Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Over 660 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results over the next few days.
An 80% elected House of Lords
LDV asked: The Coalition Agreement committed the Government to “a wholly or mainly elected upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation”. It is reported that Nick Clegg will present plans for 80% of the new house to be elected under the Single Transferable Vote. Would you be happy with such an outcome?
Here’s what our sample of party members said:
- 48% – Yes, I think this is the best outcome possible within the Coalition
- 39% – Maybe, I would be much happier with a 100% elected second chamber
- 7% – No, I could only accept a 100% elected second chamber
- 5% – No, I believe the House of Lords should continue to be wholly/mainly appointed
(Excluding: Other, Don’t know / No opinion 3%)
Here’s a sample of your comments, starting with those in favour of the move to an elected House of Lords:
The support of such a policy would depend quite significantly on the make up and skills for the role of the retained 20% appointees.
would I be happy?..I feel like ive been waiting 100 years for an elected 2nd chamber, 80% is a bloody miracle…
I am convinced of the utility of STV for the Commons. For a non-constituency-based house, I’m somewhat surprised that a party-list-based system (which I would deplore in the Commons) is not being favoured. Or are there going to be large constituencies? I quite liked the presence of the Law Lords in the Upper house, as they gave a useful perspective and much expertise.
There is a very strong case for indirect election [by elected senators, as now for the remaining hereditary peers] of 20% from ‘the great and the good’ would not stand for a political party.
Although I’d prefer a 100% elected HoL, I’d still be smiling from ear to ear with just 80%
There are those, though, even in the Lib Dems who do not support a mainly/wholly elected House of Lords, and here’s a couple of their thoughts:
Electing the House of Lords gives them too much of a mandate and the possibility of more changes to how parliament operates, allowing them to demand more power.
I have serious concerns about Lords being more answerable to their party and less to their principles and the available evidence. STV would be better than a list, but I’d much rather the second chamber was occupied by experts and not politicians.
I tend to support a wholly or mainly appointed Lords. However, I accept that party policy is for an elected second chamber, and therefore plans for an 80% elected Lords is a significant Lib Dem victory within the coalition.
Directly-elected mayors
Following on from a recent Saturday Debate here on LDV, we asked: The Coalition Agreement committed the Government to “create directly-elected mayors in the 12 largest English cities, subject to confirmatory referendums and full scrutiny by elected councillors”. Some people say directly-elected mayors offer a direct link between voters and their council leader, while others say they concentrate power in just one individual and undermine local councillors. What is your view of directly-elected mayors?
Here’s what you told us:
- 21% – In favour of directly-elected mayors
- 42% – Against directly-elected mayors
- 37% – Undecided – neither in favour nor against but agree referendums should be held to allow local people to decide
(Excluding Other, Don’t know / No opinion 6%)
And here’s a sample of your comments, first of those in favour:
It’s a useful and stronger democratic link between voters and significant individuals in deciding how the council is run – better than having powerful council leaders that no-one is aware of and who are only weakly accountable; but it should not weaken further the already weak role of councillor.
More visible and accountable figures. It is my understanding that they will only retain most of the same powers council leaders currently have anyway. Plus, with more power comes more accountability. At any rate, good to invigorate local democracy.
The two Lib Dem elected Mayors are inclusive, good and don’t abuse their powers, devolving much down. They also get things done. It’s hard to disagree on principle when we have evidence that it can work well. On that basis, we ought to let local people decide.
And then of those against:
Just as I believe in Parliamentary democracy rather than Presidential democracy, I believe that whilst directly elected mayors can increase a city’s standing they aren’t always good for democracy.
Although it seems a good thing in principle, in practice it seems to mostly lead to vanity-prone candidates with litlle or no benefit to the local community.
Directly elected mayors are a disaster, favouring corruption and shallow populism over good governance.
And finally of those happy to leave it to local referendums to decide:
I am decided – it should be up to local people to decide whether they want one or not.
May be more appropriate in some places than others – happy to let local people decide.
Liberalism allows plurality of choice and through the principle of subsidiarity local people should decide on referendums how they wish to be governed.
