s my issue, and one that I think badly needs to be addressed to stop this sort of this from happening again. The blame can, in my opinion, be almost wholly laid at the feet of the existing system of electing governments. In short, this is the First Past The Post system, so-called because it is made up of a series of elections where a single winner is determined in much the same way as a horse race – in other words, winner takes all. The winners of each local election then go to Westminster, and the largest party usually forms a goverment. When described like this, the system can sound fair, but it is not. Democracy flourishes when the voices of the electorate are represented in government, not just in parliament. Right now, the system essentially passes near-absolute authority from one party to the main opposition, with all other voices essentially silenced. As an example, in the 2019 General Election, the breakdown of votes was as follows: Or, in table form: Party % of Vote Number (%) of seats Conservative 43.6 365 (56.2%) Labour 32.1 202 (31.1%) Liberal Democrats 11.5 11 (1.7%) Scottish National 3.9 48 (7.4%) Green 2.7 1 (0.2%) Brexit 2.0 0 (0.0%) Other 2.6 21 (3.4%) So what does this mean? Well, at first glance it is clear that there is one major winner out of this, namely the Conservatives. With only 43.6% of the vote, they managed to take 56.2% of seats in Parliament, which effectively affords them 100% of the power, as they have a majority of MPs. All other views are effectively reduced to observer status, with no power afforded to opposition parties other than the right to ask questions of the Prime Minister (which they do not have to answer comprehensively or, it seems, honestly). Alternatives If, like me, you believe that parties in Parliament should actually reflect the electorate, there are many ways to bring that into effect. Noteably, proper representation would likely be better achieved by simply picking 650 people at random from the electoral roll to be MPs, eliminating the entire voting process. Clearly this would be an affront to democracy, but importantly it is still a better system than we currently have. In reality, it would be far better to introduce a form of Proportional Representation, which essentially means that vote share and power share should be the same. In the 2019 General Election, this means the Conservatives would still be the largest party in Parliament, but unless they entered into a coalition with another party, they would be unable to weild the same absolute power that they currently hold. It is vanishingly unlikely that any party would ever again be able to take a majority position in Parliament, which would necessitate a change in political discourse from the curent adversarial approach to a more co-operative one relying on good communication and negotiation. In short, this would ensure that power was shared among parties depending on how well they reflected the views of the electorate. I genuinely can’t see how this approach to democracy could reasonably be rejected by anyone except those who worry that such a change will result in less power for them and their party. Unfortunately, that means that the Conservatives vehemently oppose this policy, and the Labour leadership have likewise indicated that they do not support this change. The Liberal Democrats have supported Proportional Representation for decades now, hence my decision to represent them rather than a party which does not believe that democratic votes should lead directly to political power.
Our Next Election
As I’m off on holiday tomorrow, I thought it would be a good opportunity to put down a few thoughts on when the next election will happen and what that might mean for both our country and this constituency. When Is The Election? On this question, your guess is as good as mine. The Prime Minister has regained the power to call an early general election through the abolition of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, so in theory Liz Truss could announce a general election today and we would go to the polls in six weeks. For the sake of my holiday I sincerely hope this doesn’t happen, but Ms Truss has certainly shown that unpredictability and irrationality have become more the norm than common sense and pragmatism. The latest the election could be is early 2025, as a new General Election must be announced by 19 December 2024 and the announcement triggers a six-week election window. What Does This Mean For Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner The disadvantage of the uncertainty over the timing of the election is that it is much harder for us to get ready for an election. We are not a rich party funded by ultra-wealthy donors, nor do we have significant union support, so we are going to be limited by the generosity of private supporters in the area who want to see a difference to the country. If you want to help, please consider becoming a member and volunteering some of your time to anything from delivering leaflets or making phone calls to more administrative tasks that don’t involve direct interaction with voters. If you’re interested in helping out at all, you can find more information on the Hillingdon Liberal Democrats website. Alternatively you can send an email to info@hillingdonlibdems.org.uk or ring me on 020 3916 5973 (when I am back in the country!). What Does This Mean For The County? I suspect this is going to be a very interesting time for UK politics as a whole. I have trolled on Twitter to say that this might be the last ever Tory government, and I feel that needs a little expansion. Other parties in the UK are supporters of Proportional Representation as a basis for electoral reform. In short, this means that parties should have the same proportion of seats in Parliament as the proportion of votes they actually receive, which seems like the only rational outcome of a functioning democracy. The biggest achievement of this movement lately was seeing the Labour party vote to adopt this as an official position for their party at their recent conference. Their leader, Keir Starmer, has so far resisted calls to make this part of his manifesto, but it seems like the writing is on the wall for the current First Past The Post system. With that diversion aside, we return to my trolling – why do I say this is likely to be the last ever Tory government? This is down to the fact that, under the current system, the party with a majority forms the government. Majorities are usually achieved without a majority of votes, and sometimes without even a plurality, because of the First Past The Post system making voting distribution matter more than actual total support. Under a more proportional electoral system, it is vanishingly unlikely that any party will ever receive an outright majority again, which will therefore force more coalitions going forward. This means that such a system will encourage discourse and compromise rather than outright power and adversarial – but fairly impotent – opposition. In short, it would mean that the government at any given time will be heavily influenced by current voter preferences but will be able to look beyond the normal five-year term. Overall, it is very difficult to come up with a reason not to implement this change except for members of the two large parties who do not want to let go of the unfair advantage they have benefited from for a very long time. After all, to loosely paraphrase, “after years of privilege equality feels like discrimination”.
