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I know I have a laugh sometimes at some of the strange inhabitants of the Tory backbenches (and even some on the frontbench), and Lord knows they’re a tonic, but there is a serious question as to how they get elected. How does Mark Francois or Des Swayne or Daniel Kawczynski.../1
make it to the House of Commons? FPTP post plays a role sure. But, and Lord Sumption spoke about this in his Reith lectures, I think the small membership numbers in the two major political parties and the lack of open primaries to pick candidates in a big part of it. /2
The memberships being small are more likely to take stronger, more partisan, and less representative views. They are more likely to pick candidates that reflect these views. The public is then in FPTP often left with a who’s the least worst of two rather extreme characters. /3
And in some constituencies that will automatically be Labour and in other automatically Tory. And that’s how you get to where we are. So, if we are to keep FPTP (and I don’t think we should), we would need parties with larger more representative memberships or open primaries. /4
And, btw, I’m sure there are terrible MPs from other parties too. I don’t tend to notice them (maybe my own biases or their just not as obviously bad). /END
A lot of typos there. Bad ones too.
