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Tuesday, 26 May 2009
Resources: About openDemocracy
OBSERVER (UK Newspaper) - Parliament in crisis: When will MPs start to listen to the people? | Politics | The Observer
- The Observer, Sunday 24 May 2009
- Article history
The expense crisis reveals a nation governed by a political elite that has stopped listening and who are accountable to no one but their party machines. Too many MPs seem more interested in changing their homes than changing the world. Our society faces real problems - mass unemployment and growing poverty, the threat of climate chaos and an erosion of our civil liberties to name but three. These all require effective government working on behalf of the popular will. Yet our whole political system is close to collapse. We demand a new electoral system that makes everyone's vote count.
On the day of the next general election, there should be a binding referendum on whether to change to a more proportional electoral system. This should be drawn up by a large jury of randomly selected citizens, given the time and information to deliberate on what voting system and other changes would make Parliament more accountable to citizens.
We demand the right to be able to vote for a change:
Helena Kennedy
QC
Philip Pullman
author
Damon Albarn
musician
John Sauven
Greenpeace
Martin Bell
anti-sleaze campaigner
Richard Wilson
actor
Polly Toynbee
journalist
Susie Orbach
author and psychologist
Jonathan Pryce
actor
Caroline Lucas
leaderGreen party
Brian Eno
musician
Neal Lawson
Compass
Ken Ritchie
ERS
Colin Hines
Green New Deal
Matthew Taylor (in personal capacity)
RSA
Hari Kunzru
author
Mark Thomas
comedian
Oona King
ex Labour MP
Michael Brown
journalist and ex-Tory MP
Pam Giddy
Power Inquiry
Salma Yaqoob
Leader Respect
Wes Streeting
President NUS
Gordon Roddick
Lisa Appignanesi
Chair of PEN
Prof James Forrester
Carmen Callil
author and publisher
Sunder Katwala
Fabians
Billy Bragg
musician
Sam Tarry
Chair Young Labour
Peter Facey
Unlock Democracy
Prof David Marquand
Dave Rowntree
musician
Richard Reeves
Demos
Ann Pettifor
Advocacy UK
Prof Richard Sennett
Sunny Hundal
Liberal Conspiracy
Anthony Barnett, openDemocracy
Richard Grayson, Social Liberal Forum
John Harris, journalist
Pete Myers, enoughsenough.org
Steve Richards, journalist
Tony Robinson, actor
Richard Murphy, Tax Justice
Jeremy Leggett, Solarcentury
AC Grayling, philosopher
Katie Hickman, author
Benedict Southworth, World Development Movement
Lance Price, journalist
Ann Black, Labour activist
Peter Tatchell, Human Rights campaigner
Hilary Wainwright, Red Pepper
David Aaronovitch, journalist
Kevin Maguire, journalistHenry Porter (Comment, last week) says that MPs have 143 days of holiday, yet he knows full well that parliamentary recesses are anything but a holiday. They are a time when MPs do important, often difficult and boring, constituency work. He writes of parliamentary tradition and disregard for the UK's unwritten constitution. Yet he seems unaware that in the UK's constitutional tradition MPs are elected representatives, whose job is not just to legislate nationally but to represent locally. Yes, some have done terrible things and they should go, but most MPs are not crooks.
Paul Sagar
London E1Henry Porter is spot-on in his analysis of the problems and solutions to the political crisis. However, both the political crisis and the western banking crisis were anticipated well in advance of current events. Anybody who had read British Government in Crisis by Sir Christopher Foster in 2005 and Traders, Guns and Money by Satyajit Das in 2006 would not have been surprised by the current crises. Both crises have been aided and abetted by New Labour's unwritten policy of the Americanisation of the UK.
David Blunn
Eglwyswrw, PembrokeshireHenry Porter's list of recommendations to reform Parliament is both useful and practicable. If I were to pick one reform, however, I would opt for proportional representation. We cannot claim to have a genuinely representative democracy when our electoral system produces governments that have registered fewer than a quarter of votes.
Dr Tal Younis
Bishopbriggs, GlasgowOur problems with our parliamentary democracy are far more serious than those of some MPs fiddling or being greedy concerning their expenses. The real problem with our system is that it totally fails to address the four major and inter-connected problems of our society, to wit: taking real and urgent action on climate change, curbing population growth, bringing about a fairer sharing of the Earth's resources and failure to regulate wealth and business to serve the needs of society.
