The Popular Vote?

We have gotten an Obama at 10 Downing Street. It is a new generation of pragmatics. They break youth records in office. David Cameron is the youngest in Britain since 1812. Despite the clear differences the two parties Tories and Liberal Democrats are supposed to be able to rule Britannica for her own best as if they did not have quite different approaches to that goal in their election manifestos. The Liberal Democrats are considered to the left of Labour. Der Spiegel gives a tart comment that the longevities of hung parliament govenments are measured in months rather than years.

So which election system is the better? The Westminster or proportional. The Liberal Democrats have complained that they have 23% of the popular vote but less than 10% of the seats. It is well known that change, ie, new parties on the scene, is difficult with this system. In Sweden however, it went in the other direction. The large dominant party was taken down by an Alliance which led to a two-block system reminiscent of the Westminster type.

No one talks about the fact that the two ideologially similar parties did have a majority of 51% in the popular vote. The people did vote for this type of ideology. After all, the Liberal Democrats were born out of the Labour Party in 1981 and fused with the then Social Democrats. The Tories and Liberal Democrats are as night and day on the EU politics, for example. So the elites won this time. Some commentators in Sweden are usually against the elites and for the common man but not this time. The Third Way party of Blair and Brown seemed to have done its thing.

The editorial in the Times of London today voice the nice thing about a new government forming. The old one giving room for the new, as if this was a surprise. "The old tribe being replaced by two new ones". The article was called Britain's New Politics. Cameron talked about a Big Society which did not quite catch on so he tried "quiet efficiency" instead. My problem with quiet efficiency is that it might work reasonably in heaven but becomes hell a few ladders down. It is a little too quiet, I guess?

One main occupation for the masters of quiet efficiency is apparently to listen attentively to the so called Markets. They worry about this in Sweden too. Because when a debate was up on the fidelity of MPs votes along the party line the PM said things got to run smoothly to placate the Markets and keep the bond rates down. The people in Geece know this first hand by now. They are forced by the EU to go through a revolution because the machines have declared that they can't use regular mechanisms to modernize.

Markets are probably a good thing though. People take good care to distribute money where it is useful. I do find it a little worrisome however that the elites, singing the song of the Markets, don't listen to the wisdom of the people and its popular vote.