Democracy in Action

I learned a remarkable thing the other day - that there is another mainstream UK organisation employing a process for making important decisions - which is just as bizarre and unfair as the Labour Party's.

Step forward the Church of England.

Because in an orgy of religious democracy a couple of days ago he Church of England voted to allow women bishops to prech and minister to its flock - except that it didn't.

Even though just about everybody - who is anybody in the Church of England voted for this to happen - and for the C of E to drag itself into the 21st century.

Now the results of the Church's consultation exercise were impressive:

•  42 out of 44 Church dicoeses voted to allow women bishops - 96%
• 148 to 45 of the Church's clergy voted in favour - 77%
• 44 to 3 of the Church's exisiting bishops voted in favour - 94%
• 132 to 74 of the delegates to the Church Synod (Parliament) voted in favour - 64%. 

But because the last voting category did not have the two-thirds majority required - 64% as opposed to 67% - the proposal fell and women remain second class citizens.

So women can be vicars or ministers - or whatever the correct term is in the C of E - but the fairer sex can't be promoted to the rank of bishop.

Which is as ludicrous as it sounds.

Lord above - what a complete mess - not least because you would expect delegates to the Church's Synod (or Parliament) to reflect and represent the views of the wider memebership.

So either they did not - or God's hand was at work in some mysterious way.

Here's what I wrote about a similar dog's dinner of a voting system - the one that's used to elect leaders of the Labour Party.

6% = 70% = 90% (26 September 2010)

The Labour party's electoral college makes about as much sense - as one of the Mad Hatter's tea parties.

But to be fair it has done what it was designed to do - which is to give union leaders undue influence over key party decisions - by galvanising a small handful of union activists to vote in a particular way or, as in this case, for a particular candidate.

Democracy it ain't - instead it's all about machine-like, Tammany Hall politics - also known as vested interests and raw power.

Consider for a moment the voting figures which decided who would be the next Labour leader - and potentially, at least, the country's next Prime Minister.

199,671 trade unions votes were cast in the trade union section of the electoral college - 80,266 for David Miliband and 119,405 for Ed Miliband.

Before the ballot took place the unions were boasting that around 3,500,000 trade unions members would be invited to vote - in a veritable orgy of union democracy.

Yet the turnout of around 6% means that ordinary union members voted with their feet - apart from a tiny number of union activists - who have no claim to represent the views of the wider membership.

The voting figures also confirm that Labour's electoral college is to democracy - what Alice in Wonderland is to quantum mechanics.

Because the Miliband of brothers received the votes of 122,806 individual Labour party members - 66,814 for David Miliband and 55,992 votes for Ed Miliband.

Before the ballot - Labour claimed 170,000 members would be entitled to vote - so the turnout of party members is respectable - at just over 70%.

MPs voted in even greater numbers, as you would expect, and cast 262 votes in total - David Miliband receiving 140 and his brother Ed receiving 122 - so the turnout amongst MPs was well over 90%.

Yet all three sections of the electoral college get the same weighted vote - i.e. 1/3rd, 1/3rd and 1/3rd.

So the end result is that some votes are much more equal than others.

In Labour's electoral college reality is turned on its head - much like Alice in Wonderland - with the incredible effect that somehow or other - 6% = 70% = 90%.

Whatever this is it's not democracy - more trade union members voted (199,671) than the entire Labour party membership (122,806) - which just about says it all.

Maybe these people were Tory, Lib Dem or SNP supporters - seeking to influence the outcome - who knows?

But what we do know is that the new Labour leader was not elected by his own party members - which is a sad day and a bad day - for anyone with a passing interest in democracy.