February 10, 2025

Changing our voting system can help embed new employment rights

Credit: TUC,

For the political junkies amongst you in the trade union movement who enjoy dissecting election results, you’ll have noticed how many of media outlets are now running stories telling us what Parliament would look like under proportional representation. Channel 4 has produced a great video report that explains how it would look and why. As it’s Heart Unions week, this …

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February 3, 2025

Meet the disruptors converting Parliament to fair elections

Credit: Nancy Platts,

The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Fair Elections launched with the backing of 100 cross-party MPs, including many on the Labour benches.  You can see the full list of supporters here. In marketing terms these are the innovators and the disruptors, challenging the status quo, building and refining the arguments to make the case for a better democracy. The …

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July 25, 2024

Andy Burnham discusses democracy with Zoe Williams

Polling Station
Credit: PFTM,

Over 200 people joined us online to hear Guardian columnist Zoe Williams in conversation Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester to talk about where next for our democracy. Here are my five takeaways: Andy referred to analysis by Sir John Curtice that said trust in politicians is at its lowest and as a result people are now looking at proportional …

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February 27, 2024

Is our democracy heading in the wrong direction?

Polling station
Credit: PFTM,

We’ll have a general election within the next year and elections for Councillors, mayors, Police and Crime Commissioners and the London Assembly, in May. With all this activity going on, it feels like democracy is in action, but over the last few years, there has been a raft of legislation that has changed the way our representatives are elected and …

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February 16, 2024

Three big opportunities that proportional representation offers for trade unions

Banner strike march in Norwich
Credit: Roger Blackwell , Flickr

A question we get asked a lot at Politics for the Many HQ is why proportional representation (PR) is good for trade unions. Heart Unions Week offers an opportunity to reflect on how our voting system has negatively impacted trade unionists and to embrace the opportunities that a fairer voting system might hold. The trade union movement has always led …

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February 13, 2024

This #HeartUnions Week, Make PR Your Love Language  

Heart Unions
Credit: PFTM, Midjourney

February is the month of love, and I’m sure everyone in the country will have two dates circled in their calendar, Valentines Day, and the much more important #HeartUnions week.   #HeartUnions is the TUC’s annual love-in, where our movement highlights all the good work we do. Unfortunately, this love is not shared across the political class as we saw with …

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November 29, 2023

Three more  reasons for the Tories’ election success

Polling Station
Credit: PFTM,

Most of those registered to vote do not want a Conservative Government, yet they keep getting elected! How does this happen? Democracy campaigner and author of The Tory Winning Machine, Adam Herriott, explores more reasons why this may be the case. Part two of a two-part blog Part one The Tory Party may be tearing itself apart at the moment, but …

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November 22, 2023

Why do the Tories keep being elected?

polling station
Credit: PFTM,

Most of those registered to vote do not want a Conservative Government, yet they keep getting elected! How does this happen? Democracy campaigner and author of The Tory Winning Machine, Adam Herriott, explores the reasons. Part one of a two-part blog The Conservative Party has always been the party of the rich and powerful. They operate to form governments that defend …

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September 20, 2023

Proportional representation draws a crowd at TUC 2023 in Liverpool

John McDonnell at TUC 4
Credit: PFTM,

The former Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell MP, addressed a packed room at our event to promote proportional representation at the TUC Congress in Liverpool. A growing number of unions are now backing a proportional voting system (PR) because they can see the current system isn’t working for working people. Most recently public service workers union Unison and shop workers union …

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