James was responding to Zoe Williams in the Guardian (well worth a read), who rightly highlights the negative societal impact of companies paying their employees wildly differing amounts – sky-high executive salaries at one end of the spectrum, and sub-living wages at the other that  have to be topped up by complex and costly welfare spending.

Of late there has been a great deal of coverage of extremely high pay, and bank bonus season will undoubtedly keep said payments firmly under the microscope. Rather less has been made of the payment of wages that aren’t sufficient to attain a decent living standard, and the illogical system of meagre compensatory handouts it necessitates.

So the question again is: if we want to see fair wages at the low end of the spectrum, what’s the best mechanism? Exhorting companies to ‘play fair’ (also known as tilting at windmills in some circles…)? Making the tax system more favourable to low earners? Giving employees a greater say in how companies are run? Legislating for a living wage?

In reality of course it’ll take a mix of the above, and possibly other measures, to secure fair wages for all – how do you, the esteemed LDV reader, think the Liberal Democrats should approach fair pay?

Here’s a sample:

Nowhere are the flaws of political appointment more apparent than in the Liberal Democrat party in the House of Lords. Not only are Lib Dem peers handpicked by their leader (in theory, the leader is restricted in his choice; the reality is somewhat different), they are self-selecting. You are either the sort of person who is eminently comfortable with being given a seat for life in the legislature without any democratic mandate, or you find it abhorrent.

The latter tend not to invest the time and energy required in finding favour from the leader of the day while the former can be all too readily identified by anyone who has ever sat on an internal party committee.

With a system of appointment, engineering a parliamentary party that is gender-balanced and broadly reflects the ethnic and socio-economic mix of the country as a whole ought to be simplicity itself. The fact that the majority of peers continue to be middle-class men of a certain age and background should tell you all you need to know about the nature of patronage.

By their very nature then, peers predominantly either come from the establishment or seek to be a part of it. This is usually good news for a party leader seeking loyalty on the red benches but now we see that this loyalty comes with strings attached. For too long we have gone along with the system while blithely assuming that our own peers will vote for their own abolition when the time comes. Now we learn that is unlikely to be the case.

You can read James’s whole piece over on Comment Is Free here.

Katie Ghose has served for 5 years as Director of the British Institute of Human Rights, a national charity with a mission to bring rights to life for everyone in the UK. A public affairs specialist and barrister with a background in human rights law and immigration, she served as a Commissioner on the Independent Asylum Commission from 2006-2008, where she helped to conduct the biggest ever indepedent review of the UK asylum system. She has worked in campaigns for several third sector organisations including Age UK (then Age Concern England ), where she was the Campaigns & Parliamentary Manager and Citizens Advice. Katie has delivered lectures, seminars and courses on campaigns and public affairs the UK for a range of charities, public bodies and lawyers.

On being appointed Katie Ghose said:

I join the Society at an exciting time. The coming referendum will be the first time the British people have had the opportunity to decide how they elect the politicians who speak in their name.

The year ahead will see a real national debate on the system that defines our politics. I look forward to working with the Society’s members, supporters, staff, trustees and all members of the ‘Yes campaign’ to deliver an historic victory for political reform and for British voters.

The “yes” campaign for the AV referendum is due to launch in the next fortnight:

The campaign to ditch Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system in favour of the Alternative Vote will be “fun,” its organisers have promised.

James Graham, of Unlock Democracy, ruled out “angry” protests and “dirty tricks” in the push for a change to AV…

A number of organisations, including Unlock Democracy and the Electoral Reform Society, have been campaigning for years to scrap Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system but they will be coming together to form a new body to campaign for a change to AV.

Mr Graham denied they will be in danger of tripping over each other, saying they had been meeting regularly since the election and “so far it has been quite coherent”.

He said the Yes to AV campaign was also keen to counter the impression that it will be a Liberal Democrat “front” organisation – stressing it will be a cross-party, non-partisan organisation and not run out of the Lib Dems’ Cowley Street headquarters as some bloggers have claimed. (BBC)

The “yes” campaign will not, however, be using Yes2AV.org.

