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    1,2,3, Representation by Enid Lakeman
    1,2,3, Representation by Enid Lakeman
    1,2,3, Representation by Enid Lakeman
    Ebook132 pages1 hour

    1,2,3, Representation by Enid Lakeman

    By Richard Lung

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    The practical invention of modern democratic elections, by Carl Andrae, and also Thomas Hare, is over one and a half centuries old, as is the organised resistance to their implementation. The Andrae system, as it is called in Scandinavia, by now, is really no more than a name. The Hare system, which its author called a Single Transferable Vote (STV), endures, mainly on the fringes of English-speaking countries. And in more or less diluted form.
    This is because the electoral system, that gives most power to voters, gives least job security to
    political incumbents.
    The question is how to enable the public to see thru the booming fog of obscurity and illusion that protects the vested interests of the political class in ineffective elections.
    This state careerism has out-matched the unorganised common man.
    Some of the best writings on electoral reform have remained unorganised, and therefore less effective in changing public opinion. This editor organised uncollected writings of two of its greatest exponents, John Stuart Mill and H. G. Wells, for popular presentation of the truth about elections.
    Even then, with such formidable protagonists, brought to bear directly on the problem of democracy versus incumbency, I remained vaguely dissatisfied.
    There was another British writer, who was a world authority on electoral systems. Mill and Wells are wonderful informants but history condemned them to go without that vital ingredient where Lakeman excels: evidence!
    Moreover, her exertions were legendary, on spreading the good news about the people power of transferable voting. Hopefully, books of the complete collected writings of Enid Lakeman will be published, without further delay.
    Meanwhile, this collection has been permitted, by the Executor of the Enid Lakeman Estate, thru the good offices of former colleagues.

    As a foot-note, it is to be hoped that the largely forgotten original research of our brothers in reform, the heroic North American progressives, like Clarence Hoag and George Hallett and their colleagues, will also be liberated in systematically collected and easily accessible form. I have seen more or less century-old resources, languishing behind publishers pay-walls.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRichard Lung
    Release dateAug 14, 2019
    ISBN9780463155561
    1,2,3, Representation by Enid Lakeman
    Author

    Richard Lung

    My later years acknowledge the decisive benefit of the internet and the web in allowing me the possibility of publication, therefore giving the incentive to learn subjects to write about them.While, from my youth, I acknowledge the intellectual debt that I owed a social science degree, while coming to radically disagree, even as a student, with its out-look and aims.Whereas from middle age, I acknowledge how much I owed to the friendship of Dorothy Cowlin, largely the subject of my e-book, Dates and Dorothy. This is the second in a series of five books of my collected verse. Her letters to me, and my comments came out, in: Echoes of a Friend.....Authors have played a big part in my life.Years ago, two women independently asked me: Richard, don't you ever read anything but serious books?But Dorothy was an author who influenced me personally, as well as from the written page. And that makes all the difference.I was the author of the Democracy Science website since 1999. This combined scientific research with democratic reform. It is now mainly used as an archive. Since 2014, I have written e-books.I have only become a book author myself, on retiring age, starting at stopping time!2014, slightly modified 2022.

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      1,2,3, Representation by Enid Lakeman - Richard Lung

      1, 2, 3, Representation by Enid Lakeman

      Copyright © 2019: Eric Syddique, the Executor and Trustee of the Enid Lakeman Estate, kindly gave permission (by phone, confirmed in writing to Anthony Tuffin) to publish uncollected writings of Enid Lakeman, former director of The Electoral Reform Society; Michael Meadowcroft (text and pictures); Richard Lung.

      The practical invention of modern democratic elections, by Carl Andrae, and also Thomas Hare, is over one and a half centuries old, as is the organised resistance to their implementation. The Andrae system, as it is called in Scandinavia, by now, is really no more than a name. The Hare system, which its author called a Single Transferable Vote (STV), endures, mainly on the fringes of English-speaking countries. And in more or less diluted form.

      This is because the electoral system, that gives most power to voters, gives least job security to political incumbents.

      The question is how to enable the public to see thru the booming fog of obscurity and illusion that protects the vested interests of the political class in ineffective elections. This state careerism has out-matched the unorganised common man.

      Some of the best writings on electoral reform have remained unorganised, and therefore less effective in changing public opinion. This editor organised uncollected writings of two of its greatest exponents, John Stuart Mill and H. G. Wells, for popular presentation of the truth about elections.

      Even then, with such formidable protagonists, brought to bear directly on the problem of democracy versus incumbency, I remained vaguely dissatisfied.

