‘Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’
Winston Churchill
Electoral reform is once again rearing its head in the United Kingdom with 98 Labour MPs, including some ministers, having signed an amendment calling for a national commission to prepare proposals for electoral reform. Unsurprisingly, their talk is about some form of proportional representation, and The Times comment article on Friday 28th August warned of the historic pitfalls in this area.
But there are three shortcomings in democracy which are much bigger than proportional representation. These are short-termism, its heavy bias towards generational unfairness, and the parochial national limitations which deny any prospect of global oversight.
So, this week we'll gather together some thoughts on how to crack these chronic problems. Of course, no-one wants to see democracy being displaced by autocracy; we have enough examples of autocratic failure to bring us firmly into line with Winston Churchill's quotation at the start of this commentary.
But there are really serious challenges as a result of these three shortcomings, particularly because humanity's influence over its future has grown at an exponential pace. Two thousand years ago we were told not to care for tomorrow because tomorrow would look after itself; today we are changing everything for our descendants.
If Andy Burnham really wants to re-wire democracy, please start with these big issues.
Short-termism ought to be the easiest of these three challenges to resolve. If the second chamber (currently the House of Lords) was elected on the basis of how people want to see the country in fifty years’ time, it would provide a strong oversight for legislation passed by the short-term executive government of the day. However, it's extraordinary how resistant senior figures in the House of Commons are to any alternative, democratically-elected chamber, even if it had such a different constitutional perspective.
The issue of generational unfairness is a much harder nut to crack, because the ratio of old people to young is steadily increasing. Also, because old people are more likely to vote than young people, democratic government is heavily biased towards looking after the interests of these senior citizens.
Lord Jim O'Neill ranks abolition of the ‘triple lock’ on pension increases at the top of his list for action, but the fact that he has chosen not to accept any formal government roles, either as minister or advisor, suggests that he thinks even this will be an uphill battle.
It would, of course, be possible to increase the voting power of young people in order to give them more influence: but that would mean moving away from the cherished ‘one person, one vote’ mantra. Personally, I have no problem with a degree of vote-weighting: another area where it could be merited is to grant some additional voting power to people who volunteer for the greater good of society, for example in working for registered charities.
The logic for more voting power for the young is that they have many more decades ahead of them; the weighting could be set in decade ranges, so that an extra 25% could be applied for their first voting decade rising to an extra 50% for the next two decades, then reducing to 25% extra for between the age of 50 and retirement. It would therefore recognise the blend of experience and opportunity ahead, as it flexes across these ages.
The third of democracy’s shortcomings, the almost total absence of global oversight, is by far the most challenging. The United Nations has been with us for the past eight decades, but it is little more than a talking shop after all this time. We can't even arrange for our own UN representatives to be elected, rather than being appointed by the national government of the day.
However, all the world's biggest problems are global in nature. Climate change is ravaging communities across the world, most recently in Nepal and Tibet, and there's much worse to come in the years ahead. Wealth polarisation is acute, and the tech revolution is driving its extremes even further. Meanwhile, geopolitical stress and conflict is confronting nations with ever greater challenges.
How do our politicians react? Certainly not by promoting a transformation to global oversight in order to reflect the importance of world opinion. Indeed, there's been more focus in the United Kingdom in becoming more, not less, parochial, with proposals for increasing the extent of devolved government across the country.
Even those areas which have sought additional convergence, such as the European Union, have placed their emphasis on economic and diplomatic cooperation within their own borders; the elected European Parliament has little executive power, and there has been little interest in building a global dimension which would benefit the whole of humanity.
Other opportunities to build global convergence could develop through trans-national bodies such as the Commonwealth or BRICS, but at present the focus remains on preserving national interests, not in seeking global democratic oversight.
In summary, the proposals we’re putting forward for electoral reform should therefore tackle these three challenges:
1. A second chamber should be set up to be elected on the basis of how people wish to see both our nation (i.e. the United Kingdom) and the world in fifty years’ time;
2. We should introduce a system of moving from ‘one person, one vote’ to a voting allocation weighted by age, thereby increasing the influence of young and working people; and
3. We should develop a clear strategy for moving to a system of global democratic oversight in order to tackle the major challenges of climate change, wealth polarisation and international conflict.
It's time to see the wood for the trees; the latter involves tinkering with different methods of proportional representation, while the former looks to a better world for all by the time our grandchildren reach retirement — and all without resorting to autocracy.
Gavin Oldham OBE
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