Interesting times in politics indeed! As anyone reading my No 10 Seminar Paper of 1998 (apparently seen by David Miliband himself – hope he read it!) would know, I am a keen supporter of electoral reform leading to genuine proportional representation. But I find myself torn on the political and possibly the moral implications of the various options. I think, however, there is an underlying reality that will guide what will happen.
Unless either the Tories or Labour offer a whipped vote on a referendum for a genuine PR system (not AV alone), there will be no PR. No PR now means no PR for the foreseeable future, and the Lib Dems might as well disband. So basically the only thing that makes sense is for them to go with the party offering this. That’s the reality, and the Lib-Dem MPs must know it.
Opponents of PR should realise that it is actually the lack of PR that is causing the problem here. For the Lib-Dems it is an existential issue of political representation and so trumps all others. If PR were already in place, the Lib-Dems and Tories could probably fairly happily reach a compromise agreement on the economy and support the Tories either on a minimum agreed programme or measure by measure for everything else.