No Nicola, the SNP did not get the support of almost 50% of the population of Scotland.

In the aftermath of the recent Scottish Parliamentary election, a comment made by re-elected incumbent First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, reminds one of a recent post I made here emphasising the difference between INPUTS and OUTCOMES.

The comment comes from this story, where Ms Sturgeon is reported as confirming her intention to relaunch her party's campaign in favour of Scottish secession from the UK.  Fair enough; I don't think either Ms Sturgeon's or the SNP's position on Scottish independence comes as a surprise to anyone, and if she/they want to try and convince more people it's a good idea they should be perfectly free to do so.

But don't go about it by spreading blatant lies.

The lie to which I refer is this howler:

"When asked if Scotland can put an independence referendum to bed for the next five years, Ms Sturgeon said: 'No, the position I put forward in the SNP manifesto got the support of almost 50% of the population.'"

This is demonstrably false and so far off the mark as to be laughable.

The position put forward in the SNP manifesto did not get the support of almost 50% of the population.

The population of Scotland, according to the 2011 census, is 5,313,600.

The SNP received 1,059,897 constituency votes in the 2016 Scottish Parliamentary election.

1,059,897 divided by 5,313,600 is not even 20% of the population of Scotland.

Of course, not all of those 5,313,600 people are eligible to vote.  Many of them are children, for example.  The BBC reports the electorate of Scotland, for this election, as 4,099,407.

1,059,897 divided by 4,099,407 is 25.9% of the electorate.

I think what Ms Sturgeon meant to say, was that the position put forward in the SNP manifesto got the support of almost 50% of those who voted.

This is, at least, a more reasonable interpretation of events.  Turnout for this election was around 56% of the electorate.  There were a total of 2,279,153 valid constituency votes and 2,285,752 valid regional votes cast.

Of these, the SNP won 1,059,897 constituency votes and 953,987 regional votes, or 46.5% and 41.7% respectively.

However, there is an issue even with this statement.  That is that people vote for a particular candidate or political party for a wide variety of different reasons and considering a broad range of issues.  It's not possible to know for certain how many of those 1,059,897 people support Ms Sturgeons position on a second referendum.  Maybe some of them voted for SNP candidates due to their position on healthcare, or education or taxes, or defence, or any number of other issues or combinations of issues, or because they have a particularly good local MSP.

Pick any random person off the street and any random political party's manifesto and you are likely to be able to find some things in it which they agree with and some things in it which they disagree with.  Just because a person has voted for a particular party doesn't mean they support everything in that party's manifesto.  All it means is that, on balance, they support more of that party's stated aims, objectives and values, than that of the other parties/candidates.  Often times it's a case of picking the lesser of several evils.

In this particular case, I think it's pretty likely that most people backing the SNP are in favour of Scottish independence, but it is simply not possible to know that from the number of votes alone.

To determine that you have to have a referendum.  Which we did, in 2014.  And in which we found that 1,617,989 people, or less than one third of the population of Scotland, were in favour of independence at that time (to use Ms Sturgeon's favoured way of expressing these statistics).

If she hasn't already, I think Ms Sturgeon should be obliged to make a full retraction of this statement and go on record to correct any misunderstanding that may have resulted.

Democratic Crisis? Really?

Oh, and I'd just like to add the following in addition to my post on Wednesday regarding compulsory voting:

Describing this as a "democratic crisis" is extremely melodramatic.  It is nothing of the sort.  A democratic crisis would be an accurate description only if there had been a coup and we were now being governed by a military junta or something of that magnitude.  Do these people have no sense of perspective and proportion?

Just look at the "balance" given by the BBC:

"Historically Britain has a tradition of resistance to radical reforms to the constitution. But campaigners say dramatic solutions may be required to tackle what is often described as a democratic crisis. 

Critics question whether changes to mechanics of the voting system will address this crisis."

It's just taken as given that both proponents and opponents of this proposal view this as a "crisis".  I suspect the reality is that the vast majority people, including politicians and the media, understand fine well that it's nothing of the sort.

Questions from the BBC which we can answer

"Should voting (or actively abstaining) be compulsory?"

No.

