It's going to be 2014 and we still have FPTP

In 2013 we have witnessed spectacular technological breakthroughs as a planet, with artificial intelligence with greater intelligence, smart watches, the XBox One, and the Japanese have even  managed to teleport a particle from point A to point B; but back at home manage to cling onto exceeding ancient realms. One of those is the voting system for general elections - the First Past The Post.

Frankly, how can anyone wake up in the morning with such a disastrously unrepresentative voting system? It's a serious issue that has to be dealt with, especially in a epoch when Britain is entering a crampy interval of five party politics, including Ukip and the LibLabConSNP - which will soon be four with the bump off of the Liberal Democrats. And ultimately we are in very colourful interval in British politics with LabCon only achieving 67% of the vote in 2010, the SNP has an overall majority in Scotland, Ukip's successes in various European and local elections and the different range of political parties dominating Northern Ireland.

I've never found sense in pointing out the flaws of FPTP to MPs because, simply, they know the flaws only too well. You want a scandal? There's a massive one right under our noses crippling any opposition to the two main parties, establishing 'safe seats' where party bosses can cherry pick their whipped candidates and the apparent victories of candidates with an, often extreme, minority of their constituents' vote - 66.6% to be precise. 

The AV referendum was a very cunning distraction to an exceedingly serious debate but few are ever going to be at peace until we have a proportional system that has MPs representing constituents. A lead campaign tactic seemed to be the fortunes of extremist parties under reform. It was not understood that in the eyes of democracy there is no such thing as a political party which must be excluded from the political process; and besides, it was unlikely to see any extremes under AV. 

FPTP's golden monkey has always been that it continually assembles strong, stable government, however that has no longer been the case  and that case seems more and more inane as both failed old parties lose voters to others, particularly Ukip. There is the Single Transferable Vote which is relatively proportional AND provides strong, stable government, like is seen in Northern Ireland and New Zealand. All that will solve this democratic deficit is a grassroots movement thoughout the country, because this set of MPs have absolutely nothing to offer which would make real change.

Let's enter 2014 with our eyes open.