      There was another British writer, who was a world authority on electoral systems. Mill and Wells are wonderful informants but history condemned them to go without that vital ingredient where Lakeman excels: evidence!

      Moreover, her exertions were legendary, on spreading the good news about the people power of transferable voting. Hopefully, books of the complete collected writings of Enid Lakeman will be published, without further delay.

      Meanwhile, this collection has been permitted, by the Executor of the Enid Lakeman Estate, thru the good offices of former colleagues.

      As a foot-note, it is to be hoped that the largely forgotten original research of our brothers in reform, the heroic North American progressives, like Clarence Hoag and George Hallett and their colleagues, will also be liberated in systematically collected and easily accessible form. I have seen more or less century-old resources, languishing behind publishers pay-walls.

      Editor.

      Table of Contents

      Discussions

      The First Lakeman Lecture

      Learning by phone-in

      The whole case.

      To whom the decision?

      Commons and Lords consider reform.

      Realignment?

      Dodging the issue

      Fission and fusion.

      Nations in conference.

      The tyranny of lists.

      The grass is greener in the STV meadow.

      Districts

      Those boundaries

      Perverse verdict

      An unwanted encore

      Distorted districts

      Plumping

      Affirmative gerrymandering - an exercise in futility

      Elections

      Quiet upheaval in the Netherlands

      Federal Republic of Germany

      Federal Republic of Germany - Credits and Debits.

      Canada begins to move

      Ireland's general election, 1981.

      Malta's anomaly

      Malta - continued

      Belize.

      Reviews

      Women in the House.

      Power and Parliament.

      Enid Lakeman 1903-1995.

      Explanatory note.

      Catalog.

      Other collected writings, on electoral reform, by the editor..

      Discussions

      The First Lakeman Lecture

      (endowed by the Electoral Reform Society. Delivered by Enid Lakeman at Bedford College, on 4th november 1982.)

      (A summary.)

      Table of contents

      The British political system is geared to disagreement. Government and Opposition face each other, separated by two swords’ length. Fair enough, in a debate on any one question, but the pretence that there are two groups of people ranged one against the other on every question does not accord with reality. Research in the University of Essex has shown to what a large extent opinions on political questions cross party lines. There are, for instance, nearly as many Labour voters as Conservative ones who think the trade unions have too much power. Yet MPs are expected to behave as if they disagreed totally with the party opposite. We may think there is more civilised sense shown by Africans who support a one-party state on the ground that they dislike the idea of an opposition party whose duty is to oppose.

      Opposition for the sake of opposition diminishes parliament in the eyes of the electors. They see their MPs expected to vote automatically with their own party and against another, uninfluenced by what has been said in debate. Subjects on which Members are allowed to vote according to their own opinions are said to be ‘above politics’; an unfortunate expression implying that they belong to the clear air of high morality and politics to the gutter. Government is an important and honourable concern, which does not deserve to be debased in this way.

      Besides fictitious opposition we have fictitious unity. Each party is committed to its entire manifesto, and when in power claims a ‘mandate’ for every item in this, although it is obvious nonsense to say that every one of some ten million people agrees with them all.

      People wishing to promote legislation on a particular matter have to try to get their cause adopted by a political party; if that party achieves power, the desired legislation will follow, and if a different party takes over it may be repealed — without any evidence that either is the course desired by the majority of the voters.

      Our X-vote is a quite inadequate expression of the voter's wishes. It implies total support for one candidate (and his party) and total opposition to all others, while the reality is that we agree with much that the candidate stands for but on some matters prefer one of his opponents. There is no way in which a voter can show which of a party's policies he supports and which not, and no way in which supporters of a cause that cuts across the party lines can combine forces.

      Recent developments have shown up the powerlessness of Labour voters to discriminate between Left and Right, and the difficulties of Liberals and Social Democrats trying to work together for what they have in common.

      To vote X for a candidate merely shows that, because of some things and in spite of others, which he cannot specify, the voter finds that candidate the most desirable (or the least undesirable) of the limited selection presented to him. A somewhat more meaningful vote can be obtained by replacing X by numbers. This enables the voter to say, ‘l want candidate 1,but if I can't have him l should be content with 2. Failing him, l prefer 3 to any of the others, whom I don't like at all‘.

      SeveraI things follow. First, the first-preference votes will be a truer indication of the voter's real opinion than X can be, since he can safely vote '1' for the candidate he really prefers, without worrying about whether that candidate is likely to get many votes or few. Second, it would no longer be possible for the one MP ‘representing’ a constituency to be

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