Note this is a cross post from IrishElection.com where I’ve been posting a lot lately. There is quite a busy discussion going on over there also on the same piece.

This post stems from a discussion in the comments section under ‘All politics is local’. We were comparing and contrasting the UK and Irish systems in terms of how rooted politicians must be within their local constituencies. I think there is significant difference between the two jurisdictions, to some degree due to FPTP (First Past The Post) but also due to population sizes.

The system in UK will often see ‘heavy hitters’ or party favourites being positioned within safe seat constituencies to be assured of election. This can mean that Ministers for example are relatively free to concentrate on national matters, whilst a local party machine gets on with the ground work. The constituency being either red or blue (or sometimes yellow) is more or less taken for granted as a loyal stronghold in any event.

Similarly party HQs (Lab and Cons) will often operate a list system, where aspirants are on a waiting list, and are then slotted into various constituencies as seats become available. The link between ‘home turf’ of the constituency and the representatives is far more tenous than here. Whilst there are cases like the Prime Minister himself, who is a passionate and proud son of his Kirkcaldy constituency, his predecessor Blair had never set foot in Sedgefieldprior to the by-election. Also, due to the sheer size of parliament and the country, by elections come up so often that these more mobile candidates seldom have to wait too long to find a suitable opening. In fact, in the UK system, what is sometimes done is that new candidates will be ‘blooded’ in a ‘no hope’ constituency where a seat of the opposite colour comes up, before been given a real crack at a safe seat of their own. Tony Blair was ran in a Tory stronghold (Beaconsfield), purely for campaign experience before being allowed a proper go of it in the Labour seat of Sedgefield. What this does mean in practice is that the party convention is the real election rather than the public vote.

In Ireland opportunties really only come up, once every couple of years, if even, with Council being a ususal prerequisite for a Dáil run, and whilst ocassionaly parachute celebrities feature, generally the candidate will be rooted very deeply within that particular geographic area before even being considered a viable runner. The idea of party favourites flitting from one constituency to the next would be unlikely to work well within the Irish electoral context. The likes of Mary Lou or even Joe Higgins demonstrate that some mobility is possible around the Dublin (or possibly Cork) city constituencies but it is still unlikely to succeed outside those large urban centres. Within the Irish system, the situation remains that having a large local network cemented around a particular area remains the formula for electoral success.

Interestingly both jurisdictions, despite the different approaches and voting methods (FPTP and PR), have produced similar results. The parties all end up chasing the middle, that all important and much sought after floating voters of the centre ground. In the UK with so many seats a foregone conclusion in either direction, the real battle is after the handful of centre lying ’swing’ constituencies. Whilst in Ireland despite a widely differing system, in the form or porportinoal representation, the centre ground is also chased to attract those all important transfers. Then in the US we end up with RINOs and ModDems (alignments within the parties almost closer to the opposite side). Maybe the perfect electoral system is still a work in progress.