back of a spreadsheet; back of the net

I’ve just had the most amazing conversation.  Angus Reid Scottish artist is a work in play about a Call for a Constitution.  He’s written a poem, based on a statement of shared values discussed at a series of workshops he ran. The poem is currently on display at 12 locations

http://www.angusreid.co.uk/present/exhibition/actions/Call-For-A-Constitution/

Each poem has a large, large piece of white paper next to it and people are invited to put their hand on the paper and draw round their hand and sign it.  I’ve just seen the First Minister’s hand on it, near the Lib Dem MSP for Orkney and various others.

He’ll be talking about his work and the process of engaging people in democracy at the Scottish Parliament on 25^th September and at each of the other 11 venues around the country.

The experience more than makes up for a conversation I had on twitter about political economics and entrepreneurship in a post-Independence Scotland (at least that’s what I thought it was about.) Which confirmed once again that twitter is a poor medium for nuanced conversations of any sort, but certainly for politics and economics and science or those areas where they overlap.

Here is the poem. I hope it cheers and enthuses you as much as it did me.

If I as a writer of poetry

Were called up to give a form of words

To model the nation’s behaviour

It would be this

Ownership obliges

Everyone to respect and to care for

The sacred

To respect and to care for

Freedom of conscience

 And to recognise

The gift of every indvidual

To respect it

Care for it, nourish it

To care for and protect communities

And

To care for the land

And whereever

The land has been abused to restore it

So that it can support all forms fo life

Five principles, five fingers on the hand.

So, whilst pondering whether the leave Africans to die in their own cesspools or to bravely and selflessly take on the mantel of running their continent question for them I stumbled on the idea of Charter Cities proposed by Paul Romer.

The idea is that a developing country sings a treaty with one or more developed countries to create a city in (more or less) unoccupied land.  The developing nation gives the land for the city and the developed nation gives the rules, the enforcement of the rules and the guarantee that the rules won’t be changed after individuals and corporations have made difficult to back out of investments in the city.

The idea is based on the observation that rules matter. That one of the greatest barriers to developing countries developing is that they have bad and / or indifferently enforced rules that are subject to arbitrary change (1).

To give the city administration a long term stake in improving the lot of its citizens they own all the land and lease it to, well to whomever want to lease it. If they want to increase rents they have to increase the ability of people to pay rent by making them better educated, more productive, healthier, free-er. No gouging because anyone can leave at any time to either return home or move to one of the other Charter Cities.

People, either only from the host country or from all over the world can move in. They accept the rules of the charter city and get on with earning a living.  If the Charter City offers them a better life than they currently have, they will move there. If it doesn’t they won’t. This would be a third option alongside immigration, possibly illegal, to a place that doesn’t necessarily want me or stay in country that has a low standard of living and isn’t improving quickly enough for me.  A hoped for side effect is that with local competition for citizens local despots and kleptarchs, or local trying really hard but struggling to build consensus would pull their fingers out.

The benefits to the host country are that they end up with a well-run, prosperous city nearby which wants to buy its products and services and in turn wants to sell goods and services. The benefits to the administrative country are altruistic and a hoped for reduction in aid costs and security costs. The people who live in the city, well they benefit because they live prosperous lives in a well-run city. If they find they’re not living in a prosperous city, then they leave.

So, I’m wondering what could go wrong? That’s a serious question.(2)

(1) often as a result of the country being a kleptarchy but not necessarily.

(2) and I'd be obliged if your responses did not use the words Libertarianism or Colonialism.  I want to know what's wrong with Mr Romer's idea, not a straw man.

Some Links for those with a more than passing interest.

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/for-richer-for-poorer/ 

Article by Paul Romer in Prospect

http://chartercities.org/concept 

The Web Page for Romer's foundation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/27/paul-romers-charter-cities-idea 

A Critical - but in my view not very good article in the Guardian. The comments are more useful.

http://chartercities.org/blog/66/new-systems-versus-evolution

 Romer discussing systems.  (If widgetfox is reading this he may also mention hair and shoes)

http://www.freakonomics.com/2009/09/29/can-charter-cities-change-the-world-a-qa-with-paul-romer/

 A bit of a Q&A by Freakonomics

http://chrisblattman.com/2009/10/14/charter-cities-debate-round-2/

Part of a debate between a sceptic of the idea and Romer - the rest are findable.

Whilst considering the political landscape of Scotland post-Independence I have been assuming that there was only room for one Social Democratic party in Scotland. Consequently, either the Scottish Nationalist Party or the Labour Party would cease to exist, either as a recognisably social democratic party or utterly. A helpful comment in a pub recently suggests that there might well be room for two social democratic parties in Scotland, one in government and one in opposition. What will they disagree about?

