U.K. Conservatives Oppose Any Change to Voting System (FWD)

[DEMOREP1 at aol.com]

Hardly a big surprise from a long time indirect minority rule party---
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U.K. Conservatives Oppose Any Change to Voting System

Bournemouth, England, Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Britain's main opposition
Conservative Party said it will oppose any moves to change the country's
first-past-the-post voting system into proportional representation.   

Delegates at the party's annual conference said they reject any change and
backed a statement saying the present system best serves ``broad
proportionality, voter choice, stable government and constituency link.''     

The Labour government has commissioned a report on the issue, due at the end
of the month, from Lord Roy Jenkins, former Labour cabinet minister and later
of the old Social Democratic Party, now the minority opposition Liberal
Democrats.   

Today, the incoming chairman of the Conservative Party, Michael Ancram, said
the Jenkins Commission was ``rigged. Roy Jenkins has worked all his political
life to shift the political landscape, to tilt it towards a permanent center-
left alignment.''      

He said Jenkins wants a system ``which will always tend to produce hung
results and lead to coalitions so that political parties can then deliver the
center-left government which the voters will not. He can't trust the
electorate to do it for him, so he need to find a system which will.''      

Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he's not convinced of the merits of
proportional representation over the present system and has pledged that any
change would be subject to a referendum of British voters.  

08:21:56 10/08/1998