Instead of grappling with these, our parliamentary system is obsessed by the need to maintain the short-term popularity of our MPs. Possibly, present public anger may give us a chance to change the system to one which addresses these real issues.
Tony Hamilton
Broadstone, Dorset
Resources for understanding Fair Voting and Reform of UK parliament: Scottish Parliament - Wikipedia, extract
Members, constituencies and voting systems
The 2003 election's 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament; 73 represented individual constituencies and 56 represented eight additional member regions.Elections for the Scottish Parliament were amongst the first in the United Kingdom to use a mixed member proportional representation (MMS) system.[63] The system is a form of the additional member method of proportional representation (PR), and is better known as such in the United Kingdom. However, there are additional member systems, elsewhere in the world, which are not designed to produce proportional representation.
Of the 129 MSPs, 73 are elected to represent first past the post constituencies and are known as "Constituency MSPs".[6] Voters choose one member to represent the constituency, and the member with most votes is returned as a constituency MSP. The 73 Scottish Parliament constituencies shared the same boundaries as the UK Parliament constituencies in Scotland, prior to the 2005 reduction in the number of Scottish MPs, with the exception of Orkney and Shetland which each return their own constituency MSP. Currently, the average Scottish Parliament constituency comprises 55,000 electors.[64] Given the geographical distribution of population in Scotland, this results in constituencies of a smaller area in the Central Lowlands, where the bulk of Scotland's population live, and much larger constituency areas in the north and west of the country, which have a low population density. The island archipelagos of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles comprise a much smaller number of electors, due to their disparate population and distance from the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.[64] If a Constituency MSP resigns from Parliament, this triggers a by-election in his or her constituency, where a replacement MSP is returned from one of the parties by the plurality system.[63]
The remaining 56 MSPs are elected by the additional member system. In each Scottish Parliament election, electors have a second vote, where they vote for a party instead of a constituency representative. These 56 are elected in eight different electoral regions, of which constituencies are sub-divisions.[65] Each region returns seven additional member MSPs. The eight regions are: Highlands and Islands; North East Scotland; Mid Scotland and Fife; West of Scotland; Glasgow; Central Scotland; South of Scotland; and Lothians. Each political party draws up a list of candidates standing in each electoral region.[66] The total number of seats in the Parliament are allocated to parties proportionally to the number of votes the party received in the second vote of the ballot, calculated by dividing the number of "list" votes cast for a party by the number calculated from the number of constituency seats won in that region, plus the number of already-allocated "list" seats won in that region, plus one (to prevent division by zero), and the party with the largest number of votes remaining is allocated the first "list" seat. This is repeated iteratively until all available "list" seats are allocated.[66] The number of seats remaining allocated to that party are filled using members from the party's list.[66] These members are called "List MSPs". If a List MSP resigns from the Scottish Parliament, he or she is replaced by the next member on the party list.[67]
As in the House of Commons, a number of qualifications apply to being an MSP. Such qualifications were introduced under the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 and the British Nationality Act 1981. Specifically, members must be over the age of 18[68] and must be a citizen of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, one of the countries in the Commonwealth of Nations, a citizen of a British overseas territory, or a European Union citizen resident in the UK.[69] Members of the police and the armed forces are disqualified from sitting in the Scottish Parliament as elected MSPs, and similarly, civil servants and members of foreign legislatures are disqualified.[69] An individual may not sit in the Scottish Parliament if they are judged to be insane under the terms of the Mental Health Act 1983; if they are subject to a Bankruptcy Restriction Order (in England and Wales only) or if his or her estate is sequestered (in Scotland).[69]
[edit] Elections
Sunday, 24 May 2009
Can prospective Independent MPs trust Cameron and Clegg’s ‘welcome’?
Both have said positive things about the prospect of many more Independent MPs.
Cameron welcomed the idea and said that they should come within the Tory fold.
Prospective MPs however should read the small print. Cameron also said, as something of a self-contradiction, that of course Independents would also be bound by collective responsibility concerning leadership policies and what was in the manifesto. How much does that leave Independents to be independent about?
Mr Clegg said he would only support a general election if it was a catalyst for sweeping parliamentary reforms.
“I would like to see an election yesterday [but] I think it would be a massive betrayal if we were to have a few new faces but the same old rotten rules. We’ve got to use this election to change the rules,” he said.