Requesting OBR Forecasts
On 23 September 2022, the Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, made a series of announcements in a fiscal statement which shocked the country and the international market for our debt. Importantly, he deliberately chose not to publish the forecasts carried out by the Office of Budget Responsibility, and there is speculation that these forecasts would show a projected shortfall of anything up to £60 billion, presumably a year. As this is clearly a huge cost to the nation during a time of crisis, I believe it is only right and proper that these forecasts should be made public immediately. As such, I have requested them from the OBR formally, and as a Freedom of Information Act request via What Do They Know. If I get any information on this, I will post an analysis in a further post.
Conservative Promises
I have decided that it would be sensible for me to look at the promises made by the Conservative Party as a whole given they hold such a significant majority and have been in power for 12 years at the time of writing (though their ideology was at least slightly moderated by their need to form a coalition for the first five years). As such, these are the common promises from Conservative candidates for the 2019 General Election: NHS Many Conservative politicians have promised to make sure that the NHS continues to be funded, but under the Conservatives the NHS is on its knees, with both junior doctors and nurses threatening strike action over working conditions. Clearly a different approach is needed, and reducing the spending on the NHS for ideological reasons is doomed to failure. In addition, Conservatives promised to build 50 new hospitals, a promise which has simply not been kept. Transport Again, many Conservative politicians have run on a platform of improving transportation, but we are now facing an unprecedented cost of fuel for private travel, and in the realm of public transport we are again seeing widespread industrial action due to chronic levels of underfunding. Education  Conservatives have repeatedly called for improvements to education, but at the same time they have cut budgets in real terms, resulting in a lower standard of education for children. At the same time, Conservative ideologies have caused the cost of university education to spike upwards both in terms of tuition fees and the cost of actually living near a university for the years of study. Again, abject failure. Supporting Public Services Across the board, every public service has had its budget decimated in the wake of austerity, and the latest attempt to provide tax breaks to the ultra wealthy certainly did nothing to help the countless people working to keep this country together in the public sector. Brexit Clinging hard to the concept of a hard Brexit has damaged the country economically and reputationally. We need to find a way to mitigate that economic loss and improve relations with our nearest trading partners once again. Reduce Carbon Footprint At the national level, Conservative policy is for the country to embrace fracking, which will increase our reliance on carbon-intensive energy generation for decades to come. As an alternative, we should be exploring mass adoption of renewable sources of energy, including solar, wind and tidal, all of which we have in abundance as a nation. Supporting Local Areas All politicians claim to support their constituencies, but in reality, the Conservatives have consistently voted against increased budgets for local authorities, against decent funding for the NHS and against the interests of other civil servants, all of whom work to provide our constituencies with services that we could not live without. Democracy Conservative MPs have consistently voted against the introduction of Proportional Representation, a system that is designed to ensure that the electorate is accurately represented in Parliament. Instead they have opted to wholeheartedly support First Past The Post, a system set up to allow the largest parties to hoard a disproportionate amount of power compared to votes they actually received. For example, in the 2019 General Election, the Conservatives received 43.6% of the vote, which translated into 365 of the 650 seats (56.2%), which essentially gives them 100% of the power. This is authoritarianism masquerading as democracy. In summary, the Conservative party has made a lot of promises over the years, but has broken them almost entirely. You deserve better than this. In another blog post, I will look at the other parties, but the Conservatives are the worst offenders purely because they have been in power for 12 years, 7 of which as sole decision-maker for every major policy affecting the UK, and it is very clear right now that the UK is broken and needs new politicians to fix the mess that the Conservatives have dropped us into.
