"Barriers to entry" are a bête noire for anybody who supports free markets. Basically this means anything which stops a new competitor entering a market, which thus makes it easier for the current dominant companies to maintain a monopoly or more often oligopoly. Examples would be the difficulty of getting together skilled workers and managers in an area where neither are established or decades of government regulation effectively mandating designs and processes common to established players.
Douglas Carswell correctly takes a stand that the lack of such barriers has been very beneficial to the supermarket industry and the Lidl & Aldi's entrance has been possible and beneficial because of it.
I took the money quote from his remarks and built a comment about the oligopoly of Westminster politics and their reliance on the corrupt first past the post electoral system:
neilcraig
"After years of faux competition, the customer is starting to see some real bargains. And it makes us realise quite what a cartel we've had all these years.
It's not just supermarkets, either. It’s much the same with energy providers and retail banks. Cliques of providers provide on their, not necessarily the punters, terms.
Part of the problem is that the barriers to entry are high. It's hard to start a supermarket, retail bank or energy company from scratch"
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Yes but the most outrageous and damaging cartel is in Westminster.
The first past the post electoral system is a massively high barrier to entry, deliberately maintained by the ruling cartel. Which is why Cameron would clearly much prefer the next government be a Labour one, wholly within the cartel, on 30% of the vote, than a deal between UKIP & the Tories, with 55%.
If it is useful that we get a choice in supermarkets it is vital that we get one in who runs the country. I simply do not think any democrat can disagree. Our current electoral system is obviously and undeniably corrupt.
Note that the entire argument of politicians of all parties that the "energy producers" rather than them depends on their being such an oligopoly there (their comparatively low profit margins say there isn't or at least they don't use such power) caused by a "market failure" (the reduction in power suppliers is because of government pressure and the prevention of new nuclear players entering is because of a government veto) and that barriers to entry are a bad thing (correct).
Except they enthusiastically support such barriers in Westminster, even implying that supporting electoral reform is unpatriotic.
I could also have mentioned how the state broadcasting monopoly, or at least the way it is used in despite of the legal requirement that it be balanced, to censor dissent is equally destructive but I believe I have made that point before.
Labels: British politics, PR, Rise of modern fascism
In today's Scotsman
I just heard David Cameron explaining why he opposed a referendum on Lords reform while supporting referendums on London and other places having mayors. The mayoral referendums were because locally entrenched politicians were against them and a referendum was to get past them and find the people's wishes. Whereas for Lords reform the entrenched powers in all 3 parties are in favour of some cosmetic reform.
Mr Cameron appeared to be unaware that he was thus riding 2 horses in opposite directions. This commitment to democratic sovereignty, but not when it is your own entrenched interests, is typical of our political class.
Reforming the Lords is as major a constitutional change as we have seen since women got the vote.
If this is not something on which the people's wishes are to be made known Britain is not a democracy.
We should settle this by referendum.
But it should not be the sort of referendum we had on voting reform where the most popular option, true Proportional representation, was deliberately kept off the ballot because the Tories knew it would easily win.
We need a proper multi-option. run off. referendum under which we, the people, get to decide whether we want a fully elected PR chamber, or, as currently, a fully appointed one, some mixture of the 2 or something else. No decision from which the people are deliberately excluded will get any lasting respect and Parlimenmtarians are already not overly burdened with popular regard as it is.
The letter was published as written except for reformatting of the paragraphs and 2 words. I am keeping the Scotsman edition because i think the edited version the better one.
Daniel Hannan has an article on the subject as well where he comes us with
this constitutional support
the greatest constitutional theorist of the day, AV Dicey, who described referendums as 'the best, if not the only possible, check upon ill-considered alterations in the fundamental institutions of the country'.
..... a difference, as Dicey put it, 'between laws which are not fundamental and constitutional and laws which are.'
I will later give my ideas for how to reform our second chamber. There is no chance of the Commons MPs alone producing this since what they want is the appearance of a second chamber able to keep some separation of powers but that the reality be that it all rests with them, or, since the Commons is fairly toothless, with their Downing Street master. This, in particular, is why they will oppose PR in the Lords. Though it would look like a reasonable compromise the inevitable result is that the Lords would acquire more democratic legitimacy than the Commons & thus actually have some power.
Labels: British politics, letters, PR
If the Conservatives refuse to agree to a credible offer of PR do the LDs have a serious other option. An incredible one would be one that requires a commission & then takes a long time to go through Parliament & might be wrecked by Tories "ignoring" a whip. Norman Tebbit says no & that the Conservatives should just set up a minority government & dare the LDs to bring them down. Here is an alternative.
Labour & LDs set up their own minority government under Miliband or Johnston, Brown having been removed. Labour would have to go for PR instantly & give the LDs a lot of seats in Cabinet. Such an arrangement would not have a Parliamentary majority but only
315 votes, enough to beat the Conservatives but 11 short of a majority. However the SDLP in Ireland would almost certainly support it & most of the other parties, which tend to consider themselves of the "left" & all of which support a democratised electoral system would not vote against it immediately. Such a government could certainly take office.