Scotland appears to have a settled political consensus around Social Democracy with a goodly amount of Democratic Socialism. By this I mean that it is broadly agreed that the state should be an economic actor, providing goods and services to its citizens, that there should be high levels of taxation and that the provision of public services by the state should be broad and of good quality.  Some areas of the economy are to be reserved for state action. In many more areas a commitment to state provided, tax funded universality of service is made. Some suggestions are made that the collective should directly own whole industries.  The state is seen as vehicle for effecting a meritocracy where the practical equality of opportunity brought about by universal public services allows people to rise and fall on their own efforts rather than the lot they were born into.

These are essentially arguments about the utility of state action in the economy as an agent of the community and individuals.

What then are the dimensions of opposition? Even within the confines of a debate between two social democratic parties the differences of opinion go further and deeper than differences over the correct technical policy or questions of whether specific fringe activities should fall wholly, partly or not at all within the parameters of the state.  Three that spring to mind as examples of how Government and Opposition in an Independent Scotland might be defined in the early 21^st Century are Centralisation, Authoritarianism and Diversity.

It is possible for two people to agree that the state should involve itself in the life of the community, yet disagree about the size and shape of the state and where the part of the state that interacts with an individual citizen is located.   Is the state to be highly centralised?  Are tax revenues to flow into the coffers of the central government and then be disbursed, with conditions and performance targets attached, to local administrators? Should those local bodies have responsibility for local policy and should they be directly accountable to the citizenry in their area? Are local bodies to be geographical or comprised of overlapping areas of endeavour.

Some examples.  Should all important decisions about policing and health care be made in Holyrood and Victoria Quay with local bodies merely the executives who deliver central government policy?  If policing and health and other policies are devolved to local bodies should there be one elected body with policy and strategic oversight, a local council and corporation or should the powers and responsibilities for policing be devolved to an elected police board and those for health to an elected health board? Where are the taxes to pay for nurses and polices to be raised and decided upon?

One question that captures the essence of the centralisation question for me “Is the Holyrood general election going to be the only election worth voting in?”

It is possible for two people to agree that the state should involve itself in the life of the community but for one to think that the state should not interfere overly much in the life of the citizen.

Is the state to be able and willing to intervene in the private lives of the citizenry?  These considerations are not restricted to issues of morality and the boundaries between the public purse and private health which are touched on in questions such as: How far should the state be able to go in regulating the sexual mores of the public or its eating and drinking habits? Is it the business of the state to encourage us to take exercise or to compel us?  

There are issues of civil liberties and public security that range from our response to terrorism to crowd control at football matches to thought crimes. Should we be subject to invasive screening and intrusive surveillance to protect us from malevolence?  Should disapproval of sexual behaviour or religion be a criminal offence?

It is possible for two people to agree that the state should involve itself in the life of the community, yet disagree about how that community should develop and what role the state should play in that development.  Is post-Independence Scotland to be mono-cultural or many cultured?  Is that the for the state to influence?  There are issues here of strict secularism in schooling.  Issues of state support for families howsoever defined (and distinct from financial support for those raising children). Do we promote various and varying sexual orientations as a positive choice people can make and a welcome addition to the gaiety of the nation or are non-straight, non-cis monogamists to be seen as the state sponsored norm with Others a tolerated by abnormal fringe?  When considering our immigration policy do we welcome people from social democratic Tanzania as more or less like us than people from Libertarian Texas and does it matter? 

For me the nub of these of Centralisation, Authortarianism and Diversity is how much control do we place in the hands of how few individuals?  If we are agreed in Scotland that we are all in this together and that the group has wide ranging obligations to its members and vice versa these questions seem all the more important.

I can see a Scotland emerging where the primary question of how much of a role the state has in the lives of our community is a settled one. The answer: a lot. What remains are discussions about how centralised that state is to be, where the boundary between public and private activity lies and when the state can step over that boundary and what role the state has in promoting or restricting diversity.

These remain ideological issues and they turn on whether you believe other people can trusted with their own happiness and a share in our communal happiness. 

Taken to extremes on the one hand we could have a social democratic party that sees the state as a diverse and devolved facilitator of the betterment of the community and the individual and on the other hand a party that sees the State and by extension the Party as the sole arbiter in disputes and the sole solution to an individual’s problems.

I was asked what I thought of this anniversary of the 5^th May blogpost by Milena Popova.