To extend that answer:

No, voting* should not be compulsory in a modern liberal democracy.  Contrary to what David Winnick may believe, voting is not a "civic duty".  It is more important that people have the option to vote and the free choice whether or not to exercise that option.  It is more important also that the people who do choose to exercise that option to vote, do so in the most measured, best informed and fairest manner possible.  In short, there is no civic duty to vote, but if you do vote there is a civic duty to vote well.**

Fining people for not voting* is not necessarily conducive to anything positive in terms of "democracy", "political engagement", "civic participation" or indeed getting the most out of the political process.  Indeed, it seems likely to be counter-productive in some regards - what advantage is there in forcing people, who otherwise would not bother to vote to do so?  If 16 million people either do not care enough or actively do not want to vote, what benefit is there in forcing these people to vote?  Do you think that the majority of these 16 million people are likely to be particularly well informed on politics?  Do you think they'd be able to tell you the difference between the Liberal Party and the Liberal Democrats?  Could they tell apart David and Ed Miliband, or Ed Miliband and Ed Balls?  Could they name the current Home Secretary?  If not, then what is there to suggest that these people would all vote in a fair, measured and informed manner?  I fail to see how introducing to the process an additional 16 million ill-informed votes improves our democratic process.

As briefly noted in the BBC article, a high turnout does not indicate a politically engaged electorate when it is mandatory to turnout to vote or face a fine or worse.  Surely no-one is fooled by this, which is as transparent as the fact that sticking "Democratic People's Republic of" in front of your country's name does not make said country either democratic or a republic.  Ultimately what is being proposed here is government mandated violence against those who refuse to vote.  Some readers may think that "violence" is being a bit melodramatic, it's only a fine after all, but if you don't pay that fine you will be taken to court and probably lumped with an even bigger fine, which if you continue to leave unpaid will lead to you eventually being imprisoned, and if you resist being imprisoned, well then things can get really nasty.  This is not a road that any modern liberal democracy should be in any rush to go down.


* or actively abstaining

** When I say people have a duty to vote "well" I emphatically do not mean that they should necessarily all vote for the same candidate or political party, in particular I do not mean that everyone should vote the same way as I do (people interpret things differently and even when furnished with all of the same facts there is still ample room for differences of opinion on the relative importance of various issues and there are always differences in different persons value judgements).  All I mean to suggest is that prior to voting, citizens seek to ensure that, within the circumstances, they are as well informed as possible on the key issues, politicians, parties, etc. such that they are able to make a reasoned decision.

If you don't vote you can't complain!

I was inspired to write this post after turning on my TV this morning to be greeted by the image of Ian McMillan (who I had no idea who he was until today) on BBC Breakfast talking about the Newark by-election.  Quite apart from the fact that he also seemed to believe (erroneously) that a single voter could make a difference (even in a closely contested by-election, how often does it come down to a single vote?), he also made the following declaration:

"If you don't vote, don't complain.  If you don't vote it's nowt [sic] to do with you."

This seems to be a ubiquitous sentiment amongst people of various political leanings.  It is also something with which I happen to completely disagree.

Firstly, the fact that a person has (correctly) concluded that their vote has a negligible chance of making any difference whatsoever and therefore (rationally) decided that there are better uses of their time* than reading through flyers, manifestos, propaganda and other policy documents does not in any way make their opinions and preferences carry any less weight than someone who has made the alternative choice to vote.  Every single person is equally entitled to their opinion and equally entitled to complain, campaign, support or protest in whatever (peaceful) way they see fit, this extends to those who either could not or chose not to vote.

Secondly, refraining from voting can itself be a form of protest.  Admittedly, the problem with protesting in this way is it isn't possible from voting turnout figures to distinguish those who didn't vote out of protest from those who were apathetic, lazy or indeed simply had better things to do*.

One could argue that those who don't vote out of principal or in protest actually have more of a right to complain that those of us who do.  If you happen to have voted in favour of the candidate/party/policy which wins an election/referendum you have implicitly given your consent to be governed/represented/constrained by said candidate/party/policy and legitimised the use of certain powers and constraints over you and those you care about.  Even if you vote against the eventual winner, by participating in the election/referendum process you accept that process as legitimate and therefore implicitly accept the outcome of that process.

Say that you voted for the Libertarian Party at the last General Election.  Since the Libertarian Party have no MPs you would feel that your views have little to no representation in Parliament.  Chances are high that your representative in the House of Commons is either a Conservative or Labour party member (possibly a Liberal Democrat).  Whichever of the major parties they represent, you didn't vote for them.  You think that this therefore gives you the right to complain about them, their party and everything they do and stand for.  However, you still participated in the process which saw them elected.  You just don't like the outcome in this particular instance, in other words you don't like the choices that most other people have made.  But, you agreed to participate in the process which resulted in that outcome!

