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| Nato fails to secure Russian help Nato's secretary general fails to gain any commitment from Russia to help win the war against the Taliban insurgency. news.bbc.co.uk |
US Calls Explosion on Airplane 'Attempted Act of Terrorism' The United States is increasing security for air travel across the country after a Nigerian man set off a small explosion aboard a flight bound for the U.S. city of Detroit. White House officials are calling it "an attempted act of terrorism." www1.voanews.com |
Hospitals forced to cancel operations amid snow chaos Hospitals are being forced to cancel operations amid snow chaos that has seen roads blocked, public transport severely affected and schools shut down in Britain's longest cold snap since 1981. telegraph.co.uk |
Teams Work to Get Clean Water to Earthquake Survivors International aid teams working to alleviate problem, which is familiar to those with experience in disaster zones www1.voanews.com |
In the fight for Labour's soul, this is the day of reckoning | Polly Toynbee Will it be the old tribalists or the dynamic pluralists who carry the day? Electoral reform reaches into the party's very bowelsAlitmus test awaits the cabinet when it meets tomorrow. Will it push through the amendment to set a referendum day Âbeyond the next election for Âintroducing the alternative vote? It's a stand-up-and-be-counted moment, a test of character and intent for any would-be leader of the Labour party.To hold a referendum on the alternative vote (AV) is an exceedingly modest reform: it gives voters the choice of listing their votes in 1, 2, 3 order instead of putting a simple X. It gives a little more chance to smaller parties when supporters can vote Green or Ukip, knowing that if their first choice fails, their vote is transferred to a second-choice backstop to keep out their most detested main party. It won't be for this election, but for the future – opening the door a crack to pluralism and choice. For us old campaigners for proportional representation, who want to make the number of seats more fairly reflect the votes cast, AV is a poor substitute – but still far better than nothing. It eases the two-party stranglehold from which voters will be even more alienated after the unappealing Cameron/Brown contest.Last October Gordon Brown lobbed into his conference speech a promise to put a referendum on AV into the manifesto. Frankly, it looked odd coming from the chief roadblock to reform, who with John Prescott, Jack Straw, Nick Brown and other reactionary old tribalists stopped Tony Blair's brief flirtation with PR and Paddy Ashdown. But reformers gladly welcomed his surprise conversion to this modicum of change. The boldest cabinet reformers – Alan Johnson, Ben Bradshaw, John Denham, Tessa Jowell and Peter Hain – succeeded in accelerating the plan: the cabinet agreed to pass a law before the election, paving the way for a referendum after it.This sends out a strong friendly signal to the Liberal Democrats. If the Conservatives win, they would have to repeal the bill to stop a referendum – embarrassing and probably impossible to get through the Lords. The cabinet appeared to agree, and Gordon Brown summed up that they had agreed: this would expose the Tories as anti-reform and anti-choice for voters.Ed Balls, children's secretary, and Jim Murphy, Scotland secretary, raised objections: leave it for the manifesto, as this would distract from issues of more immediate concern to voters. Reformers should have been alerted by the silence from some fierce opponents – notably the chief whip, Nick Brown. They set about stirring up their supporters in the party and bending Gordon Brown's ear: usually the whip's job is to push through cabinet decisions, not to undermine them. Newsnight's Michael Crick blogs that Balls had a private word with the prime minister, which he vigorously denies – but many private words pass between the PM and his chief man.Balls is angry that the Vote for a Change campaign will this week parade trucks through his constituency bearing big posters with his face and the slogan" "Don't be a Block'Ed. Ed Balls talks change but doesn't want you deciding how he gets his job – Demand a fairer voting system." The trucks will be called off if Balls urges the cabinet to put the AV amendment tomorrow – the last day to get it into the constitution reform bill.Jack Straw presented the case to the parliamentary Labour party – some say with vigour, others say in a Strawish see-how-the-wind-blows kind of way. At that meeting those who spoke were half against and half for. Nick Brown claims that shows that legislation on a referendum would split the party: his people reckon they can chase it back into a meaningless manifesto promise.Their claim that there is not enough time to get the law through parliament is resoundingly refuted by its supporters and the Lib Dems. But it can only get through if cabinet ministers fight to push it hard, right now. When I asked, other cabinet members sounded suspiciously vague: yes, they definitely support the principle – but "not sure now is the time", "leave it to the manifesto" and so on. But if not now, never. Get real: tomorrow's Guardian poll tells the same story as for months: Labour is 11 points behind. What goes in the manifesto may never happen.This issue reaches into the bowels of the Labour party, divided between its worst old characteristics and its best hopes for the future. Electoral reform is vigorously promoted by the only dynamic thinking parts of the party – the Fabians, Compass, Left Foot Forward and Progress. The old Nick Brown faction doesn't run on ideas, it operates machine politics on the Charlie Whelan dark side, with trade union fixers who fought the internal wars of attrition to put their man into No 10.Embracing pluralism would show Labour casting off its worst aspect, willing to break up the moribund swing between the old duopoly. Full PR means no more safe seats, no more wasted votes in Old Sarum-style rotten boroughs. AV means the small risk of losing some seats, but gaining others. In the PLP those who fear losing out are mainly northern and Scottish MPs, or those – like the Islington South MP, Emily Thornberry – with a bad Lib Dem council. Narrow calculation of local self-interest is always most vociferous – but the big picture holds no fears for Labour.The cabinet was persuaded by private polling that showed the Lib Dem second choice vote would split 2:1 in Labour's favour. That should have been the clincher – though no one wants to make the principled case for reform seem nothing more than a desperate act of a losing party. Despite the distorting mirror of its rightwing press, this country has always had an essentially social democratic majority, split for historic reasons between Labour and the Lib Dems: Margaret Thatcher never had a majority. On the ground Labour and Lib Dems fight in elections like rats in a sack: in real life both parties are a motley coalition each with its rats and each with people who would gladly agree across the party divide on a raft of good policies. Tribal wars on the centre-left let Tories win for most of the last century: Labour preferred losing to electoral reform.No doubt the Tories will pretend the AV amendment is a gerrymander – but a referendum leaves it to the people to decide. Cameron plots a monstrous gerrymander with no referendum, cutting 10% of MPs – which just happen to be mainly Labour seats. In the short time before May, Labour can still do one important thing – let people choose a fairer voting system.Electoral reformProportional representationLabourLabour party leadershipGeneral election 2010ConservativesPolly Toynbeeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |