Briefings
LCER provides briefings and background material on electoral reform for MPs, Conference delegates, LCER members and the media. Here is a list of what is available - either to download from this website; or on request from LCER (send a SAE).
- Analysis of 2004 LCER Supporter Questionnaire - 'Cook-Maclennan Mark II: What should we do to reconnect People and Politics?'
- Analysis of The Cook-Maclennan Agreement, Eight Years On - comparing Robin Cook's position with the views of LCER supporters
- Co-op News Articles on the case for electoral reform in the co-operative movement - written by LCER Exec member Vic Parks. Copies available from LCER.
- Making Votes Count by Martin Linton MP and Mary Southcott, with a foreword by Robin Cook MP (Profile Books).
Media
Press Releases
It’s Democracy, Stupid - three good reasons for electoral reform in the third term. Click here for a copy of the release.
Also, see the MakeMyVoteCount newsdesk briefingsKeeping Reform on the Agenda
If you read a piece about electoral reform and the Labour party, or hear someone mention the topic on the radio, do send us a copy of the cutting or email us with details of the broadcast. If there is a local or other phone in, join in. If you write a letter to your local paper, tell us or send us a copy, even if it isn’t published. There will be opportunities at public meetings during the election campaign. Go along and if you can, especially if your Labour candidate is an electoral reformer, raise the issue. In this way you can contribute to keeping the issue on the agenda, despite the Lib Dem decision not to major on electoral reform, and we can discover which journalists/commentators are taking an interest.
Recent Media Coverage
Johann Hari, regular columnist in The Independent and political blogger, has written several pieces in support of electoral reform.
In the first, appearing on 14 January 2005, he argues that “on public services and poverty, Tony Blair is being as benign as he can while acting as a rational power-seeking figure within a daft electoral system. Blair’s government is talking right but acting left.” Hari continues: “so my suggestion is that all progressives and lefties should … go and visit their local school and hospital and see how they are improving. Oh, and join the Make Votes Count campaign to reform the dumb electoral system that ensures our potential Prime Ministers only ever address the deadest chunk of the dead centre”.A month later, on 9 February, Hari picks up the same theme. He conjures up the wonderful image of “a flotilla of icebergs in Britain waiting to destroy any politician who tries to steer the country towards the left”. The first iceberg, according to Hari, “is our voting system. The votes of ordinary Labour supporters - the beneficiaries of Labour's redistributive policies - don't count under our system. They simply pile up in safe Labour seats. The vote of a single mum on a grim estate is currently worth a tiny fraction of the vote of a lawn-mowing Middle England mum in Basildon. That's why you'll hear nothing about those policies from Blair's lips”. Hari ends his column with the rallying cry that “we need to smash the icebergs that force any Labour leader to sail to the right”. Amen to that!
In December, The House Magazine published a ‘dialogue’ on electoral reform for the Commons between LCER Chair Anne Campbell and the Labour MP for Clydesdale and FPTP-er Jimmy Hood. The end result was a useful forum for the pro-reform arguments to be aired concisely and effectively, as well as a good example of the clash of political cultures between the two sides. The exchange, which appeared in 6 December 2004 edition, is available is reproduced here with The House Magazine’s kind permission.