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Hounslow Liberal Democrats |
New way to vote
May 4, 2000 12:00 AM
By Cllr Ray Fincher, Liberal Democrat Group Leader in Feltham Chronicle/Hounslow Chronicle
By Cllr Ray Fincher, Liberal Democrat Group Leader in Feltham Chronicle/Hounslow Chronicle
Today, Thursday, May 4, is a special day.
Yes, folks it is your chance to vote for a Mayor of London and members of the Greater London Assembly. For the mayor we can have a first choice vote and a second choice. This gives us all a better chance to influence the result, given that we have 11 candidates. What has peeved me over the last couple of weeks, though, is the suggestion in some quarters that the public will find it impossible to cope with this change from our normal first-past-the-post voting system.
While I think this arrogant attitude is misplaced, it is true, as with so many of this Government's reforms, they are half-baked and end with a hybrid system that no one is completely satisfied with. For the assembly we then have two single votes, one for the local assembly members and then a vote for the party list of our choice.
As a Liberal Democrat I do sincerely hope that we citizens vote in large numbers in the election and, of course, as you would expect I hope that Susan Kramer and Geoff Pope succeed and that our party top-up list is well supported, but it is important that any result is given credibility by a high turnout at the polls. The national debate on education continues to provide doubts on the success of Labour's progress in the area of reducing class sizes in secondary schools.
The most recent figures indicate that we now have the highest average class size since the Tories were elected in 1979. There are 7,000 fewer teachers in the secondary sector than when Margaret Thatcher left Downing Street. The number of temporary teachers has jumped by 18 per cent since last year and is 64 per cent higher than in 1985.
Setting 8,000 individual targets for teachers is itself a nightmare. Measured thinking, not buck-passing is needed here.
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