I say free speech to all.  This means it doesn't matter whether you vote or not you still have every right to express your opinions in whatever peaceful ways you see fit.  Let the non-voters complain if they've got something they think is worth complaining about!


* Some examples of better uses of ones time than voting include: spending time with ones family / friends / loved ones, working to provide for oneself and ones family, spending time at a hobby, doing some DIY/redecorating to improve ones home, enjoying a good meal, enjoying a music concert, etc.

The General Election & Electoral Reform

I had been expecting an interesting election and an interesting election is what we got.  For the first time since 1974, the second time since the end of WWII, we have a hung parliament.  We still don't know for certain who will be the next Prime Minister [EDIT: We do now, David Cameron has been confirmed as PM, with Nick Clegg Deputy PM in a Con-LD coalition government], all we know at this stage is that Gordon Brown is stepping down from the post this year.

Anthony Wells, over on UK Polling Report, has a thorough breakdown of general election statistics, both here and here.

The most unusual statistic perhaps being that whilst the rest of the UK saw large swings from Labour to the Conservatives, Scotland showed a small swing from the Conservatives to Labour, precisely the opposite direction from the rest of the country.  Despite this though, not a single Scottish seat changed hands, the results were so close as to make no difference to those of the previous election in 2005.  I had expected the Tories to do less well here than in the rest of the UK, but I had expected at least a few of the more marginal seats to change hands, if not to the Tories then to the Liberal Democrats.

Given the current situation we're in, I think now is an appropriate time to share my thoughts on electoral reform.

I was about to start writing about how our current voting system is unfairly biased towards the two largest political parties and cite the fact that the Lib-Dems have less than 9% of the seats in the Commons, despite receiving 23% of the popular vote*, when I came across this piece from Tim Harford, who explains that 8% of the seats is not the same thing as 8% of the influence in the Commons and in the current situation the Lib-Dems have as much voting influence as Labour.

Tim is right, the maths does back him up - commentators are wrong to suggest that the outcome of this election was a bad one for the Liberal Democrats.  However, this is but one election and the Lib-Dems are but one party of many.  The fact that they hold more power than seats in this circumstance is surely not the point though?  (Tim acknowledges this fact in an update where he also points out that many people have missed the point he is making.)

Peter Henley has written here about the difference which would be made to the outcome of this election were it conducted under the Alternative Vote (AV) or Single Transferable Vote (STV) systems, as opposed to our current First Past The Post (FPTP) system.  However, these numbers will involve some pretty big assumptions, so can't be taken as a reliable prediction.  I do agree with the general conclusion made by Peter though, that there would be less of a difference from the existing system with AV than with STV.  This should be pretty obvious, since as a voting system AV resembles a mixture of both FPTP and STV.

First Past The Post (FPTP)

The problem with FPTP is that a party can gain a lot of public support and win a lot of votes, but due either to geography or gerrymandering can win relatively few, if any, seats.  The FPTP system favours Labour, whose voters tend to be concentrated in urban areas, at the expense of smaller parties and parties with less geographically concentrated supporters.

I have only heard two arguments put forward in favour of the FPTP system, one of which isn't even a proper argument:

1. "We do it this way because we've always done it this way."
2. FPTP gives you a representative local MP, something which you don't get with proportional representation.  (i.e. Parliament taken as a whole may be unrepresentative of what the nation wants, but at least each individual MP is representative of what their own constituents want.)

As I've mentioned the first of these is not even an argument, just because something is tradition or has always been done a particular way is not a good reason to continue, or to not seek to improve it in some way.  The second point has more substance to it, but even then there are systems of proportional representation which can go most of the way to addressing this issue.

Alternative Vote (AV)

This is the system promised by Labour in their latest manifesto and the system the Tories have discussed implementing to gain the support of the Lib-Dems in Westminster.

In an Alternative Vote system, also known as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) instead of putting an 'x' in the box next to your preferred candidate you simply rank the candidates by preference (put a '1' in the box next to your favourite candidate, '2' next to your second favourite, etc.)  This is simple for the voter and the system for counting votes has the advantage of being simple too.

The advantage of AV over FPTP, and the point which is generally used to argue in it's favour, is that it minimises "wasted" votes.

The way it works is very simple:

• In each constituency an absolute majority (i.e. more than 50% of the votes) is required to win the seat.
• If no candidate has an absolute majority the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and their votes are re-allocated based on their next preference.

