Labour may win big under first past the post, but it is morally obliged to bring in a fairer system | Polly Toynbee

Politicians. Morally obliged. Dream on.

Fat fucking chance.

It's not in the manifesto, which unfortunately means it certainly won't happen, moral or not.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Labour’s win would be well deserved, the most-trusted party earning votes to change the wretched state we’re in, with Starmer boasting an approval rating of +16 to Sunak’s -25.

Younger and newer MPs are keenest: Rachel Blake, likely to win Cities of London and Westminster, who I followed last week, is a typical pro-PR campaigner.

Keir Starmer has seemed in favour before, saying in 2020 that people “feel their vote doesn’t count”, but he wisely kept it out of the election campaign: the Tories would seize any chance to distract from the cost of living and the NHS.

The real coalitions enabled by PR oblige smaller parties to engage realistically with actual government, unlike Reform and the Greens’ tempting fantasy manifestos.

It was in Tony Blair’s manifesto; he commissioned but never enacted Roy Jenkins’s plan for reform, which remains a good blend of keeping MPs attached to constituencies while adding proportional balance.

Remember when the two-party pendulum swings, one day the opposition will thunder in and dash away your achievements: Sure Start’s protected funding was gone, Every Child Matters ripped out and tax credits shredded in 2010 by George Osborne.

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