CITY GRUMP

Today my Editor has produced for us all, as we would expect, a superbly argued piece for retaining our age-old voting system at Elections, often known as First Past the Post (FPTP). In my last City Grump I argued for the opposite, meaning Proportional Representation (PR). Here is an attempt to put flesh on the bones of the PR case:  

I admit, in a week when the French version of PR produced, shall we say, a colourful political result, I have my work cut out but here goes… 

Ever since any of us can remember, FPTP has produced a two-party system and many regard this as bringing a welcome stability to our Island as either Tweedle Dum or Tweedle Dee will carry things forward for us. I suggest this fact of life has produced a stultifying, mediocre crew of no-nothing MP careerists.

Parliamentary candidates have long worked out that if they are to succeed in getting to Westminster, there is absolutely no point in first getting a job in the real world, far better instead to dive straight into the political gene pool and start swimming for the Labour or Conservative shore. It is an inescapable fact that the vast majority of our current MPs have little or no experience of the world outside the political bubble. On Thursday 4^th July this reached its apotheosis with the election of a 22 year old, Sam Carling as an MP, following just 2 years as a councillor in Cambridge. 

I would argue that none of the above is likely to happen under PR as those outside the 2-Party stranglehold are motivated to stand for Parliament because they have had experience of the world outside SW1 and want to bring about real change, as opposed to being the usual lobby fodder for Messrs Dum and Dee. 

It has been suggested that FPTP has been important in producing accountability because each MP represents a specific constituency and he/she therefore must be attuned to local issues in order to be re-elected. I suggest this often results in the benighted MP spending more and more time being something of a social worker and less and less time actively participating in the national debate.

Surely, it would be far better if more power was devolved to District Councillors to deal with local issues, otherwise what is the point of having these Councillors? This is, of course, why so many Councillors are keen to escape and become an MP a la Mr Carling. 

Perhaps the most powerful argument for persisting with FPTP is as it always produces a single party in charge, which means the winning party can get on with its agenda without having to constantly worry about coalition collapse. But what meaningful, dynamic agenda has the Conservative Party produced in the last 14 years? What meaningful dynamic agenda did the now-in-charge Labour Party produce in its Manifesto?

Instead Starmer carried around a Ming vase. 

In summary, I suggest FPTP produces a cosy Establishment stitch-up. Of this there can be no better example than what happened during the most important long term event of the last Parliament, Covid. What did Her Majesty’s Opposition do during those years? Starmer & Co simply urged the Government to go further and faster. It never fulfilled its duty of Opposition ,which is to question Government policy and hold it to account.

Two cheeks of the same soggy FPTP bottom. 

The City Grump has spent some 40 years in the City of London. He started as a stockbroker’s analyst but after some years he decided he was too grumpy to continue with the sell side of things so he moved to the buy side and became a fund manager for the next 20 years, selling his own business in the 1990s. Post the millennium, he found himself in turn chairing a stockbroker, a financial PR company, and an Exchange. He still keeps his hand in, chairing a brace of VCTs and investing personally in start-ups. The City Grump’s publications are available here.