Calls for electoral reform at Tenbury hustings (From Ludlow Advertiser)

Calls for electoral reform at Tenbury hustings

8:00am Friday 30th April 2010

• Print
• Email
• Share

AN electoral system in which the party coming third in the popular vote can win the General Election and form a Government was described as “potty” at a hustings in Tenbury.

Candidates from five political parties took part in Sunday’s public meeting at St Mary’s Church.

Richard Burt, the Liberal Democrat candidate for West Worcestershire, which includes Tenbury, described the 2010 General Election as potential transformation.

“I believe there is an opportunity for real change and this election will mark the death knell of the ‘first past the post’ system,” he said.

But his Conservative opponent, Harriett Baldwin, was against any change in how MPs are elected.

She was the only candidate who wanted to retain the status quo because she believes that a voting system based on proportional representation gives too much power to minority parties.

She told an audience of nearly 100 people that a parliament in which no party had an overall majority would be damaging.

Penny Barber, the Labour hopeful, said that her party was offering a broad range of changes including a referendum on the voting system and the replacement of the present House of Lords with an elected second chamber.

“We will also look at the possibility of reducing the voting age to 18 and whether MPs should have a second job,” she said.

She also called for “imaginative”

ways of encouraging more people to vote including the possibility of people who cast a ballot being entered in a lottery draw.

Caroline Bovey, for the UK Independence Party, told the meeting the major threat is what she described as the transfer of power from Westminster to Brussels.

The UKIP candidate asked questioners what they would do with a £2,000 hand-out – the figure she claims membership of the European Union costs every person in this country every year.

Malcolm Victory, for the Green Party, also demanded change to a system that he claims is unfair to smaller parties, including his own.

He called upon parties to pay more attention to environmental issues, such as a need to replace fossil fuels with sustainable energy.

• Print
• Email
• Share