VOTING FOR CHANGE (2)?

The result is in. On a 42% turnout, supporters of retaining the status quo First Past The Post system of voting in the U.K. won a thumping victory, by 68% to 32%. The alternative option, the Alternative Vote system, was at the same time both too complicated to understand easily and only marginally different from what everyone long had been used to. That's never a good basis for change.

The result is a crushing blow to the Liberal Democrats, and especially to their leader Nick Clegg. Having played his hand with great skill a year ago in order to create the Coalition Government, he made a strategic blunder in my view in not then pressing for a referendum on swtiching to Proportional Representation. PR is not without difficulties, but the devil is in the details. In contrast to AV, it does at least have a fairly snappy overall message that everyone can understand; "if you get x% of the votes, you get x% of the seats, and that is fair".

Worst of all, the no vote for change is liable to put back the cause of  political reform for a generation. The last U.K. referendum was in 1975, so it is quite possible that there won't be another one for 30 years or more.

However, if the referendum was rather dull, some of the other results (for local elections) were not. Scotland in particular represented huge change, as the minority Government Scottish National Party won an extra 23 seats to get an absolute majority of 69 in the 129 seat Scottish Parliament. All the other major parties suffered, with Labour posting its worst election result in Scotland since the 1930's and losing 7 seats, and the LibDems falling from 17 seats to just 5. Both of the parties' Scottish leaders have already resigned.

This is the first time that one party has had an overall majority in Scotland, since devolution took place in the late 1990's. What makes it especially interesting is that it is likely to lead to the SNP's calling a referendum on full independence for Scotland later in the Parliamentary term. Scotland is big enough to be an independent country, and has separate legal and educational systems from those in England. Up until now, opinion polls have suggested that the Scots like the SNP to lead them, but not to take them out a union that has formally existed since 1707. But perhaps that will change.

Interestingly, although the Scots, like the rest of the U.K., voted not to change the FPTP system for elections to the Westminster Parliament, the voting system for elections to the Scottish Parliament is different. 73 seats are decided on a traditional FPTP system. But there are then a further 56 seats, with 7 members for each of the 8 regions used in European elections, which are decided by a form of PR.

Meanwhile, the LibDems are licking their wounds. As well as losing the referendum on voting reform and being stuffed in Scotland, they also took a drubbing in local council elections in England, losing control of 9 out of 19 councils (including Mr. Clegg's home town, Sheffield) and almost a third of their councillors across the country. Not surprisingly, the big winners here were Labour, who benefitted from voters worried about cuts in public services. But the Conservatives still managed modest gains, suggesting that voters' wrath about the current economic situation has been vented on the junior Coalition partner alone. Calls for his demise have been muted, but Mr. Clegg is undoubtedly under pressure.

Walter Blotscher