That the government is embarking on a programme of deep cuts is not in question; but nobody seems to be able to explain what it is all for. The coalition can’t explain because, frankly, the coalition can’t agree. That’s why the government’s “vision” has been dominated by empty flannel such as the “big society”, which can somehow mean both liberalism and an aggressive full-frontal assault on the state at the same time.

Clegg’s speech about social mobility last week was welcome, but it was largely notable for what was not in it. … Ultimately, social mobility cannot be bought at the cost of increasing relative poverty – the greatest single cause of social immobility we have. …

Clegg needs to find the confidence to articulate the differences and resist the temptation to restrict himself to areas where he agrees with Cameron. To prevent the coalition from collapsing from its own internal contradictions, both parties need to start being much more frank with the public and each other on where they disagree.

You can read James’s article in full here.

His underlying point is a good one – the coalition isn’t a single-issue coalition which is about AV and nothing else. And, as James Graham points out, the Electoral Reform Society isn’t a sort of glorified from of the Liberal Democrats either.

However, Nick Clegg does make the point at some length in the interview – “The Liberal Democrats aren’t a sort of glorified form of the Electoral Reform Society”, “I wouldn’t have stood for the leadership of the Lib Dems if I thought the only sole purpose in life was to change the electoral system”, “I think there are other things which this coalition is seeking to achieve” and so on.

Each of those comments in itself is unexceptional. Added together, they leave me hoping that when the full interview is broadcast it also has rather more about the positive benefits of electoral reform. After all, not only is that one of the main reasons many activists have for being committed Liberal Democrats but also the coalition agreement includes a guarantee, regardless of the AV referendum, of proportional representation for an elected Upper House.

Media coverage of the interview so far includes the BBC and The Guardian. Iain has also covered another part of the interview on The Voice earlier today.

James co-founded the Lib Dems’ Social Liberal Forum, and has in the past advocated closer relations between the party and Labour as a progressive force to take on the Conservatives, so he is by no means a natural cheerleader for the Lib/Con Coalition, as his blog-post makes clear.

It’s his take on Labour’s misfiring oppositional tactics, though, which I think are well worth highlighting here:

My fears that Labour would end up getting trapped into a mindset of “what’s bad for the coalition is good for us” have proven to be well founded, and it is an infection which has spread across the board, even among some relatively sensible types. A perfect example is AV. Leaving aside the rather tedious row about boundary changes (which, aside from some of the legitimate social justice issues at stake, amounts to two parties with a rather inflated sense of entitlement arguing about which party should be given the greatest unfair advantage), the idea that losing the AV referendum will damage the coalition is quite mistaken. It will certainly damage the Liberal Democrats, but we’ll have nowhere to go. Our only recourse will be batten down the hatches, refocus on Lords reform and a handful of other reforms, and hope for the best. It will be the Tory right that will hold all the cards, not Labour. The idea that suddenly we’ll decide to pull out of the coalition and meet our doom in an early general election is pure fantasy.

By contrast, what better way to undermine the Clegg-Cameron love in than for Labour to champion AV, and win? The Tory right will be damaged, Labour will come out smelling of roses and the Lib Dems’ influence within the coalition will increase. For many Tories, that will be simply unscionable. An unruly Tory backbench will make Lib-Lab cooperation in Parliament far easier. This is the prize Labour have within their grasp; yet they are so obsessed with ‘betrayal’ they simply can’t see it. I can only look on in despair.

It’s an article which should give thoughtful Labour members, who believe in pluralism and progressive politics – and I’d still like to believe they are in the majority – some pause for thought.