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11 Comments
Someone on directly elected mayors
It’s a useful and stronger democratic link between voters and significant individuals in deciding how the council is run – better than having powerful council leaders that no-one is aware of and who are only weakly accountable; but it should not weaken further the already weak role of councillor.
How can abolishing the right of councillors to vote and turning them into a mere advisory sounding board for a directly elected local dictator not weaken the role of councillors?
Someone else on directly elected executive mayors:
More visible and accountable figures. It is my understanding that they will only retain most of the same powers council leaders currently have anyway.
No. With a council leader, power remains with the representative chamber. If the representative chamber chooses to let the council leader have his or her own way on policy, it can do so, but it has the right to vote down that policy, and vote out that leader. With a directly elected executive mayor, it has no right to a vote which means anything.
Having a directly elected executive mayor is the equivalent at national level of saying laws and government policy will now be decided by a National Leader, the power of MPs to change laws and policy will be taken away, the only role MPs will have will be to write reports which the National Leader is free to disregard if he or she wishes.
What is being proposed with directly elected mayors at local level is what was proposed and pushed through in Italy in 1922 and Germany in 1933, using much the dame arguments that are used for directly elected executive mayors: that it’s more invigorating and gives stronger government which everyone can immediately identify with if all government powers are placed in the hands of a charismatic political strongman.
I am shocked and saddened that over half our party cannot see this as a fundamental issue which we should oppose to our last breath. Those 21% are like those centrists who enabled those dictatorships I mentioned above. This may seem a trivial thing as we are only talking about local government, but we must NEVER allow the fascist principle to gain any foothold, and directly elected executive mayors are the first foothold of this evil philosophy.
Matthew goes a little further than I would with terms like “evil philosophy”, but opposition to directly elected mayors is sound.
The House of Lords is the best thing about the constitution… get rid of the heredity peers and Bishops, and leave it for people who’ve done something or achieved success in their fields. No more hacks on the make.
Then again, this Party aint necessarily respected for its good judgment at the moment.
I ticked “undecided” because, while I am against, in principle, the idea of a directly-elected mayor, I would feel uncomfortable telling a town that they may not have a mayor regardless of whether they would like it or not.
Matthew, if what you are saying is true, then the US should be a fascist dictatorship.
Chris Jenkinson, there’s a lot wrong with the US system of governance, but it does have stronger checks and balances than the system of directly elected executive mayors enabled by New Labour.
Rich, sorry, I disagree. I don’t think a majority has a right to inflict a permanent elimination of collegial governance in favour of elected dictatorship, it is a step beyond which I am willing to go. If it happens that the people of a town want the equivalent of a mayoral system they can get one by electing councillors who stand on the platform “I will always vote for whatever Fred Bloggs tells me to vote for” assuming they want Bloggs as mayor, adding a codicil that they will vote for whatever whoever else gets in as mayor tells them to vote for – i.e. they may hate Mary Gubbins, but they will vote as Gubbins says if “I will vote as Gubbins says” councillors get the majority of the vote.
The big problem, however, which I experienced directly as leader of the opposition in the London Borough of Lewisham when New Labour there was trying to make it the first local authority to be run by an executive mayor, is the uniformity of the commentariat and political elite of this country in favour of this idea, and their complete unwillingness to let on what it really means. As the comments I was replying to in my first message show, even paid up Liberal Democrat members seem not to know what it really means. New Labour in Lewisham told lie after lie about the system, all this stuff about it being no more power than the leader of the council, nothing whatsoever about the truth – an executive mayor means the abolition of meaningful votes for councillors.
Only when New Labour got their mayor in Lewisham, and found out that yes, it really did mean as a councillor I no longer had a vote on council policy, did they realise what it meant. People would contact me over council issues, I would reply “Sorry, in the past I would have voted against that, now I don’t have a vote on it, thanks to the mayor system”. Before the mayor system, I knew a lot of what was going on due to sitting on service committees, after it, I found I often knew less than my constituents. They would contact me with casework, I would say “Eh, I didn’t know about that”, because once these things stopped going through the service committees and became instead the personal decision of the mayor, I lost the information I used to get through sitting on those committees.
