Current mood:	aggravated
Entry tags:	politics

There are fevered speculations in the media now that Brown has proffered his resignation. Are we heading for a coalition with Labour? Charlotte Gore is already throwing the vitriol, despite the fact that this doesn't really alter the fact that a coalition with Labour wouldn't outnumber the Tories, and we'd have to hold ourselves to ransom to the nats as well, AND that if you trust Labour to deliver on a promise you're bloody stupid, AND that they don't really have a credible leadership candidate to put up even if we DID coalesce with them...

No, there are too many issues with a putative coalition with Labour. Why would we want to shackle ourselves to their death throes? I still think coalition with the Tories is the only game in town. Brown resigning might be an offer to us from the Labour party, but it doesn't mean we're stupid enough to accept it, and it doesn't mean that we will automatically stop talking to the Tories. It gives us additional leverage to play them off against each other, though... And this brings us back to STV.

I really, truly, genuinely think that fair voting is the cornerstone of Liberalism. Freedom to elect one's own government is a pre-requisite of a liberal democracy. I don't understand people who think that Lib Dems advocate STV because of self-interest: that's like saying cheese advocates milk out of self interest. You can't have cheese without milk, and you can't have a Liberal Democracy in which the vast majority of people's votes don't make a difference. Yes, STV may well mean the death of the party in the medium term. This doesn't matter. The people of this country having fair elections matters.

Similarly, I recognise that shackling ourselves to the Tories will lose us members and votes. If we get STV, it's worth it. If we don't get STV, it's not. This is not because I think electoral reform will benefit anyone in the political sphere: it won't. It will benefit the people of this country.

STV is not a panacea. But it is the petri dish in which a panacea can be developed. If we go into coalition with either of the other two who are wooing us without insisting on it, then frankly, we deserve to implode.