Every time a Labour politician uses the word “gerrymandering” a puppy dies. … Gerrymandering is the act of deliberately fixing a boundary in order to give a political party an unfair advantage. Yet the proposed changes will not to lead to any more political interference in the boundary review process. …

One of the main effects of the new bill is to base constituency boundaries on electorate size, rather than population size. The review is to be completed before the 2011 census will have even been published. There is nothing new about the phenomenon of “electoral deserts” – another problem that Labour took no action over in 13 years – but the effect of this proposal will be to formally deny the existence of millions of people within the electoral process. Constituency MPs with large unregistered populations will end up with disproportionately large caseloads; just because you aren’t on the electoral register, it doesn’t mean you don’t still have housing problems or nuisance neighbours. Indeed, since electoral deserts tend to go hand-in-hand with social problems, those (mostly urban) MPs will be hit by a double whammy.

The way the coalition is planning to mitigate this is by redoubling government efforts on electoral registration, but thus far no concrete plan on how they intend to do this has emerged. … So there are genuine social justice problems that need to be ironed out of this legislation. Unfortunately, by focusing on the false gerrymandering charge, Jack Straw puts party self-interest above the public good and only ensures that the debate in parliament becomes more heated.

You can read James’s article in full here.

What can I say about this result? I’m bereft. It isn’t even a result so awful that the Lib Dems could sit by the sidelines and let everyone else sort out the mess the country is in. That, at least, would be easy. In fact, just to make things even more galling, we seem to have actually increased our share of the vote to a level that we would have been delighted with a month ago. What a cruel result. …

It’s been a heavy blow and yet the party only has a few hours to recover before the thorny talks to decide who will be sitting in Downing Street must begin. Some difficult decisions will have to be taken this weekend; what the outcome will be is anybody’s guess.

You can read his article in full, especially his thoughts on the youth vote and the Lib Dems, here.

There are only two things I am certain of in this election. First, every vote for the Liberal Democrats is not just a vote for more Lib Dem MPs, but will strengthen Nick Clegg’s negotiating position. The time for tactical voting has passed: it is time to vote positively for a fairer, grown-up form of politics.

Second, not only will Nick Clegg drive a hard bargain in the case of a hung parliament, but his party will hold him to it. With strong leadership, the notorious Lib Dem “triple lock” won’t slow down the process; it doesn’t work like that. What it will do is concentrate minds. …

What we have seen over the past 24 hours is Labour going through a massive crisis of confidence and are in the grip of disabling panic. That isn’t a reason to not vote Liberal Democrat. Quite the opposite.

You can read James’s article in full here.

James Graham

Anyone who claims to know what will happen electorally next month simply doesn’t know what they are talking about. But there are a number of reasons to suggest that the Liberal Democrats’ poll leap over the weekend might last.

Firstly, polls tend to be mutually reinforcing. This is why some countries ban them during election time. The same factor which has reinforced the Lib Dems’ image as no-hopers in the past might well work in our favour now, especially since it is such a dramatic development.

Secondly, even though elements of the media might prefer to starve Clegg of the oxygen of publicity, they can’t thanks to the Representation of the People Act.

Thirdly, the Lib Dem general election team did their homework and have crafted a simple and consistent campaign message. Contrast that with Cameron’s flipflopping. Remember when he was inviting everyone join his government last week? Now his message is that only one person – him – should be allowed near the levers of power. After telling people for four years that it is time for a change, insisting that it shouldn’t happen now simply beggars belief.

The Lib Dems, by contrast, are offering genuine radical change. It was hitting a nerve with young people even before the leaders’ debate; look at how the Rage Against the Machine – Vote Lib Dem facebook group was growing exponentially even before Thursday.

Clegg’s biggest weapon is that his message is striking a chord with the public. That, at least, won’t change before 6 May.

Stephen Tall

Lib Dem members could have been forgiven for waking up this morning, surveying the papers, and imagining they were still dreaming. Suddenly, the media cannot get enough of us, the party is surging in the polls, and the Murdoch-owned Sunday Times splashes the headline ‘Nick Clegg nearly as popular as Winston Churchill’ as its front-page lead.

