ALTERNATIVE VOTE PLOY IS LABOUR'S LAST GASP!

Gordon Brown' sudden interest in electoral reform, just months before the General Election that has to be held by this June is raising eyebrows across the political specturm. The BBC, in a 'Question and Answer' section on its website states that Mr Brown cited contitutional reform as part of his beliefs when he became Prime Minister in 2007 but coming, as it does, so close to the election cynics might charge that the vote MPs will take next week is much more tightly bound up with the PM hoping to seek common ground with other parties in the event of a hung Parliament than any wish to see a change because of fairness or to purge the House of Commons of the expenses issue.

What is being proposed? If legislation is passed then a referendum would be held in 2011 to change the voting system for the House of Commons to what is called the 'Alternative Vote'. This works by voters ranking candidates in order of preference and anyone getting more than 50% in the first round is elected. If that doesn't happen, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their second choices allocated to the remaining candidates. This process continues until a winner emerges.

To me this smacks of Gordon Brown's last gasp! Although the Labour Government in its earlier years did make changes to the Constitution - often in a half-baked and confusing way - this Prime Minister has shown no real interest in the subject since he came to power. The case for changing something as fundamental as how we elect Members of Parliament has to have a very strong justification. First past the post, the system we use now, has served this country well for centuries. It has generally produced stable governments which are able to last the full length or four out of five years of a Parliament and the system usually gets the result right - the Party with the most votes wins a majority of seats and is able to put its policies into action for the electorate to judge.

An Alternative Vote is likely to lead to weaker governments with some candidates who did not receive the most votes in a constituency winning from behind once other preference votes are taken into account. Conservative Party Chairman Eric Pickles put it well when he said: "Gordon Brown avoided a leadership election, bottled a general election and now wants to fiddle the electoral system."

This initiative is typical of a Government locked into its dying days. Instead of focussing on reducing the country's debt, working to rebuild business confidence and encouraging new business and job creation, the Government announces it wants to debate the voting system!

We need to use the voting system to enact a change of Government to work on the issues that people know are important not change it for the convenience of Labour.