Vote Early, Vote Often
Here's a previous post on Labour's electoral college - which is now swinging into action to decide who will become the party's next leader.
On the radio this morning I listened to two completely laughable claims about the electoral college.
One was that most union members were also individual members of the Labour party - which is completely untrue - as there are at best 200,000 party members compared to 4,000,000 or so trade union members.
The second was that most of those entitled to vote - will actually use their vote - but again this is nonsense because the vast majority of trade union members won't bother to take part.
Let's see if the Labour party publishes the participation rates separately for each section of the electoral college - MPs, party members and affiliated trade unions.
An Affront to Democracy
The Labour party is in the process of electing its new leader - via a cumbersome, three-way 'electoral college' - which will operate over the summer.
Now most modern political parties have a simple system for their internal elections - it's called one-member-one-vote (OMOV) - and it does what it says on the tin.
Each member has the same and equal vote - for deciding important issues - like who should be the new party leader.
But the Labour party has a rather different approach - which means that some members are much more equal than others.
The numbers in the different constituencies can vary - but broadly speaking the numbers stack up like this - 258 MPs = 200,000 Party Members = 4,000,000 Affiliated Trade Union Members.
How's that for equality? A better description would be car crash democracy.
Each of the three constituencies or colleges have the same weighted vote - so MPs have the greatest say, followed by individual members (200,000 is a generous guess).
At the coo's tail are 4 million trade union members - the majority of whom don't even support Labour - with many unaware that they are actually paying a political levy in their union contributions.
No wonder the Labour party doesn't wheel its electoral college out very often - it's a ridiculous, Heath Robinson contraption - an affront to democracy and common sense.
The results of the trade union ballots are never well publicised - because of the very low turn out which the unions don't like admitting - and because many returns are stuck out if union members admit they don't support the Labour party.
So, what's the point of balloting them in the first place - why not just let individual party members have their say - and dispense with all the other nonsense including the huge waste of union funds?
After all, who can defend a system that allows an MP three votes - if s/he is also a union member - all of which have wildly different values.
Under the present set up a single MP's vote is worth around the same as 15,000 union members (4 million divided by 258 = 15,500).
Crazy or what?
On the radio this morning I listened to two completely laughable claims about the electoral college.
One was that most union members were also individual members of the Labour party - which is completely untrue - as there are at best 200,000 party members compared to 4,000,000 or so trade union members.
The second was that most of those entitled to vote - will actually use their vote - but again this is nonsense because the vast majority of trade union members won't bother to take part.
Let's see if the Labour party publishes the participation rates separately for each section of the electoral college - MPs, party members and affiliated trade unions.
An Affront to Democracy
The Labour party is in the process of electing its new leader - via a cumbersome, three-way 'electoral college' - which will operate over the summer.
Now most modern political parties have a simple system for their internal elections - it's called one-member-one-vote (OMOV) - and it does what it says on the tin.
Each member has the same and equal vote - for deciding important issues - like who should be the new party leader.
But the Labour party has a rather different approach - which means that some members are much more equal than others.
The numbers in the different constituencies can vary - but broadly speaking the numbers stack up like this - 258 MPs = 200,000 Party Members = 4,000,000 Affiliated Trade Union Members.
How's that for equality? A better description would be car crash democracy.
Each of the three constituencies or colleges have the same weighted vote - so MPs have the greatest say, followed by individual members (200,000 is a generous guess).
At the coo's tail are 4 million trade union members - the majority of whom don't even support Labour - with many unaware that they are actually paying a political levy in their union contributions.
No wonder the Labour party doesn't wheel its electoral college out very often - it's a ridiculous, Heath Robinson contraption - an affront to democracy and common sense.
The results of the trade union ballots are never well publicised - because of the very low turn out which the unions don't like admitting - and because many returns are stuck out if union members admit they don't support the Labour party.
So, what's the point of balloting them in the first place - why not just let individual party members have their say - and dispense with all the other nonsense including the huge waste of union funds?
After all, who can defend a system that allows an MP three votes - if s/he is also a union member - all of which have wildly different values.
Under the present set up a single MP's vote is worth around the same as 15,000 union members (4 million divided by 258 = 15,500).
Crazy or what?
