David Aaronovitch’s column today is excellent. He makes a case for David Cameron coming out and supporting the switch to the Alternative Vote. The key bit:
The pessimism that Conservatives invariably express about their fortunes under electoral reform is based on a particular assumption about the British electorate — an assumption that belies their constant invocation of “the great ignored” or the silent majority. The assumption is that there is a natural majority for the Centre Centre Left in Britain, a majority that only the division of the two centre-left parties within the first-past-the-post system neutralises. So the current system operates (in Tory eyes) as a perpetual pro-Tory gerrymander.
I don’t think this is true, and I never really have. There have, over the years, been as many Lib Dem voters willing to give the Conservatives their second preferences as Labour. And after the experience of coalition, that tendency could be strengthened.
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