I don’t disagree with the analysis of the last 18 months. The Yes campaign was badly run. Most of the post referendum analysis started with “It wasnae me.” Unhelpful when you want to re-group and what you need is some discussion on how to keep a mass reform campaign going.  The sort-of-promised support for local groups doesn’t appear to have materilised (1)

So I share the frustration with where the pro-electoral reform campaign is now and how we got here. Does that mean that I agree that we should say the Viaticum over the body of Electoral Reform? I’m not nearly so pessimistic about the longer term outcome, or even the medium term outcome.  As Warren Buffet might say “Look at the fundamentals.”

Current and Future Usage of Electoral System.

The citizens of the UK are increasingly exposed to electoral systems other than First Past the Post(2).  Scotland uses the Additional Member System of PR for Holyrood, the Single Transferable Vote for local elections (and the Alternative Vote for local council by-elections.) Wales uses a form of PR for Assembly Elections. Northern Ireland uses STV for Assembly elections. London has the same electoral system as Scotland for its Assembly elections and uses the Suplementary Vote for Mayoral elections. A few more cities in England will also be using that system for their own mayoral elections over the next few years. Perhaps 1 in 5 voters are already regularly using PR for devolved chamber elections.

For European elections most of the UK uses the D’hondt form of PR to elect MEP’s(3)

So the British electorate is already exposed to a variety of electoral systems.  Directly elected police commissioners and an elected House of Lords increases the breadth of alternative voting methods in use. In fact, so many different electoral systems do we have in use in the UK that barely a year goes by without somebody somewhere using a non-FPTP electoral system and a different one each time. (4) (6)

The British electorate is increasingly able to use different electoral systems. They get to see how different electoral systems affect how their votes turn into representation. They see what different systems do to the choice they are offered and what they do to politicians’ behavior. Politicians too are growing up using and being elected through different electoral systems. They are more used to the compromises required by different electoral systems.

I think the direction of travel is towards more widespread use of different electoral methods. Lords Reform and local councils in England and Wales are both potential next steps.

Using different electoral systems is important for campainging reasons. It removes a number of the stronger arguments of the status quo camp. We’ve always used FPTP, it’s the British way – increasingly we don’t and increasing it isn’t. Other electoral systems are too complex and you can’t predict the results. Millions of Britons now use them annually and do so effectively. You can’t be sure what sort of madmen you will get and the coalitions will be a shambles. I think many Britons can see how their votes translate in the representation they are getting. They can see that in Scotland PR has lead to stable, even dull, government without a swivel-eyed lunatic fringe appearing. (10) They have more experience of the way coalitions work, or don’t work. They can see the differences for good and bad of the different electoral systems.

Electoral reform, to some extent, is already happening.

Lords Reform

There are a number of ways Lords Reform is important for electoral reform more broadly.

Firstly, it gives an electoral foothold for a variety of political parties other than Labour or the Conservatives. UKIP, the Greens, the SNP and the Lib Dems could all expect to pick up seats in an elected House of Lords using STV. This is important for two reasons. It gives those parties credibility (7), it gives them paid positions supported by the State in the form of salaried members and staff and Short Money, it gives them a platform. Secondly, each of these parties is in favour of electoral reform in principle.

Secondly, at some point a  UK government is going to be dependent on UKIP, Lib Dem, SNP or Green votes in the House of Lords for something. At some point the quid pro quo for not sparking a vote of no confidence will be movement on electoral reform. 

Thirdly, an elected House of Lords using STV would mean the whole British electorate was using STV for one half of a general election. (8) 

Fourthly, an elected House of Lords using STV already is electoral reform.  That’s STV in use in the UK at a Westminsiter general election. I know some genuine electoral reform activists who would consider that not only good progress but the perfect outcome. Let’s just sit with that for a moment. STV used at a UK general election in my life time.

Broad Electoral Trends.

The electoral trend since the war has been steadily lower turn outs and a steady increase in the vote share of the Not-The-Labour-or-Conservative-Parties-Party.  There seems no reason for this trend to reverse.  I’m sure the Liberal Democrats are going to suffer a drop in vote share at the next General Election.  I expect they will lose many seats (9).  I also expect this to reverse somewhat after the 2015 election. I also expect UKIP to continue to poll well.

At some point we are going to end up with another coalition. Probably not in 2015 but perhaps in 2020. Probably involving the Lib Dems but it might be a centre-right coalition of UKIP and the Conservative party.  If you are negotiating a coalition with one of the main two parties and you have an interest in electoral reform what is the big take away from 2010? Don’t faff about with referenda for your third choice electoral system. Insist on legislating for STV.