This process continues until one candidate has an absolute majority and is declared the winner of that seat.

Under AV it seems likely that more people would vote for who they actually wanted to win (i.e. less likely to vote tactically), since they can specify a second, third, fourth choice, etc.

Also, more people would be happy with the outcome of the vote in their own constituency, with every MP having gained an absolute majority of votes.

The disadvantage is that it still doesn't necessarily lead to a more proportional share of the seats in Westminster compared to the proportion of votes won for any particular party.  A party could secure a huge number of votes, but come a close second in the vast majority of seats, winning hardly any for themselves.

Single Transferable Vote (STV)

This is the system currently favoured by the Lib-Dems.

With STV the voter votes in exactly the same way as with AV (ranking candidates by preference).  The difference comes in the way constituencies are arranged and the way in which votes are counted.  AV is actually a special case of STV, where only one candidate is elected per constituency.

Rather than having small(ish) constituencies like we do now, with STV the country would be split into much larger constituencies or regions (maybe 5 or 10 times** bigger than our current constituencies).  Say, we combine 10 existing constituencies into one super-constituency, assuming the number of MPs stays the same we then need to elect 10 MPs from this one region.

The system for electing these MPs is the same as that used in the AV system, only instead of requiring an absolute majority each candidate requires the number of votes specified by the Droop quota in order to win a seat.

It works in a similar way to AV:

• In each constituency, any candidate who has reached or exceeded the quota is declared elected.
• If a candidate has more votes than the quota, their surplus votes are transferred to other candidates, proportional to the next preferences listed on that candidate's ballot papers.  Votes that would have gone to the winner instead go to the next preference listed on their ballot.
• If no one new meets the quota, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and that candidate's votes are transferred.

This process repeats until either a winner is found for every seat or there are as many seats as remaining candidates.

Similarly to AV, people are more likely to vote for who they actually want to win and more people are likely to be happy (or at least not dismally disappointed) with the result.  The advantage over AV is, providing the constituencies or voting regions are large enough, the composition of MPs in Westminster will be proportional to the total number of votes received by each party nationally.

In case it is not apparent from my discussion of the voting systems above I am in agreement with the Lib-Dems and in favour of switching to the STV system.  If you disagree with me I'd be keen to hear from you in the comments.

* The Lib-Dems actually gained in terms of total number of votes and share of the vote, but lost seats.

** Maybe more, I use these numbers just as an example.

Keeping Tabs on Politicians

A recent post over on Left Foot Forward got me thinking a bit on how we, the general public, ensure that our politicians are serving our interests. Of course, we have elections once every few years where we can vote out the corrupt and incompetent, but that will only happen when a politician is obviously corrupt or incompetent, expenses scandal aside it may not often be that apparent.

Websites do exist to help us keep tabs on our representatives in Parliament: www.publicwhip.org.uk and www.theyworkforyou.com allow you to see when each MP attended Parliament, what debates they participated in, what they said and how they voted. You can also read all of the acts and bills passed (and rejected) by Parliament online, if you have the inclination for deciphering the lawyer-speak they’re written in.

However, there is one noticeable shortcoming in this process – we cannot tell from this information alone why a politician has voted a certain way, we do not know the intent behind any politician’s actions. Sadiq Khan’s post illustrates this when he says “The Liberal Democrats voted against our original proposals and have diluted the provisions of this Act (as did the Conservatives).” in relation to the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.

His depiction here is of Labour struggling to pass a piece of benign legislation, which would only benefit the British public, in the face of unjustified opposition from the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. There can be many reasons for voting against a piece of legislation: bear in mind that these bills can be of considerable length and that the specific wording of the bill is what matters, not the intent behind it; because it is what the bill says, not what it intends, that becomes law. In the right circumstances then, a politician can be entirely justified in voting against a piece of legislation due to disagreement with the precise wording of just a single clause or sub-clause.

Khan does not provide us with any clues as to which parts of the bill have been ‘diluted’, or what the original wording of the bill was and whether there is any substantive difference between what was first proposed and what is now enshrined in law. Without these details voters are unable to decide for themselves how to side on the Government’s original proposals.

But then again, Khan's intention is not merely to furnish voters with information; he is after all a Labour MP, standing for re-election this week. The purpose of his article is to convince wavering voters (in this specific case - Muslim voters) that Labour is their best option at the forthcoming general election. This may or may not be true - from the limited information provided it's impossible to tell.