Post in Request: What issue would you like to hold a public discussion about?

Apr 30 08:11 UTC

I would certainly like to see some work on proportional representation and
how the current voting system is disenfranchising people.  I live in a
strong Labour ward so unless you vote Labour your vote counts for nothing.
Equally, if I lived in Withdean ditto with the Tories and probably the same
for the Greens in North Laine and St Peters.

While I agree with Joyce that proportional representation is not a panacea,
the current voting system cannot be helping engaging more people with local
politics.  On a moral level it also seems much fairer that greater account
is taken of people's views when deciding the political makeup of the
Council, rather than those views being swept aside because they are not in
the majority as thrown up by the current voting system, which actually only
relates to a very small proportion of the local population in any case.

People also often talk about devolving power down to a local level and this
is often bandied around as the cure of all ills for local democracy but I
would like some dicussion around this as I don't necessarily agree.  There
are some issues, environmental pollution being one of them, where devolving
unfettered power down to a local level could be a disaster.  So whatever
happens there are going to have to be some guidelines or restraints on
devolved power which will be seen by some as undermining the power of local
people to determine their own destiny.

Chris Todd