As above!

Today is an opportunity to take a small democratic step. AV simply means that MPs in future would have a majority of people in their constituencies supporting them to some degree! Those who still only want to vote for one candidate still can.

That’s it in a nutshell.

A small step – but a positive one.

My LibDem Haringey Council colleagues show exactly why people in Haringey are angry with the Labour council. As the audit committee report demonstrates in black and white – Haringey Labour are happy to they spend, spend, spend – and pay for their overspending by closing older peoples’ luncheon clubs, children’s centres and swingeing cuts to youth services. Less to do with government reductions – far more to do with being incapable of running a council within its means.

Here is the news release:

A special report released this week shows how Haringey Council continued to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money on consultants without adequate, or in many cases any checks on spending, performance or contracts.

The report compiled by Deloitte, which was considered at the Council’s Audit Committee on 19th April 2011, shows that a proper business case for spending on consultants existed for only half of the test cases, half were engaged without a proper contract, only one in ten cases showed any evidence that the Council were monitoring expenditure and in no cases were there any checks on performance.

Liberal Democrats have criticised the lack of control by the Labour Council on its spending and have called for a commitment that this situation is rectified with all existing consultants and all future contracts.

Last month Haringey Liberal Democrats uncovered that since October, when the Council was aware of the scale of the reduction of government grant, it continued to spend £4,800 a day on consultants.

Cllr Robert Gorrie, Haringey Liberal Democrat Leader and Finance Spokesperson, comments:

“At a time when the Labour Council is choosing to close many essential services it is simply unacceptable that so much local taxpayers’ money is being spent in such a reckless fashion without proper controls or even basic performance management.

“This lack of control and potentially profligate spending is entirely symptomatic of a Labour administration who have overspent last years budget by millions and are trying to blame anything but themselves for the problem.”

ENDS

Link to the Audit Committee papers (Appendix A p.6-7)
Linkto a news release sent in March 2011 showing Haringey Council’s spending on consultants since October 2010.
The Labour Council has agreed to use £1.7million of Area Based Grant to fund the £10million overspend in 2010/11. Area Based Grant is meant to support local priorities and has in the past been spent on enterprise projects and tackling worklessness.

My column from this week’s Ham & High

Fairer votes are just that – fairer! When the public were highly polarised between two parties, in some ways it made sense to have a system that works with a two-party system. But now the public chooses to spread votes much more widely, the electoral system should reflect that – after all, that’s what a democracy is for -serving the public, not the politicians.

Labour and Conservatives got over 90% in 51, 55 and 59 elections but under 70% last year.

Life is more fluid and more complicated these days. We all talk about the importance of diversity – it’s just our political system doesn’t walk the talk. Plural politics is a more open and real life way of making decisions. So much better than the ya boo politics that this country has laboured under. Our current political system sets an example of political non-cooperation and bully takes all culture.

Do we actually like the way politics is conducted in this country? We are all guilty – us politicians – because in the First Past the Post (FPTP) system we have – negative campaigning is effective. We look good if the other guys look bad.

With AV we politicians need to be thinking about everyone – not just our core vote – because we need to be everyone’s second choice if we cannot be their first choice. That means that candidates have to work harder and reach out across party lines.

We would have more grown up politics. We could move to a world where not everything the other lot did was bad. We could be on an improving continuum. At the very least – we could feel that over half of local people in our own local constituencies voted for us as first choice or at least some choice. We would no longer disenfranchise the majorities who do vote but end up with a representative that they didn’t vote for or want at all.

But let’s not over romanticize the case. The Alternative Vote is a relatively small step. But it’s a hugely important step – because it will mean that in each constituency a majority of those who voted did not actually totally vote against the person who wins – and they will have a more effective mandate than before.

And just to rebut some of the dreadful myths that are being propagated – the next General Election – if it was to be under the Alternative Vote – will cost the same as it will if it is First Past the Post. Please don’t believe the scare-mongering about cost.

So I hope you will vote yes for change. I hope you will vote for a system where we can change the behavior of political campaigning to a more positive experience. I hope you will vote yes because having a few marginal seats on which the larger parties target all their efforts to swing them in their own direction is no way to think about how to run a country. I hope you will vote yes because safe seats where nothing ever changes or can change because the candidate only needs their usual suspects and doesn’t have to worry about what the rest think or feel is no good to anyone – which played its part at the heart of the expenses scandal. If you don’t have to work to get 50% of the vote – you might even start to take your position for granted.

Let’s move forward to a fairer system – where the people who represent us have to persuade more than 50% of us – one way or the other – that they are the person we want to represent us in Parliament.

Hurrah! At last (and hopefully finally successfully) the issue of the first born MALE child of the monarchy being first in line to the throne – regardless of any sisters that might have been born before him – looks like it will now end.

I have been banging on about this for ages including here , here, here, here and here. You can see it’s been one of my recurring themes….

Of course – now the race is on – because the change must come before it becomes an issue with actual children involved – and therefore  far more difficult and personal. So with the marriage of Kate and William – time is of the essence.

This is of huge importance in terms of equalities. There can be no more potent message to people in this country and beyond – that women are second class citizens – than the shoving of a girl child out of the way of the throne in favour of her younger brother.

And it is extra-ordinary – that with a female monarch such as Queen Elizabeth – who commandes respect from all – even republicans – that this inappropriate tradition that belongs to the past should continue.

The last time I raised this publicly – there was agreement on all sides that this should be done – but that the stumbling block was that the change has to be agreed to by all the Commonwealth countries.

Whilst that is the case – I very much hope that no Commonwealth Country would wish to stand in the way of this change and would give their full support.

If we don’t act now – this unacceptable discrimination will be here for another generation. It is an insult to women – an historical legacy and relic from a by-gone age – and this is our  moment of opportunity for change.