Can ‘Cleggmania’ last until polling day? Here are three reasons why it just might.

First, the time is ripe. There is a public eagerness for a fresh start, a feeling that Labour and the Tories have taken it in turns to govern for 65 years and made a mess of it.

Secondly, the Lib Dems are in a position to break through. The party is in first or second place in almost half the country, some 250 constituencies across Britain, with mustard-keen activists campaigning all year round to make Lib Dem victory a reality. If the party reaches 30%, as some polls are currently suggesting, it could easily double its number of MPs to well over 100. Labour and the Tories would not then be able to ignore the public appetite for change.

And thirdly, there are still well over two weeks to go until polling day itself, plenty of time for the Lib Dem momentum to snowball.

Yes, it’s possible Lib Dem support has peaked. That’s what Labour and the Tories will be praying.

But it’s equally possible that this time the public really could break the mould of British politics. The decision rests not with the politicians, but with the voting public.

Mark Valladares

Suddenly, it’s a good time to be a Liberal Democrat. Ahead in some opinion polls, a popular leader, but can it last? Here’s why it might.

Just as in 1997, the British people want a change. They want to get rid of a tired Labour government and, until recently, were being told that they should vote Conservative to do so. However, they weren’t convinced, something I had been hearing on the doorstep for months. All the polls have said that there were lots of people who hadn’t made their minds up, or weren’t going to vote.

Now, in an election period, when Liberal Democrats get far more coverage than they otherwise would, voters are hearing our messages and some like them. Even before the debate, our poll ratings were improving, but it gave Nick Clegg an opportunity to talk directly to ten million voters, most of whom are likely to vote, and they liked him. The next day, they told their friends and their workmates.

Will it last? Who can say. What I do know is that, over the years, if voters have been asked whether they would vote Liberal Democrat if they thought they could win, about 40% of those polled have said that they would. And now, the polls are telling them that we could. With their support, perhaps we can change politics for good.

Mark Thompson

The TV debates have now changed everything with regard to this election. They were an opportunity for Nick Clegg to set out his stall and he did so with gusto.

Obviously the rapidity and scale of the rise in the Lib Dem polling numbers is giving everyone pause for thought and activists are nervous as to how durable the boost might be. I think there are reasons for optimism for the following reasons:

1) It is difficult to see how Cameron and Brown can handle Clegg in the next debate. They tried hugging him close and that didn’t work but attacking him will allow him to portray the other leaders as of the old style of politics.

2) The next debate is on foreign affairs where Clegg has good expertise and the final one is on the economy where Vince Cable is widely respected and admired.

3) A main reason given by people for not voting for the Lib Dems is because they think they cannot win. With the momentum behind the party now that argument starts to fall away and the boost could continue in a sort of positive feedback loop.

We certainly live in interesting political times!

Mark Pack

The polls are not just a surge in Lib Dems support but bit increase in the number of young backers of the party, and in the number of people saying they will vote overall.

For the Tories to counter that energy with negative tactics, including “putting the fear of God into the electorate” over getting Brown again as PM, as Matthew d’Ancona suggests, will be deeply counter-productive, painting the Conservatives ever more distinctly an old party, wedded to the old ways.

It’s a reaction against all this which is bringing so many new people into politics.

But what if the result is that a high Lib Dem vote isn’t reflected in the number of Lib Dem MPs elected? Here’s James’s answer:

What we’ve seen over the past 48 hours is the possibility of a genuinely new approach. Instead of playing by the political establishment’s rules, we have a real chance now of doing something genuinely disruptive. Not only would more it lead to more Lib Dem MPs voting for a genuinely democratic political system, a high Lib Dem share of the vote will illustrate perfectly why one is so badly needed. …

if you want a “well” hung parliament, your strategy should be very simple indeed: vote Lib Dem. Not only will that guarantee a Lib Dem bloc in parliament holding the balance of power, it will discredit the electoral system itself. Worst case scenario: a truly phenomenal number of people end up voting a Lib Dem government into office which will have a clear mandate to introduce proportional representation, Lords reform, stronger local government, more direct democracy and, in effect, give its own power away. So not much of a risk at all then.