So many people, once the mayor system came in, said to me afterwards “I voted for it but I didn’t realise what it meant – now I have seen it, I wish I had voted no” or “I didn’t vote at all because I didn’t realise what it meant – now I have seen it, I wished I had voted no”.
The propaganda in favour of this evil system which is issued even by the liberal press such as the Guardian is so overwhelming that I cannot trust at present any referendum on it to be fair. In my case, as soon as I heard about the idea, I looked at it and thought “It cannot be so”. Then I saw the propaganda about it, all this stuff about it “spreading power” and being “more accountable” and it deeply offended my sense of logic because it was in effect saying black is white. How can placing all power in the hands of one person be “spreading power” or “more accountable”? How can shutting out local ward councillors from a meaningful role be “spreading power” and being “more accountable”? I still cannot understand how any sane or liberal person who is not a fascist could possibly accept this idea, because it really is local fascism. I cannot understand even more how they can describe it using terms which are the exact opposite of what it really is.
I am against the elected Mayoral system – though I agree that where Lib Dems have won them they have been able to do good things with them, so where they exist we should do all we can to win them.
If there are to be many more elected mayors, the way the mayoral system works needs to change. The mayor needs to be elected by AV, there must be a much more even balance between the powers of the council and the executive, and the council’s role as a consultative rather than executive body should be reflected by electing the council by STV so there are at least a more varied range of voices in the chamber to challenge the mayor.
I think Matthew is slightly missing the point. You don’t need elected mayors for all he says to be true; we already have, in effect, such a situation in councils up and down the land, where the leader is elected by the council, and then has (in combination with a “cabinet” which he/she appoints) all the power that Matthew describes. The latest batch of reform, promoted by Labour as one of its last great democratic manoeuvres, gives most councils a choice between an elected mayor holding all the power, and a leader elected by the council for a four-year term holding all the power. Given that awful choice, I suggest that a leader elected by the people is at least more democratic than a leader elected by an electoral college.
At least the Localism-shmocalism bill gives Councils the right to restore the Committee system. I rather fear that few if any councils will do so; but restoring it as an option at least makes it possible to campaign for it. (Even if nobody is listening.)
I think the argument over elected mayors is a distraction for the really meaningful reform of local democracy which is long overdue – the introduction of STV for council elections as they now have in Scotland. We passed an amendment at the Special Conference in Birmingham to the effect that the party would bring in PR for local elections since when I have heard nothing whatsoever about it from any of our parliamentarians.
Matthew makes his point in somewhat extreme language but I am glad he did because it gets to the nub of this issue. I ticked the ‘let local people decide’ box in the survey because (a) I had not looked at it in his stark terms as the thin edge of the fascist wedge, and (b) I am aware what a good job both Dave Hodgson in Bedford and Dorothy Thornhill in Watford have . However, I also identify with Malcolm Todd’s point about council leaders as indirectly elected dictators as this is exactly the situation we have in Welwyn Hatfield where the Tories have 80% of the council seats based upon 52% of the vote and not one of their councillors has the courage to stand up to their leader.
Malcolm, no I’m not missing the point. I’m well aware, having fought this bloody thing and the rotten mentality that gave it to us at local government level, of the various variants of this system. People might winder why, when I am so unhappy with Clegg and the current direction of the party, I don’t just defect to Labour. Look at their support and promotion of this centralism and the lies they told about it for just one reason why.
We are having a big fuss made about the minor alteration to the electoral system which is AV, but there has been no press coverage anywhere, so far as I am aware, of Labour’s reforms of local government, forced through with this farce of there being a choice. This is a much greater constitutional chnage than AV. I quite agree – the choice being given was like asking a man “Do you want to be hanged, shot, or burnt at the stake?”. And when he says “Please shoot me”, they say “Look, we’re shooting him because that’s what he says he wants”.
When I say I don’t want this evil semi-fascist idea of executive mayors, it ought to be quite obvious that I also don’t want the representative chamber to have its meaningful voting power reduced to a once every four years electoral chamber.
Thanks for your further comments, I wrote in the comment box for this question in the survey that I thought the systems of accountability need to be significantly improved to give councillors more influence (so we can’t have this “motion to stop questions to executive members” nonsense we are seeing from Coleman).
Chris