Hopefully over breakfast this morning you will have seen the Guardian’s front page splash on Nick Clegg’s call for MPs to spend the next 100 days in Parliament radically reforming our political system. Other papers and the broadcasters are picking up this story and it is clear that Nick’s demand that MPs curtail their lengthy summer holidays to stay and sort out the problem has been very well received.
Later tonight you will be able to watch on TV our Party Political Broadcast which Mark Pack has already linked to. And Liberal Democrat members should have received an email with more details for Danny Alexander MP, Nick’s Chief of Staff.
Lots of the ideas Nick is promoting today have been successfully pushed by Liberal Democrat bloggers. It is great to hear Liberal Democrat bloggers on Radio 4 talking about the need to end the sleaziness that safe seats bring! You have already helped shape the media narrative that real and radical reform is needed in British politics.
But now we need your help even more if we are to get Nick’s message out. We have an exciting new campaign website – www.takebackpower.org. There are lots of different ways you can promote it – blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Please use whatever you can to spread Nick’s exciting message.
This may be a once in generation opportunity to drive home our message about political reform. Please do your bit to help us.
* Chris Fox is the Liberal Democrats’ Director of Policy and Communications.
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11 Comments
I think it’s time Nick Clegg backed up his fine words with action. The Lib Dems have a number of MPs with dodgy expenses claims. It’s time they were subject to recall if Clegg is not prepared to put them through an internal disiplinary process.
Why do Lib Dem campaign website always look slightly awkward?
The black and white thing is a bit stark as well – it’s not a focus leaflet!
This would be inspirational stuff were it backed up by some kind of grown-up discussion about the need to reform our own party.
The current edition of Lib Dem News is an insult to the intelligence of members – giving the news of Rennard’s resignation without any context about the expenses’ situation.
Do you have any specific reforms in mind?
Good to see a call for reform, but let’s have a properly considered constitutional position first. We know PR for the Commons makes sense, with very well rehearsed arguments, and it links to the concerns over the power of the commons and relationship to government that have led to abuses of expenses and allowances . No problem there.
But, if we are to move beyond this to the wider political system, we need something more thought out. For a start any constitution has to address the relationship of local government to the centre, and the relationship of devolved authorities to Westminster. have we really thought through what a federal UK would look like, and how England, or parts of England would find a place in that? I suspect a proper constitutional settlement would take a lot more than 100 days!
On the House of Lords, we need a sensible debate about it rather than a knee-jerk ‘we must elect it’ response. What is its purpose and how is that purpose best served? How do we keep an upper house that is an expert body with a large number of independents? How do we avoid it being dominated by the governing party and the whips? How do we make sure that develved nations and regions have adequate channels of communication to the centre? Haw we studied a range of alternative options for upper houses from federal countries – e.g. Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Canada, India or non-federal such as France, Spain etc? How do we keep an upper house where we can ensure representation of diverse groups in society that could not find seats in the Commons (the only Green or Communist members of Parliaments in the last 50 years have been in the Lords)? The list of questions goes on and on.
Let’s stick to a demand for PR. That itself will be the biggest change for the better and then begin a long process of working out what a proper constitution would look like.
Donald Smith
Mr Smith
What do you think of my idea for representative PR?
This would be STV in constituencies plus weighted votes in the Commons.
Voter,
Tell me more about your scheme.
People vote in constituencies for a single vacancy using STV.
They cast a second vote for a party.
You now have a set of MPs from the first vote plus a party beakdown from the second vote.
The MPs are not nationally representative.
In order to make the system proportional, in each vote in the Commons, you allow each vote to be weighted in a manner to allow the MPs to have the desired influence.
To make this clear, here is an example.
Two parties in a 100 seat parliament:
Conservative
LibDem
As things happen, each party has 50 seats.
The LibDems, however, obtained 60% of the second vote. The Conservatives 40%.
To make things work out, we simply make a LibDem MP vote count for 6 points and a Conservative MP vote count for 4 points.
The side of the issue with the higher points value wins.
Voter,
MPs with different voting rights – complex to administer and open to objections (e.g. awkward backbencher claims his vote is worth more because he has been an MP for 20 year and has more experience etc than a newcomer).
Simplicity is better – straight STV in multi-member constituencies is my preference. It gives the voter the best choice and reduces party management of the result.
The simple answer is not always the best one. That is why we have things like balance of power structures and so forth. They may not be simple but they do take into account human nature at least to some extent.
If the experienced MP is so good, he ought to be able to persuade others of the validity of his arguments.
You do not say why your system gives the best choice. It is the party line I know.
The current system FPTP gives disproportionate power to Con/Lab.
My system addresses this. M-c STV simply hopes that a better situation will develop and may well give too much power to the Lib Dems which is “out of the frying pan into the fire”.
For too long (since 1979), we have had a situation where a 40% party rules. Surely a proportional system is the right answer, not a wasted-vote-reducing system.
I favour PR, not Multi-C STV.
“Do you have any specific reforms in mind?”
Well, if you want to see the worst case, read the discussion on:
https://www.libdemvoice.org/ldv-members-survey-mps-expenses-3-lib-dem-mps-claims-15037.html
To be practical, let’s press for immediate action where we might stand a chance of getting it. While the Tories and Labour are holding their “star chambers” and forcing dodgy MPs to stand down (if with payoffs!), we seem to be doing nothing at all.
That’s because our MPs are not so dodgy, I hear you say. Quite probably true. But they aren’t all whiter than white.
Why don’t we have a “star chamber”, preferably one that at least publishes its detailed findings, at which each of our MPs with “questions to answer” has to answer those questions?
Now it might be that the results would be nothing worse than a few more demands that borderline-dodgy claims be repaid to the taxpayer. But at least we would have tried.
And then we could hold our heads up high, and press for further action against the worst miscreants (I mean the fraudsters, not the bath-plug and duck-house blaggers) in the other parties. Let’s see some byelections, now!