The more elections we have where smaller parties poll millions of votes and get a handfull of seats the stronger our case for reform.

Campaigning Network.

A network of pro-electoral reformers and reform organisations was created. It still exists. It needs some careful nurturing.  My experience in Edinburgh was that a fair few people who had never taken part in a political campaign got involved.  I’m still in touch with quite a few of them.  Many of them are still pro-reform campaigners – for a given value of campaigning.

We’re all a bit more experienced. We know better how to organise. We know better what happens if we don’t trust our instincts when we are badly lead. We have a long, long list of things we’d do differently if we had the chance. Next time round we won’t be campaigning for our third choice option.

I don’t want to appear Poly-Annaish about the strength of the existing reform network. It’s in dire need of some attention from the ERS and UD. It could easily evaporate into an effective nothingness, especially if there is nothing for it to do or to celebrate in the next twelve months. However, it still exists. It still breaths.  The evening before the anniversary of the 5^th of May I was at a meeting of the Edinburgh group. I know there are internal reformers actively engaged in making the two reform organisations better at organising reform.

I think the fundamentals are good for electoral reform in the UK. We already have a variety of elections using different electoral systems and we are adding more. We have a big chance and a big success in House of Lords reform. We may have STV introduced next year for elections in 2015. The electoral trends favour our arguments and give us opportunities and we have the remnants of an organisation that is trying to promote reform.

So, is Electoral Reform dead? I’d echo Mark Twain, rumours of its death are greatly exagerated.

(1) and I write this as one of the convenors of one of the more successful local campaigns who has both an Electoral Reform regional office and the former Chair of the ERS in my city. Unlock Democracy have also not picked up the phone to check in.  (Saying that, I’ve not phoned them.)

 (2) or to give it its Sunday name, Single Member Plurality voting.

 (3) NI uses STV – FTW.

 (4) Since 2010 I have used FPTP (SMP)(5), the Additional Member System and STV.

 (5) I’m sorry I just can’t help using the proper name for FPTP – because it says right on the title page how poor a system it is.

 (6) This excludes the large number of people who use different election methods for civic organisations such as University student bodies and Unions.

 (7) if they earn it – BNP local councillors I’m looking at you.

 (8) I know the elections are going to be stagered but still 50% of our chambers will be elected using STV.

 (9) and they may, ironically, end up with as many elected Senators as they do Representatives. I refer interested readers to the history of the Democrat Party in Australia and the dictum of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the Maharal of Prague, “Sometimes influence is more powerful than power.” 

(10) Unless you count Baron Watson of Invergowrie, the notorius fire raiser of that most radical of parties; the Labour Party.

I’m not paying too much attention to the US Republican party’s War on Women at the moment.

It’s not that I think that restricting access to contraception or the mandating of unnecessary, deliberately humiliating and invasive “medical” procedures to influence, or to punish, the decision of women seeking an abortion is okay.

I don’t.

It’s not that I don’t think that what happens in the US couldn’t happen here or that US culture doesn’t influence our own.

I don’t.

But what am I going to do about Rick Santorum?

I do think that British voters getting incensed about Rick Santorum or the Virginia legislature is to miss the similar attempts that are being made by some of our own legislators and pressure groups to bring that sort of evil to our country.

So, I’m saving my energy and my outrage for home and for legislators I elect and to defend the universality of medical services that I and my family use.  If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

But here’s what I hope happens in the US.

I hope the Republican Party gets it arse handed to in the US general election. I’m all for consensus politics and reasoned dialogic discussion – but not with these guys.  I hope they get a big fat kick in the nuts.

And I hope that it is the votes of women who deliver that kick. I hope the surge in support for Obama amongst women under 50 translate into a big win for him, and for the Democrats in the House and the Senate. I hope it’s obvious, blindingly obvious, to the both the Republican and Democrat Parties that it was the votes of women who made the difference and that these voters were motivated to vote by the rhetoric and legislation of the religious right-wing.

I hope the Republican War on Women turns USian women into the largest special interest pressure group in the US.

I hope the Republican Party has to sit and watch impotently whilst Democrats win seat after seat, legislature after legislature and then ram through their “left wing” agenda.

I hope this sucks for them. 

I hope they realise that their assault on the fundamental physical integrity of women was the root cause of all their election and legislative woes. I hope moderate Republicans are furious that their party has been frozen out of the political process in order to pander to the prejudices of some of the utter nutjobs they share an election platform with.

I hope they are left for a few years in the political void watching bill after bill pass thinking… 

“If only we hadn’t decided that poking ourselves into the wombs and souls of women was the most important thing we had to do we’d be in government and able to stop this.”