55. The strange case of London’s mayoral voting system
This odd change to first-past-the-post gives less opportunity for voters to express difference and nuance – negating a key part of Solution Focused working, managing and leading.
The next Mayor of London will be elected on Thursday 2 May 2024. This isn’t remarkable in itself – lots of big cities have elected mayors, although this is a relatively new feature of the UK’s political landscape. What will make this election remarkable is that, bizarrely, it will happen with a different voting system that is more unfair than that used previously. This is not very widely understood, even here in the UK. I’d like to tell the story, show how voting systems that allow difference are fairer, and connect this to Solution Focused work.
A brief history of the elected London Mayor
It’s not unusual for big cities to have elected Mayors to act as chief executives and focal points for city-wide activities. New York has had such a mayor since before Independence, Paris since 1975. However, in the UK the de facto city leader was the leader of the local authority, emerging from a council election, rather than directly elected. In London the relevant authority was the Greater London Council (GLC, 1965-1986) which brought together representatives from London’s 32 boroughs, which ran things like schools, social services, waste collection and roads in their area. In addition there was (and still is) the Lord Mayor Of London, a ceremonial post in the City of London (the financial district) going back many centuries with no political role. Think Dick Whittington.
The last GLC leader was ‘Red Ken’ Livingstone, socialist and leader of the Labour group. He and his colleagues were highly opposed to the Conservative policies of Margaret Thatcher, prime minister at the time, and used to rile the Tories by (for example) displaying London’s jobless figures on the roof of their offices which happened to be exactly across the Thames from the Westminster parliament. Livingstone was very popular in London, promoting reduced public transport fares, embracing nuclear disarmament and supporting anti-apartheid campaigners in South Africa. Thatcher had had enough and, in 1986, simply abolished the GLC, leaving London as the only European capital without a directly elected body. The boroughs were left to organise as best they could, without a co-ordinating body to run strategic services affecting them all.
Fast forward a decade. The incoming Labour government of Tony Blair was committed to introducing a new cross-city London Assembly and with it a directly elected Mayor. The first election took place in 2000 and the winner, to some surprise, was… Ken Livingstone! Running as an independent, he beat the official Conservative and Labour candidates and everyone else. Gaining 58% of first and second preference votes, he opened his acceptance speech with "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted 14 years ago...". He went on to serve two four-year terms and was succeeded by Boris Johnson (then acting as a Conservative liberal internationalist, before he hooked up with the Brexiteers) and then Sadiq Khan (Labour), the current incumbent. There are no term limits for this post, and Khan is seeking a third four-year term. A full list of candidates is on the BBC website.
An aside – the elected Mayor role has been generally seen as a good development, and there are now ‘Metro Mayors’ elected in big urban areas (for example West Midlands, Manchester, Liverpool, Teesside etc) where there are several local authorities. They are elected under the same voting system as the London Mayor. These Mayors are seen as figureheads and have considerable ‘soft power’ to bring people together and get things done. I wrote about this ‘convening power’ on Host Leadership some time ago.
Voting systems for Mayors
You may have noticed that Ken Livingstone was elected London Mayor in 2000 with 58% of first and second preference votes. This system is how it had happened up to this point; voters could register a first and second preference vote which allowed everyone to say who they’d really like as Mayor on the first round and then who they’d accept from the main runners with the second. This kind of system is not uncommon and seems to work quite well; it means that the final winner will usually have majority support, more than 50% having indicated approval. The Paris Mayoral elections achieve the same end by have two or three rounds of voting with lesser candidates being eliminated.
Change to make the system more unfair
There are several different voting systems in the UK. The first-past-the-post (FPTP) system has been used for hundred of years to elect members of the Westminster (UK) parliament. The advantage of this is said to be that it’s simple to understand and delivers a clear result. The downside is that the winner (with the most votes) can have 30% or even less of support, the remaining votes for the other candidates being ignored. Later elections such as the Scottish parliament and also local elections have tended to use different systems with multiple voting to enable a more representative final result.
The extraordinary thing is that, for the first time, an existing electoral system is being changed to be more unfair. The Conservative’s Elections Act (2022) lays down that Mayoral election will henceforth by by the FPTP system, not the preference system. That means that the winner will inevitably have less support, and that any votes for other than the two main parties are effectively wasted. If you want to vote Green, or Liberal Democrat, or even Reform UK, your vote will not count towards the winner. The difference, the nuance, the variation in voter views, are all rendered irrelevant with this new system.