It would, however, have no overall majority & would be likely to fail to pass some legislation. Nobody would expect it to last long.
Here is the clever bit - the Labs & Libs could make a deal whereby, until PR was in place, if the government fell & a new election was needed they would fight on a single list. In each constituency the party which had previously placed first would stand & the other stand down asking its voters to support their government partner. Both would also have to be able to instantly deselect any of their own mem,bers who voted against the government - particularly over PR. They would also promise that within a certain period - say 6 months - of PR being introduced they would go to the polls again. Theoretically this would mean in a new election the before PR "alliance" would get 52% of the vote &
according to electoral calculus, a 266 seat majority. In practice they might well do rather better since, with the knowledge that a new election would be introduced after PR, they might well gain votes from other PR supporting parties (some of whom like UKIP might not field candidates & endorse the PR alliance) & fairminded Conservatives.
When PR was introduced the friendships established & general discrediting of the Conservatives would make it likely these 2 would get about 52% in the following election & remain the dominant force in UK politics.
I would like to make it clear I do not want this outcome. I would much prefer the Conservatives, a few of whom are competent, to Labour, none of whom are. However I do think proportional representation to be a vital reform to make our political system democratic, accountable to the electors, with low barriers to entry to new parties & ideas, relatively uncorrupt & to end the divisive effect of the south of England being apparently all Conservative (because they get about 40% in each constituency) & the north & Scotland apparently Labour (because they win with 40% in each constituency). Thus PR should be a deal breaker for the LDs. It should be the only deal breaker because if they are sen as having destroyed the most stable possible coalition in favour of an openly discredited Labour they would be punished at the polls. If the Conservatives refuse it or are clearly dealing dishonourably the LDs should take their toys across the street. I don't think Cameron, whatever his faults, is dealing dishonourably but I prefer him not to have the opportunity to.
The point for all to remember is that the people's will is sovereign & that though they may channel it they have no right to override it. Everybody keeping that in mind will emerge with popular credit. Everybody who doesn't will always have to fear popular revenge.
Labels: British politics, PR
I
recently wrote on how the Conservatives had refused a UKIP offer to stand down, disband & support the Conservatives in return for a promise (this time we really mean it) of an EU referendum.
The Conservatives said any mention of a deal had been rejected "straight away".
We offered that if we got a clear, written promise with an agreed wording for a referendum on whether we stayed in or left the European Union... then we would stand down for the general election, providing we had this absolutely clearly in writing.
"And then when we had the referendum - which we believed we would win - we would then be out of the European Union and then at that point UKIP, well it would have been up to UKIP, but it would probably have disbanded
I am very glad that offer was not accepted, partly because it would merely have been a "cast iron" written promise by somebody who is clearly pro-EU & partly because I believe UKIP has gone beyond being a single issue lobby & at the election produced
by far the best manifesto which appeals to any libertarian or traditional liberal.
David Cameron must be sick at the opportunity lost.
EU Referendum is compiling a list of (currently) 34 seats where the UKIP or occasionally UKIP & BNP vote exceeds the majority by which the Conservatives were beaten. In 16 of them the UKIP vote is more than twice the winner's majority so in these cases we can say with certainty the Conservatives lost because of refusing this offer. With those & few of the others they would certainly have had a majority.
On such hasty decisions the destinies of nations turn.
This is an interesting example of the "butterfly's wing" effect of
Chaos Theory. No single act by any individual brought us here but it depends on a whole series of acts by all parties, some aiming for this but most not.
The Conservatives cannot now, having entered negotiations with the LDs, to allow them to fail in any way which will not be seen as the LD's fault. Moist specifically they cannot allow them to fail on the issue of whether the electors be allowed a referendum on PR. If they did a lot of their electors would desert them in the subsequent, fairly immediate, election. To do so would be to swing as large a proportion of their vote away as they lost to UKIP.
Equally the LDs have to ensure the negotiation doesn't fail on any other point. The electorate would then correctly conclude that the LDs, far from being moderates between the 2 parties, are simply an irreconcilable adjunct to Labour committed to protest but not power. They would lose half their votes to the Tories in the subsequent election & be wiped out.
This is a moment that is going to change our entire political culture. More than that even.
If PR is seen to be an improvement here & I am confident that though not a miracle cure it will,
it is likely that the other countries in the Anglosphere will take notice. In particular in the USA where the Tea Party movement is struggling
under the same outdated system (though their primaries system alleviates some of the problem) an electoral system that doesn't entrench 2 sclerotic parties against the people's wishes will be seen as worthwhile.Link to a blog some time ago which I wrote, primarily for the American audience, explaining PRLabels: British politics, PR
