Prescient campaigning

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Much as I hate to bang on about the purple people over at “Take Back Parliament” but just noticed something rather interesting the domains takebackparliament.com and takebackparliament.org were registered before the election.

Both domains were registered by Blue State Digitial on the 29th April as can be clearly seen from the whois data:

Domain Name: TAKEBACKPARLIAMENT.COM
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Name Server: NS1.BLUESTATEDIGITAL.COM
Name Server: NS2.BLUESTATEDIGITAL.COM
Updated Date: 03-may-2010
Creation Date: 29-apr-2010
Expiration Date: 29-apr-2011

Domain Name:TAKEBACKPARLIAMENT.ORG
Created On:29-Apr-2010 15:47:07 UTC
Last Updated On:03-May-2010 16:42:03 UTC
Expiration Date:29-Apr-2011 15:47:07 UTC
Name Server:NS1.BLUESTATEDIGITAL.COM
Name Server:NS2.BLUESTATEDIGITAL.COM

Now of course it doesn’t hurt to be prepared, but I can’t help wonder just when Mark Ross (of Ekklesia who is also described as Head of Campaigns at Power2010 (thanks to Woman on a Raft)) first started talking to BSD and planning this campaign as websites such as the “Take back Parliament” campaign has don’t normally happen over night. The more I discover about this the less like grass roots and the more like astro turf the whole thing seems. But with first mover advantage taking back our voice from those behind “take Back Parliament” so that a genuine gras roots movement can emerge is going to be nigh on impossible.

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A letter to GreenPeace

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As Greenpeace an international environmental campaign are backing “Take back Parliament” which strikes me as a tad odd, I thought I’d write to them and ask:
1) How it fitted with their other campaigns and will they be campaigning in other countries?
2) If they felt it was appropriate for an international charity such as themselves to be campaigning to change the electoral system of a democratic nation?

My e-mail is below, and I shall report on any response I get, I’d also note that they don’t mention this sort of campaigning on their donate page – hardly honest open and transparent.

Update Seems Greenpeace are also signed up to Make my vote count.

Update 2Friends of the earth are also signed up but at least are more upfront about their reasons (more Green MPs)

“Dear Greenpeace,

I’ve searched your website as you recommend and I’ve been completely
unable to find any mention of “electoral reform” amongst your
campaigns and goals. As far as I can make out, and have understood
since your inception, you are infact an international movement
campaigning on ecological topics. In fact as it says on your website:
“Our goal is to ensure the ability of the earth to nurture life in all
its diversity. We organise public campaigns:

* for preventing climate change by ending our addiction to polluting fuels and promoting clean, renewable and efficient energy
* for the protection of oceans and ancient forests
* for the elimination of toxic chemicals
* against the release of genetically modified organisms into nature
* for nuclear disarmament and an end to nuclear contamination.”

All very laudable goals, but electoral reform doesn’t appear to be
amongst them.

So I would be very grateful if you could kindly explain two things to
me:
1) Where does electoral reform fit into your goals and general
campaign structure and will you be campaigning for electoral reform in
other countries than the UK?
2) Do you think that it’s appropriate for an international charity to
be campaigning to change the electoral system of a democratic nation?

I look forward to your reply.

Thank you.

Giolla.”

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Purple power

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Purple Power The demands for electoral reform continue apace even if the Take back Parliament campaign isn’t really a grass roots campaign. Apart from the groups acknowledge as being behind it on the website a quick whois lookup shows the campaign is being handled by Blue state digitial which must be costing someone a pretty penny. But that aside a campaign for electoral reform is a good thing, though purely electoral reform without more general parliamentary reform is going to leave things really quite messy. As I muttered earlier I’m against any system (such as the currently mooted AV) which either breaks the constituency link or makes it more difficult for small parties or independent candidates to win seats. Due to the horror of the BNP maybe getting a few seats under some hypothetical PR system some people have proposed that the thresh hold to getting seats be set above the level they currently achieve (so about 10%) which would do in almost all new entrants to the political system just due to finance alone – starting in just one place wouldn’t really be a viable option anymore.

Despite all the campaigning what I can’t seem to find anywhere is an explanation of just what counts as “fair votes”, though someone did suggest it was “when the one you are cheering for wins“. I’m not actually sure which system will allow for everyone’s vote to count any more than it does now – other than the electorate as a whole suddenly waking up and not voting tribally. As I don’t expect that to happen any time soon I think I’d rather leave things as they are, unless we can have a very thorough and open debate about the matter -with all the pro’s and con’s of the various systems explained after which a referendum can happen and the electorate will vote as tribally as ever for the system that most favours their party. Which in almost every case will mean goodbye small parties and independents. As an aside, what method do you use to choose a new method of voting, as inherent in the question is the assumption that the current method is broken so it would be perverse to use the broken method to choose the new method.

In the meantime all the various parliamentary reforms are at least uniting both labour and conservative bloggers in condemning the new “55% to dissolve parliament” rule that the ConDem coalition seems to be terribly eager to push through. As blogged elsewhere and vaguely commented upon myself it seems that without asking the country the ConDems are planning to fix the term of parliament at the maximum allowed of 5 years – rather than the more normal 4, and whilst leaving the vote of no confidence the same same introduce the 55% rule for actually changing our Parliament. So that’ll be 5 years of musical chairs as can you really see 55% of our honourable representatives ever voting to have to try to get re-elected again earlier than they have to? After all why risk all those lovely allowances and final pensions when with enough no-confidence votes you may get a chance to get a cushy ministers job without any danger of losing your seat.

What currently worries me most is that the public campaigns for “reform” will allow the new boys during their “can get away with more” phase, to push through some very unwelcome parliamentary reform and then “graciously” give in to public opinion and give us a choice between the status quo or some new system which makes the grip of the incumbents on the levers of power even stronger and harder to challenge. Campaigning for reform is a good thing(tm) and I’m quite heartened by people increasing interest in what our Parliament is doing and how it operates, but before throwing away hundreds of years of history it would be nice if someone stopped to thing about how the whole mess hangs together and then asked the public at large just how we’d like things to change. Rather than the far more likely, I fear, option of a headlong rush to “do something” pushing in an even less representative system that we’re then stuck with for several more generations. Oh and if they could spare some time from “looking” at electoral/parliamentary reform to sort out that rather huge deficit that none of them really seem to want to talk about – well that’d be nice.

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