Dr Alan Renwick, author of A Citizen’s Guide to Electoral Reform and lecturer at the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Reading , is in much demand as we lead up to the national referendum on the UK electoral system, which will be held in just over a month’s time.
On Wednesday morning, Dr Renwick took part in a live radio experiment on BBC Radio 5 live, in which Victoria Derbyshire hosted a mock election in the constituency of Brentford and Iselworth in Middlesex. Politicians from six parties – the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, UKIP, Green and the BNP – competed for the votes of an audience of Radio 5 listeners who got the chance to vote twice: once using the First Past The Post system, and again using the Alternative Vote. Interestingly, the same candidate won in both cases (Labour’s Ruth Cadbury, who secured 49% of the vote), but the two-hour long programme was a great way to put the two systems to the test and provoke in-depth, and sometimes heated, discussion on the subject. Our author, Dr Renwick, took pride of place as the Chief Returning Officer, using his thorough knowledge of electoral systems to elucidate the whole process. The programme is really worth a listen, and is available to stream on iPlayer, here.
Not that Dr Renwick’s credentials were ever in doubt, but this review by Adrian Blau, Lecturer in Governance at Manchester University, of a number of books on electoral systems confirms what we at Biteback already knew: that Alan’s book is ‘excellent’. Blau recommends A Citizen’s Guide to Electoral Reform because Renwick ‘says what we know and what we don’t know – after all, some of the evidence is inconclusive – and he doesn’t overstate the strengths or weaknesses of either system’. For Blau, Renwick’s book is ideal for readers who want a careful, but easily comprehensible, analysis of electoral systems.
If you are just such a reader, click here to order your copy of A Citizen’s Guide to Electoral Reform, priced just £9.99