“It would be a great betrayal if we don’t rebuild British politics.”
Listing new rules for party funding, an elected House of Lords and forbidding MPs to have second jobs as key to reform, Mr Clegg said: “Look at the murky way in which parties are funded…
“If you don’t now deal with party funding I can bet you I’ll be sitting in this seat in six months time talking about a funding scandal.”
On second jobs, he said: “What MPs are there for…is to represent constituents. I don’t think they can do that if they’re running mini businesses of their own.”
Calling the House of Lords a “clapped out 19th Century chamber”, he added: “The House of Lords is a standing offence to everything I believe in.”
Mr Clegg then went onto welcome independents running for parliament: “I really welcome a lot of independents coming in and saying – I’m going to challenge these party stooges.
“New independent candidates throw down a challenge to all party MPs to do better,” he said.
He also denied he’d benefited from the Speaker’s departure, and said all candidates – from any party – must be “zealots for reform”.
via page.politicshome.com
The electorate and or commentators still aren’t getting the really important points. – the ABC of the situation. Independents are necessary and vital precisely because we are sick of tired Toryism and Labourism. The ABC of the situation is;
A) Fair Voting (Proportional Representation). The Lib Dems aren’t talking about it. Why? The only person I heard mention it was the Labour MP Austin Mitchell!
B) MPs should be free to group around and vote on issues as mandated by their electorate and or their consciences. This might mean voting occasionally or frequently with one, or more, Party groups. For this they need skills of consultation and dialogue to rapidly group and re-group – skills that perhaps are not highly developed in some of today’s MPs.
C) The need to operate with transparent accountability.
Friday, 22 May 2009
Reform UK Politics now – a personal manifesto
The expenses scandal is the symptom not the disease. Therefore - I see the current furore as the greatest opportunity in the last half-century - to get a modern political system in the UK.
The first draft of my non-party, or trans-party, political manifesto, is below. The first item Fair Voting is the most important:
ESTABLISH FAIR VOTING – take the best from all countries that operate fair voting systems.
MAKE VOTING COMPULSORY – it will reduce wasteful and dispiriting carping - when combined with fair voting so that every vote counts. Currently we are ruled by MPs who represent only 25% of the people.
Get rid of TRIBAL POLITICS - get out of the strait-jacket of the tired Tory & Labour ideologies – Cameron and his lot are no real alternative to the Blair-Brown lot.
CENTRE ON ISSUES BEFORE IDEOLOGIES – MPs need to learn to group around the country's needs and the electorate's concerns - i.e focus on real issues rather than tribal loyalties.
ENABLE MORE INDEPENDENT MPs – more than a third should produce positive results.
ACCELERATE FAIR REPRESENTATION - of women and minorities.
DEMAND FACTS BEFORE OPINIONS – the public as well as MPs need to get the best quality, accurate info from independent sources. Stop all the spinning bull-shit.
COOPERATE MORE - more cooperation than wasteful combat for combat's sake.
MAKE MPS REWARDS FAIR - combined with serious and continuous accountability.
INSTITUTE PRIMARIES – but only after a close examination of their benefits in other countries?
FOCUS ON SOCIAL JUSTICE AND QUALITY OF LIFE FOR ALL STAKE-HOLDERS - i.e stick to social justice and quality of life as pre-eminent virtues.
REDUCE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT – create best-practice, county-level, broad policies e.g. 'You are statutorily required to provide a holistic set of services for youth in your area.' Then keep central government out - other than to check that every county is implementing effectively a range of best practice via effective accountability.
MAXIMISE FREE VOTING and SECRET BALLOT VOTING IN PARLIAMENT – as in election of new Speaker - whipping distorts.
HABITUALLY IMPORT BEST PRACTICE FOR GOVERNMENT AS WELL AS PARLIAMENT - from Denmark, Scandinavia, Canada, Australia, Germany etc.
CREATE A SIMPLE WRITTEN CONSTITUTION WITHIN 1 YEAR – Confine it to three sides of A4 - Invite everyone to write a version. Then take 10 years to refine it. Curb the lawyers.
ELIMINATE WASTE – everywhere, at all levels.
CONTINUE BEEFING UP TRANSPARENCY IN ACCOUNTABILITY – we want MPs to be transparently accountable for everything they do, not just their expenses.
EDUCATE THE PEOPLE IN POLITICAL PARTICIPATION - all ages - use all media - use carrots and sticks.
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