Questions? Ask Vernon
Day 2 of the campaign is drawing to a close and I’m pleased to say that we’ve already stirred up lots of debate.
On Friday, Professor Vernon Bogdanor – a long-term advocate of Open Primaries – will be blogging here. He’ll be answering questions raised so far – about why open primaries are a good idea, about what they mean for political parties, and about how they might work.
Vernon Bogdanor is professor of government at Oxford University. He is a constitutional expert and has written extensively on reform issues, including open primaries.
If you’ve got questions for Vernon, please leave them in the comments at the bottom of this post. I’ll be gathering them together to send to Professor Bogdanor on Thursday morning.
1Kevin Mowbray
wrote on 20 October 2009 at 17:30
Primaries sound good but I have a doubt, if in the general apathy of politics people are not moved to vote for anybody other than the major parties, why are they going to energise themselves to think about who they would vote for in a Primary. People tend to complain about politicians but they do not find out enough about the non aligned candidates to know who to vote for. Independents only ever get elected for niche reasons (aka Martin Bell).
2David Weber
wrote on 21 October 2009 at 14:02
Might I ask Mr. Bogdanor what he thinks about:
a) The potential for Open Primaries to vastly lengthen and increase the expense of the electoral process, and the potential for this to make life more difficult for minority parties, independents and candidates from disadvantaged circumstances;
b) The potential for Open Primaries to increase the problems surrounding campaign funding, many of which are evident from the US system?
c) The potential for Open Primaries to lead to a further entrenched two-party system, where the largest parties become the easiest option for those seeking to enter politics, to the detriment of pluralism and diversity; and the smaller parties find it impossible to compete, having insufficient candidates to make primaries feasible?
Yours respectfully,
David Weber
3Nick
wrote on 21 October 2009 at 17:27
And to follow on from the questions in number 2, who should pay for running the primaries themselves? If you think the parties themselves should pay it, can you explain where they’ll each get the £20m+ needed to pay for them. If you think it should be a governmental or council responsibility, do they pay for all parties to get free advertising through the primary system, or just the big ones, thus compounding the problems you’re complaining about?
4Matthew Huntbach
wrote on 22 October 2009 at 23:30
At the moment I give a lot of my time and money to a political party. I do it because I believe in what that political party stands for, and my being a member of it means I can help it develop in the way I want.
So why should I bother if what you want happens? I put my time and money into building something up, you want the state to come and smash it up by telling me ANYONE can be forced on my party by ANY group of voters who wants to, and they can steal the resources and good will I have built up and use it to promote themselves instead?
What you are calling for is the destruction of true democracy. You are fools if you can’t see that. You are in effect telling me the state has a right to come and steal what I have built up through my time and money and use it to campaign for the election of someone who may not believe in anything I believe in.
Why can’t you instead campaign for an election system like STV which means everyone can stand under their own colours and there’s no “you must vote for party X to avoid splitting the vote and let party Y in”?
Everything you really want, unless secretly you are enemies of democracy who want to destroy it, is given by the STV voting system. Please, please, please, please, see the stupidity of your proposals and instead campaign for real democracy not the theft and smashing up of feree association of open primaries.
5Becky
wrote on 23 October 2009 at 15:02
@Matthew Huntbach
Your comment came too late to put to Professor Bogdanor, but I’d like to address it myself.
A lot of people – the majority of citizens in this country – are not members of political parties. This might be because of apathy, but more likely, as the POWER inquiry highlighted, it’s because the two major parties in this country do not reflect their own political views and aspirations. And yet these people still give a lot of their time, through volunteering, through charity work, through single-issue campaigns, to their community. And they give an awful lot of their money (through taxes) towards the governance and welfare of this country.
Why should *they* bother, if they have hardly any say over the democratic process? We are not trying to destroy democracy – we are trying to make it more representative.
I’m personally supportive of a more representative electoral system than first past the post, but how long have people been pushing for this and how far, realistically, have they got? Open primaries would not require any legislative change. Moreover, open primaries would open up politics, and get more people involved in the electoral process – there’s a strong likelihood that this would re-invigorate political parties, and give a stronger voice to more structural reforms of the electoral system.
6Nick
wrote on 23 October 2009 at 18:18
So because you and others can’t be bothered to get involved in political parties – and the only barrier to getting involved in one of the existing parties, or starting a new one, is your own apathy – they should be forced to alter the way they operate to please you?
And if you’re saying ‘Open primaries would not require any legislative change’ then you’re saying that the parties themselves should fund them – so how do you suggest they pay for them?
there’s a strong likelihood that this would re-invigorate political parties
Why? How? Just saying something doesn’t make it true.