Co-conspirators may remember a young Labour/Co-Operative MP earnestly presenting a 10-minute rule motion in 2015 which would scrap First Past the Post and introduce more proportional additional member voting (à la Scotland and Wales) for Westminster. His impassioned final cry: “I make a plea today for not just a proportional voting system, but a patriotic voting system, in which all parts of the country and all shades of opinion are treated equally and fairly”…
That was nowhere to be seen on Peston last night when Shadow Business and Trade Secretary Reynolds was asked about his views:
“Look, it’s a system that we have. I’ve lost elections under that system and I hope one day to experience winning elections under that system. The simple fact is – and I think it is to the credit of the Labour Party – that if you look at the constituencies up and down the country there is really only one political party that is competitive in all parts of the UK and that is the Labour Party because we have that, that gives us a chance to form the government.“
It’s fine now that they’re winning. If seats were fully proportionally decided according to the current polled vote share, Labour would only get 250 seats or so. A little over half what YouGov predicts for them under FPTP. Better keep schtum on that patriotism, then…
Speaking to Adam Boulton on Times Radio about kicking the Golders Green suspect, Heidi Alexander said:
“I thought that if I was in the shoes of that police officer, then if I’m honest, given the situation, and the fact that he had a backpack on his back, and they were worried about whether that might go off, I could, if I was a police officer, frankly, I could see myself having taken similar action.”