You can read James’s article in full here.

A LIB-DEM MP has called in cops after an anonymous smear campaign was launched against her. Trouble-makers claiming to represent the East Dunbartonshire Taxpayers’ Alliance have sent letters to hundreds of voters across the region blackening the name of Jo Swinson, who is standing again on May 6. …

Ms Swinson said: “I’ve reported it to the police and they are investigating because the anonymous nature of this makes it illegal. It is clearly designed to damage my chances but I think a lot of people have seen through it.”

She saddedd [sic]: “This is not the way politics should be conducted, and I’m extremely concerned about the context in which it’s been put – alongside mention of criminal and immoral activities.”

Matthew Elliott, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said the letters were nothing to do with them.

Best of luck to Jo in fighting back against the anonymous smear campaign.

Of course it’s not the first time Jo’s expenses claims have been subjected to viscious and sexist smears – last year it was the Telegraph, the BBC and the Guardian which were peddling the myths, as James Graham noted here on LDV, and on his own blog.

The real lesson from this experience is that we need a more representative and responsive political system. Digital rights will always be one of those Cinderella issues while the voting system focuses politicians’ attention solely on a handful of swing voters in a small number of marginal constituencies. … Don’t let anyone fool you that the problem is one bad law or some debilitating nonsense about all politicians being the same. The system stinks and only a vote for the Liberal Democrats in this election will help to do anything about it.

You can read James’s article in full here.

That seems to be the only explanation for their slanted weekend posting that Lib Dem tax policy “fails the fairness test”, which appears to rest on two points: 1) that people who don’t pay tax won’t benefit from tax-cuts, and 2) ignoring completely the redistributive wealth tax rises that Vince Cable and the Lib Dems are proposing.

Perhaps the authors, Tim Horton and Howard Reed, hoped nobody would notice the sleight-of-hand; or at least that it would reassure those Labour bods looking uneasily at the Lib Dems’ proposals and wondering why their own party is unable to put forward fair tax policies. But their partial analysis has been taken to task by a number of Lib Dems, most notably:

• Fabians fail the fairness test (James Graham | Social Liberal Forum)

… the Lib Dems’ proposed tax package would significantly reduce income inequality, go some way to addressing wealth inequality, would cut the deadweight cost of Labour and would benefit the middle classes as well during an extremely challenging economic period when solidarity between the poor and people on middle-incomes will be crucial. The other major parties, and in particular Labour, have nothing on offer that comes close. I don’t think the smears will get the Fabians and other tribal Labour activists very far but if they want to make this election about the need for fairer tax policies, bring it fucking on.

• Libdem tax policy attacked from the Left (Giles Wilkes)

The Fabians, quite simply, would prefer £17billion that Vince et al have found in forms like the mansion tax and pension tax relief ’spent’ in other ways. I don’t think that this attack will prove very effective. If it is fairly explained, most people would see the Lib Dem Tax Switch not as an alternative way of ’spending’ the money, but as a way of redistributing the tax take; taking certain (unfair) tax reliefs on e.g. pensions for the very rich, and using the money gained to tax less those for whom the decision to work must in some cases be quite marginal.

• Tax policies aren’t just about who gets what money (Mark Pack | Left Foot Forward)

Among the millions who would be taken out of income tax all together with a £10,000 threshold are … People who will benefit from having the hassle of struggling with the tax system lifted from them. People who will benefit from not having to worry about how tax is under or over-paid if they move between jobs or different pieces of part-time work. People who will benefit from not struggling to make ends meet because, while there is a tax adjustment coming down the line, they aren’t getting the money in their bank account right now. People who just don’t have the financial resources and bureaucratic experience to see themselves through dealing with an at times complicated, unforgiving and slow moving tax system.

