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30 April 2010

Boris highlights Tory contradiction on electoral reform

Cameron cannot claim that FPTP always produces a decisive result and warn a hung parliament is possi

By George Eaton

It’s worth reading Boris Johnson’s interview with the Telegraph today, particularly for the passage in which he suggests that he may be open to supporting electoral reform.

Discussing a recent debate with Alan Johnson on proportional representation, he remarks:

Although my side won the debate and I was listening to the arguments, I have to accept that there are arguments that are difficult to despatch very easily. There is an unfairness in the current system. The advantage of first-past-the-post is that it delivers a decisive result. But that very virtue may be disproved. If it turns out that we wanted to kick them out and we didn’t, that is a big argument against FPTP.

Boris has recognised a key contradiction in David Cameron’s approach to electoral reform. On the one hand, the Tory leader consistently claims that first-past-the-post always produces a decisive result. On the other, he spent much of this week warning of the risk of a hung parliament. These two propositions are not mutually compatible.

Should Cameron wish to make a credible case against electoral reform, he’d better start thinking of some new arguments.

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