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Point of Departure? The Blake Report on Electoral Reform

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Geoffrey K. Roberts
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Extract

THE OUTCOME OF THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1974, WITH the multi-party Parliaments which resulted and the disproportionate relationship of seats to votes in the case of the Liberal Party, has revived interest in the question of electoral reform. The progress made since the Kilbrandon Report on the Constitution towards the creation of Scottish and Welsh Assemblies has emphasized the need to consider whether the existing method of electing parliamentary representatives should be used for these new legislatures, or, indeed, for the Westminster Parliament. Decisions to move towards direct elections for the European Parliament, eventually under some generally uniform system for all the member-states of the Community, have strengthened the case for a close examination of the suitability of retaining the British system of single-member seats won by the relative-majority system of ‘first past the post’.

Type
Original Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1977 , pp. 42 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1977

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References

1 The Report of the Hansard Society Commission on Electoral Reform, The Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government, London, 1976, p. xiii (hereafter referred to as ‘The Blake Report’).

2 The Blake Report, p. 4.

3 Newland, Robert A., Only Half a Democracy, Electoral Reform Society, London, 1972, p. 19 Google Scholar.

4 The Sunday Times, 13 June 1976, suggested using proportional representation for Scotland and Europe, and The Economist, 3 July 1976, proposed turning the House of Lords into a federalist vetoing forum elected by proportional representation as a first step.

5 See especially Finer, S. E., ed., Adversary Politics and Electoral Reform, Anthony Wigram, London, 1975 Google Scholar.

6 For example by Finer and other contributors in Finer, op. cit.

7 See, for example, the letter to The Times from Charles Morrison, MP, 18 June 1976.

8 The Blake Report, p. 31.

9 ibid., p. 25; see also p. 2 of the report: ‘An important function of a democratic system lies in the representation of minority views’.

10 See, for example, The Blake Report, pp. 25—6, 37.

11 See I. Crewe, ‘Electoral Reform and the Local MP’ in Finer, op. cit., pp. 317—42.

12 Ranncy, Austin, Pathways to Parliament, Macmillan, London, 1965 Google Scholar.

13 The Blake Report, p. 18.

14 ibid., p. 17.

15 Butt, Ronald, ‘Electoral Reform: the Case Against’ in The Sunday Times, 13 06 1976 Google Scholar.

16 La Rochefoucauld, , Maxims, Penguin, London, 1959, p. 65 Google Scholar.

17 ‘Through the Back Door?’, The Economist, 3 July 1976.

18 E. g. in Newland, op. cit., and the Appendix in Finer, op. cit., pp. 363—6.

19 Newland, op. cit., p. 17.

20 For details, see The Blake Report, pp. 37—40.

21 ibid., p. 38.

22 Calculations are based upon the regional results given in Butler, David and Kavanagh, Dennis, The Brtish General Election of October 1974, Macmillan, London, 1975, p. 296 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; definitions of regions may vary somewhat in The Blake Report.

23 For details of the West German system and a discussion of West German experience of its operation, see G. K. Roberts, ‘The Federal Republic of Germany’ in Finer, op. cit., pp. 203—22.

24 These criticisms of the West German system are to be found in Lakeman, Enid, ‘Some Forms of Proportional Representation’ in Representation (Journal of the Electoral Reform Society), vol. 16, no. 62, 01 1976, p. 7 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 See The Blake Report, p. 32.

26 See Wilson, D. J., Power and Party Bureaucracy in Britain, Saxon House, London, 1974 Google Scholar.

27 As proposed in the Guardian, 10 June 1976.

28 The Blake Report, pp. 17—19.