• Where Are The Losers? (Duncan Stott)

The Lib Dems have always made it clear that the policy is revenue neutral. This means that the policy won’t cost the Treasury anything, because the tax cut has been paid for by tax rises in other areas: raising the tax on capital gains, and the new mansion tax on property worth over £2,000,000. … This wouldn’t fit with Left Foot Forward’s narrative, so they have used statistical trickery to create a different result.

Guys, guys: if you’re going to claim to be evidence-based, try basing your research on the evidence – all the evidence, not just the bits which suit your partisan preferences.

They can however play an important role, particularly where well chosen questions tease out information or get commitments on the record. James Graham’s question this morning about the Digital Economy Bill was a good example of this (and would have been even more cruicial has the emergency motions ballot not decided to debate the topic on Sunday morning).

And so, here I am back in the conference hall for part two of today’s business blogging hatrick: the reports of the Parliamentary Parties (Commons, Lords and Europe).

Paul Burstow (Chief Whip) repeatedly emphasised the party’s achievements in Parliament at stopping or chipping away at authoritarianism and prompoting liberalism. (A welcome echo of the comments I made last night at The Voice’s conference fringe meeting where I emphasised the importance of these issues, not just in their own right but also to appeal particularly to poential future activists.)

Paul Burstow said:

We stand on a proud record of liberal action … We have two authoritarian parties in our Parliament and one liberal, progressive party.

Chris Davies neatly encapsulated the European Parliament’s role – not the mother of Parliaments, but more like the mother-in-law of Parliaments whilst for the Lords, Lord Shutt emphasises the group’s record at getting legislation altered week in, week out – a task which their colleagues in the Commons can only achieve much less frequently.

Next up: check back later for what has now become a Lib Dem Voice tradition – live blogging the Federal Finance and Administration Committee report. Will there be another one-person standing ovation? Time will tell…

A recent report by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee examined the provision of homeopathy through the NHS and called for funding by the NHS to be stopped. The Committee did recognise that many users derive benefit from its use and did not argue that such treatments should be banned.

The Liberal Democrats believe that, as a basic principle, individuals should have maximum freedom about how they choose to get treated, so long as the therapy is safe.  When it comes to NHS provision, we support a review by NICE into the cost effectiveness of Complementary and Alternative (CAMs) therapies, including homeopathy; as well as expanding the work of NICE to look at the cost-effectiveness of existing conventional treatments.

We know that many complementary therapies are popular with the public. The NHS budget is limited and we want to make sure that NHS funding is focused on treatments which are efficacious and cost-effective. NICE reviews of all existing treatments would give us the best possible basis for future decisions over funding.

Note: Kudos to James Graham for being quicker off the mark blogging on this story.

Have the Liberal Democrats been taken over by the Flat Earth Society?

To find his answer read here.

There’s a huge chunk of exciting things that happened today in history, so it’s an auspicious day to welcome a baby Cullen. Our technical editor Ryan has been tweeting progress, and as I write this there’s a lot of pushing going on. Best wishes from all at LDV to the Cullen family – I’m sure LDV Towers will soon get used to night feeds. I’m dusting off my copy of Gina Ford as I type.

So, today in history: the US Congress met for the first time in 1789. In 1790, France was divvied into départements. In 1797, John Adams succeeded George Washington, the first ever peaceful transfer of power between elected leaders in modern times. Chicago was founded in 1837; Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake premiered in Moscow in 1877 and in 1882, East London saw Britain’s first electric trams. The first Daimler car was unveiled and in 1933, the first woman joined the US Cabinet.

March 4th birthdays include Vivaldi, in 1678, Sir Patrick Moore, and Nottingham novellist Alan Sillitoe (I was at the meeting of Nottingham City Council that made him an honorary freeman of the city, incidentally)

2 Big Stories

Evil Gays update

Civil partnerships – gay marriages – could soon be registered in places of worship – something currently expressly banned by statute, which is particularly unfair on those faiths which don’t have a problem with gay relationships, including Quakers and Reform Judaism. The Times has one version of the information; the Telegraph on the other hand manages to paint a far more bleak version of the havoc that could be wrought by litigious homos.

