Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Owen Jones argues that UK Labour needs to make far more effort to connect with working-class citizens in order to hold off the populist right, while Jamelle Bouie examines Jesse Jackson's presidential campaigns as a worthwhile model for uniting groups of disaffected voters. And Wolfgang Munchau comments on the failure of neoliberal politicians to acknowledge and reverse how financial elites have twisted the global economy for their own benefit.

- Meanwhile, Miles Corak points out that a cycle of poverty is particularly acute for boys born into lower-income families.

- Jason Beattie discusses how UK attacks on recipients of social benefits are costing more money than the clawed-back benefit amounts, while creating desperate needs for people wrongly targeted.

- Gloria Galloway reports on the Auditor-General's findings that Canada's federal government is routinely failing to set or meet appropriate standards in assessing program effectiveness.

- Finally, Ed Broadbent discusses how a proportional electoral system would prevent the likes of Donald Trump from taking absolute power with a minority of support:

Consider that under our current first-past-the-post system, successive Harper and Trudeau governments have rolled to majorities with the support of fewer than four in 10 voters.

Consider that a leading Conservative leadership candidate, Kellie Leitch, has hailed the Trump victory as an exciting message that must be delivered here, as she continues to peddle her “Canadian values” mantra to the party faithful.

And consider that Van Jones, a leading CNN analyst and former Barack Obama adviser, warned at a Broadbent Institute gala this past week that a Trump-like victory could happen here. Mr. Jones urged progressives to push back with an “army of love.”

That army should be carrying PR as its weapon of choice.

 ...
We’ll leave our American friends to sort out their electoral-college concerns, but the question for Canadians is whether a PR system could block a Trump here.

The answer is yes, because PR rewards voters with a fair outcome. A party that wins 40 per cent of the vote will win only about 40 per cent of the seats, not a majority. A party winning 30 per cent will be rewarded with 30 per cent of the seats, and so on.

...

If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is serious about having voters vote their values and have that reflected in the composition of the House of Commons – and delivering on a key and oft-repeated campaign promise – the most important thing he can do is support proportional representation.

Or we could wait until an unfair system allows a Trump-style government to gain a toehold in our backyard.