British election, again

More on the remarks here. I have replied to an e-mail as follows:

Of course I care who governs the country. I believe that, not 'proportional representation', but some sort of alternate or transferable vote is the way forward. The Labour manifesto talks of reviewing the experience of the new electoral systems, says 'A referendum remains the right way to agree any change for Westminster.' and leaves it at that ( Comments here ) .  I have e-mailed my MP about this.

Birmingham Edgbaston (which I mentioned previously in my weblog) was not actually a very good example, but Burton is certainly interesting. The vote for the Tory actually went down a little, but if the UKIP/Veritas/ BNP vote had all switched to the Tories (an assumption which could certainly be challenged) and the increase in the LibDem vote had gone back to Labour, in spite of Iraq,etc. (which is even more open to doubt), the Conservative would have been within 0.9% (about 425 votes) of winning.

Nevertheless, I feel this would have been a fairer system.

Regarding Peter Riddell's comments, personally I would like both a positive outcome in the European constitution referendum and for Tony Blair to stay on as long as possible. To beat Mrs Thatcher's record he would need to stay on another 3 years 5 months. As I pointed out at the very beginning, there are precedents in other countries for him staying right up to the next election. But I don't think either of those is going to happen.