Meanwhile, David Cameron has averred that his party’s tax breaks, maternity and paternity rights planned for married couples will also be available to their civilly partnershipped brethren. Not quite sure how this tallies with last month’s pronouncement that would be no new gay rights under the Tories.

Evil Lib Dems update

The Independent has the shocking scoop that a wealthy Liberal Democrat hoping to get elected has spent a lot of money on campaigning.

The money has been donated by Chris Nicholson, who is standing for the Liberal Democrats in Streatham, south London. Keith Hill, who is stepping down as Labour MP for Streatham at the election, told the Commons that nearly all of the money had been spent on campaigning in the constituency.

The rotter!

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

• James Graham: Scientologists to proselytise at Conference
• Jonathan Calder: on the last living member of the 1945 Parliament

Michael Foot RIP

A number of Liberal Democrat bloggers wrote about the death of Michael Foot yesterday.

• Stephen Glenn
• Jeremy Rowe
• Nader Fekri
• Andrew Reeves
• Burkes Workes
• Stuart Bonar
• Jonathan Wallace

For me, perhaps the most striking thing was that he lead the Labour Party through a general election when he was 69. How times change – the press wouldn’t let Menzies Campbell do that.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

Result of LDV poll on Tories’ evaporating lead

Yesterday LDV ran an insta-poll asking our Twitter followers and site readers what you thought was the main reason why the Tories’ opinion poll lead has shrunk so fast. Here’s what the 147 of you who voted told us:

The three top reasons according to you:

• 29% – Over-reliance on Brand Cameron
• 22% – Confusion over Tory economic policies
• 18% – Failed to give positive message

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here’s are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

• Find out which Labour cabinet minister has put Malcolm Gladwell in mind of a Monty Python sketch here;
• And click here to find out what made James Graham expostulate, “Good God, they might just do it!”

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Stories

Muted reaction to Cameron’s Tory spring conference speech
Here are my three favourite stories:

The speech unspun: clichés are irksome (The Times);
Poll slump casts pall over conference (FT);
Cameron struggles to make the running (Indy).

And here’s what Chris Huhne had to say about it:

Once again the speech was short on specifics and on the key assurance of fairness that is essential if we are to tackle our economic problems. We need fair taxation, new green jobs, a fair start for our children and a fair political system that gives voters real choice to sack miscreant MPs.”

Lib Dems to vote against decrease in pension payments for almost 9m pensioners

The Lib Dems’ 63 MPs will tomorrow vote in Parliament against the decision to freeze state pension top-up payments this April, which will leave almost nine million pensioners worse off.

Last December Ministers set out plans to freeze payments of the State Earnings Related Pension and the Second State Pension, effectively cutting state pension payments by £515million next year.

Steve Webb, the party’s shadow work and pensions secretary, said:

Labour has betrayed pensioners by promising to increase their pensions when millions are actually set to receive a real-term cut this year. Freezing pension top-up payments will leave almost nine million older people worse off at a time when they are already struggling to make ends meet.

“Older people are already facing high fuel bills following this cold winter and rising inflation eroding their savings. The Liberal Democrats will vote against this latest example of the Government failing to give a fair deal to pensioners.”

It’s no surprise that almost all MPs from the two establishment parties, Labour and the Tories, are desperate to hold onto the electoral system that secures their cosy hold on power: just five Labour/Tory MPs voted to include STV in any referendum on voting reform.

But it will also be the case that a significant portion of the country will need to be won over. A PoliticsHome poll this week suggested 42% of the public would vote to keep first-past-the-post, with 37% backing the alternative vote; though no proportional voting system was included in the poll’s questions, it’s optimistic to assume that would have convinced more people of voting reform’s merits.