How was this decided? By the national UK government. Did they consult the Mayors? No. Did they consult the London Assembly? No. Did they do it to help voters express their views better? No. They did it because it would help their own party increase their chances. Most of the serious other candidates (and there are a few less-than-serious ones, including Count Binface) are left of centre, and their supporters would tend to vote Labour on the second preference. Now, there is no chance of this, the winning post will have fewer votes, and the Conservatives stand more chance. It’s a shocking and alarming development which most people are unaware of even with the elections a few weeks away. When the act was being debated there was a hoo-hah over a new requirement to produce photo ID in order to vote (a sledgehammer cure to a non-existent voter fraud problem) which drew attention away from the other changes being proposed.
The importance of difference
First-past-the-post voting is an all-or-nothing event. It’s one or the other; there is no room for difference. A vote for X is worth the same whether the voter is totally committed or rather unsure. Solution Focused (SF) work, on the other hand, is all about avoiding this kind of hard either-or thinking and helping people express their personal views in terms where nuance, degrees and uncertainty are positively catered for and encouraged.
Life generally doesn’t work on an either/or basis. There’s a common misconception that someone is (for example) either depressed or not – you’re ill until cured. Actually, there are all kinds of shades, not only of grey but of many hues. Examining the differences, and in particular the positive differences about when things are better, is key in working SF.
One simple example of recognising and using difference is the ways we used scales, typically from 1-10, where 10 is the future we’d like and 1 is the opposite. Where are you right now? (There are all sorts of possible answers to this, not only 3, 4 and so on but also 3.5, “sometimes 4 and sometimes 7” and many other variations. And then we move on to explore how come it’s that and not lower, what is helping, when are times when you are higher up the scale, and so on. It’s all about encouraging people to express themselves honestly and personally. I will return to this topic soon with a specific application around performance appraisal and management.
Any facilitator will be familiar with the various ways of deciding things in groups. I’ve used various methods in the past; multi-voting (where people have as many votes as they want to support topics for discussion), sticky dot voting (where everyone gets say 10 sticky dots and can use them to indicate levels of support for different options), small group discussions to converge on an answer, and even going with both-and multiple routes rather than just one either-or final answer.
FPTP does exactly the opposite. Either/or, one or the other, no chance for any shading, subtlety or variation. Not even a chance to see what the other people are doing. There is no chance to express one’s true views or direction. We are forced to choose between the two leading candidates or effectively set our vote aside to make a point of principle (say by voting Green) rather than play an active role in choosing a city leader.
Conclusion
This change to the mayoral voting system is a thoroughly retrograde step. I am not sure what is more extraordinary – taking a step back to FPTP or the fact that the people affected didn’t get a say in it. I hope that if Labour win the forthcoming general election (as is expected) they will treat this as a priority issue for the next Mayoral elections in 2028, along with a fairer voting system for the UK Parliament.
Dates and mates
The new edition of The Solutions Focus will be out on 9 May 2024! Subtitles Transforming Change for Coaches, Leaders and Consultants, it’s the first update for 18 years. We’ve added lots of new cases from around the world as well as the latest updates to working with SF in organisational (and indeed any other) environments. Now available for pre-order:
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Solutions-Focus-3rd-Transforming-consultants/dp/1399816527/
Amazon USA: https://www.amazon.com/Solutions-Focus-3rd-Transforming-consultants/dp/1399816527/
There will be a Host Leadership Gathering in Australia later in the year! 17th September 2024 in Sydney, 12 noon - 4pm. Save the date. Organiser Jason Pascoe says:
“Prepare for an impactful event—the inaugural Australian Host Leadership Gathering is on the horizon! Immerse yourself in the metaphor and model of Host Leadership with us as we navigate leading in complexity with enhanced engagement, inclusivity, and effectiveness. This event is a must for those dedicated to reimagining leadership and fostering environments that nurture development, innovation, and community.”
Scan the QR code above or go to https://s.pointerpro.com/hostaust2024_1 to register for more information as it’s released.
Some form of PR is essential for both fairer elections and better government.