My Goals
I want to be a Member of Parliament, allowing me to vote on issues of national policy, including things like healthcare, education, policing, judicial and care funding. I believe that we are a wealthy enough nation that these can be fully funded with a review of the tax system to incorporate wealth at a very similar level to income at present. This can be best achieved by reviewing both capital gains tax and inheritance tax, both of which are currently enabling the ultra-wealthy to pay a much lower tax rate than an equivalent worker. I am disabled, though still able to get around. As such, I have a real passion for helping those who have need to access the current benefits system, and I can speak with some experience on the subject of applying for Employment and Support Allowance, Personal Independence Payments and Blue Badges. I firmly believe that the way such people are treated is appalling at present, and anecdotally I have heard several people stating that they dread their periodic review with the Department of Work and Pensions, an organisation that should be there to help. Finally, I am concerned at the unequal distribution of land in the UK. At present, land owned by homeowners in England represents some 5% of the size of the country, with up to 50% still owned by the aristocracy. In my view, this is anachronistic and unfair, and I would want as a long-term goal to move more towards land by default being owned by the country as a whole for the use of the country as a whole, whether in the form of agriculture, residences or energy generation.
My Personal Manifesto
My views are still changing, but I believe some of my positions are worth setting out below, with an invitation to anyone to get in touch with me to discuss my views. Please note, some of my personal views do not align directly with Liberal Democrat positions on some issues. As a party, we are constantly debating ideas to add to the party manifesto, and as a result the positions below are ones that either I would already vote for in line with existing Liberal Democrat policy or I would put my policy proposals to the Party as a whole in an attempt to persuade them of my views. My voting record in future will be drawn from my personal manifesto, the manifesto of the Liberal Democrat party, and above all my constituents. Electoral Reform Brexit Land and Property Tax Reform Pensions Trusts Education & Healthcare Utilities Transport
Getting Started
It has been a rollercoaster of a week for me. I genuinely feel like I haven’t had a day to just sit and think about the enormity of the task I have set myself, namely to become a Member of Parliament, but here we are. It might make sense to talk about why I have set that as a goal. Years ago, I would have considered myself a political apathist, really not caring who was in charge because everything seemed to tick along regardless. In hindsight, this was an incredibly privileged position where I didn’t have to worry about benefits being cut for austerity reasons and didn’t yet have any real dependence on services like the NHS. In short, I was pretty unthinking. Not selfish – but not really considering the needs of others purely through ignorance. Looking back, I think this is not only commonplace, but also a design feature of our current electoral system. Under First Past The Post (FPTP), the vast majority of votes are wasted. Vote for a losing candidate and you might as well not have turned up to the polling station – that one is obvious. However, what about votes for the winning candidate? Well, any excess votes over what they need to win are also wasted. So in essence, the only votes that matter are the ones that push one candidate ahead of second place, and arguably that means that only one vote actually carries any weight under the current system. Worse yet, this system has a knock-on effect of generating an effective two-party state. Indeed, the basis of our government is that power is wielded solely by one party (or a coalition) until the system listed here results in a swing to the other large party, at which point all the power immediate transfers over to a new set of politicians. Because of this, we generally see successive governments spending inordinate amounts of time simply unwinding what their predecessors did, and the adversarial nature of this system makes long-term compromise on key issues very difficult indeed. It is for this reason that I firmly believe that the UK needs a form of Proportional Representation desperately. Under PR, we would have genuine representation of the electorate at Westminster, while the current system generates less representation than simply picking 650 people at random from the electoral roll. Under PR, politicians would need to get used to the idea that compromise and collaboration would need to be the norm, as majority governments would become increasingly uncommon. In short, under PR we would have an actual, functioning democracy. This has been a fairly lengthy diversion from talking about why I decided to get involved in politics, but it hopefully shows where the idea came from. In other blog posts I will talk at length about specific subjects, but invariably it will always boil down to these core messages: Integrity Equality Fairness Everything else is, to me, linked to one or more of those core concepts. I am also a huge fan of a philosophical morality concept known as the “veil of ignorance” when it comes to considering policies, in that I try to assume that I could be anyone when thinking about an issue. I believe that the current government has fundamentally breached all three of these core principles, and as such I see it as my duty to stand against them and fight for a better UK.