Beyond MPs’ expenses

For the past nine months – since the MPs’ expenses scandal exploded onto the scene – much of the argument in favour of electoral reform has centred, understandably enough, on the potential for STV to end the ‘safe seats’ culture that has allowed some Labour/Tory MPs to grow complacent, and take the trappings of power for granted.

But is this enough to convince the public of the need for STV? Will arguing for a change in voting systems really convince the public that sch widespread abuse will be a thing of the past? I doubt it. Especially as the furore of last April/May recedes in the public consciousness.

STV: competition drives up standards

So how should the party try and sell STV in the future? Well, two related points have stuck in my mind over the past day or so. First, here’s Lib Dem MP David Howarth’s defence against the oft-repeated accusation that STV breaks the constituency link:

… it would not. It would just mean that there were more Members per constituency. It would break the one Member, one constituency link. For 17 years I was a local councillor and there were three members in my ward, but I did not feel that that meant I represented the people in my ward less. In fact, when a member of another party represented the ward for a few years, it increased competition between the parties in the ward and made us all better representatives.

It’s an important and crucial point: STV does not break the link between MPs and their constituencies. What STV does do is increase voter choice. Not only can the electorate rank parties in order of preference, but they can also mix and match – for example, voting for a Lib Dem MP who has been particularly helpful on a piece of casework, while casting their other votes for Labour/Tories in accordance with their wider political views.

It’s a modern concept turning voters into proper consumers, able to pick ‘n’ mix according to their experience, and so increasing the competition between the MPs representing their constituency to provide the best service. If Tories actually believed in the power of markets to drive up standards they would jump at STV. As it is, and as has always been their practice, they prefer to stick with a system which entrenches existing privileges.

STV: it improves the constituency link

So STV does maintain the constituency link but improves upon it by increasing competition. Which leads me to the second related point: size of constituencies and the public’s identification with them. Look at the current electoral map of the UK, and it’s a mess, in particular in densely-poulated urban areas. Wholly articifial constituency borders are inserted, often seemingly at random, by that vast unaccountable quango, the Boundary Commission, in order to ensure constituencies of roughly equal size.

It’s an absolute nonsense. Where I live, in Oxford, the electorate is too large to have one parliamentary constituency for the entire city, so a squiggly, virtual line runs through its centre bisecting the constituency of Oxford East from that of Oxford West and Abingdon. Thus you are left with the absurd situation that voters in adjoining streets in the centre of Oxford are seregated, while the market town of Abindgon (eight miles away) is lumped in with Oxford West to make the figures add up. And this is the sacred ‘constituency link’ which devotees of first-past-the-post and the alternative vote hold to be inviolable!

In fact, one of the big advantages of STV is that the constituencies become much more coherent in urban areas than is currently the case. Over at the Fabian Society’s Next Left blog, Denis Mollison has authored an illustrative new constituency map showing how STV could work in practice. To see a larger version of the map than the one shown in this post, click here.

As Lib Dem blogger James Graham has pointed out in his self-explanatorily titled article STV Is beautiful:

I really like what Mollison has done here. He hasn’t simply drawn lines on the map but created constituencies based on local authority boundaries. Ironically this would mean that people would identify with parliamentary constituencies more than the largely artificial ones we currently use (if the Tories get their way and replace the current system for drawing boundaries with a more technocratic one based on number of voters, this problem will get even worse). His model would also result in 140 fewer MPs.

Conclusion

There are any number of high-minded reasons to support STV: the fact that we should have a government that commands the support of a majority of people, and that pluralism makes for more mature decision-making.

But in terms of how we sell the need for STV to the public, the pitch is surely simpler. First, STV means you can shop around to choose the MPs you think work hardest from among the political parties you agree with most of the time. And, secondly, it puts an end to the ridiculous carving up of communities forced upon us by first-past-the-post, and provides a proper constituency link based on estalished geographical identities.