Thursday 17 December 2015

Fair votes (continued)

Jonathan Reynolds (Labour, Stalybridge and Hyde) introduced a ten-minute rule bill in Parliament yesterday with the aim of extending the additional member system, with which we are familiar in Wales, to Westminster elections. He drew attention to the inequitable representation of the parties in the House as a result of the 2015 general election. Usually these Bills are allowed to go forward in the knowledge that there will not be parliamentary time to consider them further, but the reactionaries in the Commons made the point of voting it down by 164 to 27. Their ignorance was personified by Jim Spellar, responding to the motion, who seemed unaware of the differences between the alternative vote system voted down in a referendum in 2010 (which would anyway have made little difference to political balance in 2015), the FPTP run-off system of elections in France and the current proposals. The progressive 27 were:

Allen, Mr Graham (Lab)
Barron, rh Kevin (Lab)
Bradshaw, rh Mr Ben (Lab)
Brake, rh Tom (LD)
Burden, Richard (Lab)
Carmichael, rh Mr Alistair (LD)
Carswell, Mr Douglas (UKIP)
Creasy, Stella (Lab)
Cruddas, Jon (Lab)
Davies, Geraint (Lab)
Dowd, Jim (Lab)
Durkan, Mark (SDLP)
Edwards, Jonathan (Plaid Cymru)
Flynn, Paul (Lab)
Hodge, rh Dame Margaret (Lab)
Lamb, rh Norman (LD)
Lucas, Caroline (Green)
Mactaggart, rh Fiona (Lab)
Mulholland, Greg (LD)
Reynolds, Jonathan (Lab)
Ritchie, Ms Margaret (SDLP)
Saville Roberts, Liz (Plaid Cymru)
Smith, rh Mr Andrew (Lab)
Streeting, Wes (Lab)
Twigg, Stephen (Lab)
Umunna, Mr Chuka (Lab)
Williams, Mr Mark (LD)

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