Yet More Great PR For PR

This posting everyday lark is taking its toll on me. Last night I was having dreams about the Tory leadership campaign. That's not good. So I'll try to keep it short today.

Yesterday I watched Nigel Farage on LBC and he was yet again discussing proportional representation. I've posted on here before regarding the problem I have with that - Will The Brexit Party Be The Harbinger Of PR?

I may as well use this image again.

(The unholy alliance)

I don't mind the alternative vote method. In fact, I voted in favour of it back in the 2011 referendum. (Come to think of it, I may have to read up on all that to refresh my thoughts on the topic. My views have changed on many things since then.) However, proportional representation is a system for losers and part-timers in my opinion. Breaking the bond between individual politician and the local area they represent.

What attracts people to PR is that it's easy. Under the current system it's hard to get a single seat, and it requires a hell of a lot of effort for smaller parties to do so. Often over a period of several election cycles. With PR you just turn up and get a slice of the action. If you do well then great, you may get 20 seats. If you do badly then no worries, you'll still probably get 5 or 10.

I'm hugely pleased that the Brexit Party are doing so well at the moment. However, you can't hide the fact that PR is appealing to Farage because it would offer a quick and easy route into parliament. I'm sorry, but as much as I support the Brexit Party you still have to do the leg work locally. At the recent EU elections we had the situation where we voted in the Brexit Party's Brian Monteith, who lives in the south of France, to represent the north-east of England. The is acceptable in the name of Brexit as a protest vote, but it's obviously not ideal in the name of democratic representation going forward.

The Brexit Party has some excellent candidates, but no doubt some are just chancers riding the Brexit wave. Only time will tell how much this is or isn't the case. Though I take issue with most of our current mainstream party MPs, it's still nevertheless true that most do put the hours in. One of the few upsides of career politicians I guess.

Providing a Brexit bulwark against EU incursions into our sovereignty is essential, but it's not great if it comes at the expensive of obliterating all our local constituencies in the rush for PR. It's like putting up your arm to defend your face only to get punched in the stomach.

Sometimes it feels like British democracy and its values are under attack from all sides. The onward march of the EU. Scottish independence - which seems to define itself purely in opposition to Britain. The intractable issues in Northern Ireland. The intrusion of the courts into realms which should be the domain of the public, and now the push to PR.

I often wonder if all this will lead to the rise of some kind of English phoenix.