So at this vote for a change rally, they didn't have any truck with all the (apparently) usual objections to proprtional representation. Basically it goes like this.
It will break up the big parties!
Yeah that's a good thing. These two big parties don't give us enough choice.
But smaller parties will never agree on anything! They'll spend all their time arguing!
Within the big parties this is exactly what happens already. Oona King and Peter Mandelson are in the same party, and they are worlds apart in their beliefs and stuff. The difference with smaller parties working together will be that the arguing will just be out in the open instead of behind closed doors.
Coalitions of smaller parties won't be as strong!
Pfft. "Strong". First, the parties we have know aren't strong, they just try to put on a brave face. Second, even if they were, big strong governments aren't that awesome. What's awesome is when the government represents the people.
Some smaller parties are bad, though! What if the BNP get MPs!
That would suck, but unfortunately that's democracy. There aren't actually that many racists in the country, but there are a few, and frankly, if 1% of this country want BNP MPs, then 1% of parliament ought to be BNP MPs. Hopefully everyone will quickly see how impractical and dishonest they are, and not vote for them any more.
It will never happen. We just don't do big change in this country!
Nuts to that. We gave votes to women, we lowered the voting age, we cut off the King's damn head when he got tyrannical, we fought and won a war against fascism, and we made a national free health service without a great lot of fuss like they have in America about it. This kind of progressive change is practically a British tradition. You just have to keep working towards it, that's all.
No comments:
Post a Comment