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This is the perfect time for a rethink on the role of the speaker as well as that of parliament. A new era of parliamentary involvement and activism? Yes, please. John Berkow's idea of the speaker as a public ambassador for the work of parliament is a good one, and would help raise awareness of what parliament does, and its role in examining legislation.

Something has definitely got to be done about the public perception that parliament is simply a debating chamber which is invariably empty except for a few moments when everyone piles in for a bit of yah-boo yelling.

I would like to nominate Tom Stoppard to take a stab at rewriting Erskine May, the bible of parliamentary procedure. This rewrite, as nominated by Menzies Campbell, in his pitch for speaker, is much needed for the rest of the world to know and understand what is going on in the world of parliament. It makes sense to translate such madness as "the question be now put, and the question being put, that the question now be put, being put and agreed to, the question was put" into something just a tiny bit more sensible. Stoppard who is responsible for a new version of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, and takes a lovely stab at translating Shakespearian rhythm in his fantastic script for the film Shakespeare in Love, would be the ideal man to wade through the words and bring it beautifully into the 21st century. It could be the real thing.

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Electoral reform: why not follow Ontario's lead?

In recent posts I have supported the idea of taking issues of electoral and wider constitutional reform out of the hands of the party elites and adopting a consultative citizens' convention process to develop reform proposals. As many readers will be aware, this is by no means a brand new idea. It has been tried, successfully, elsewhere.



Back in 2005 the state of Ontario decided that it would reform its electoral system by convening a citizens' assembly. The assembly reported in 2007, after a lengthy consultation process involving many local meetings and individual submissions. It recommended a form of proportional representation for elections to the Ontario state legislature.

Part of the rationale for the citizens' assembly was that this process would take the issue of electoral reform on to relatively neutral ground. If the decision was confined to the political parties, the decision would inevitably be skewed - and would be seen by citizens as being skewed - by calculations of party advantage. By involving citizens directly in a deliberative, consultative process, a reform could be achieved which would represent a genuine popular will, rather than a party fix. And this would enhance the legitimacy of the political system.

Similarly, in the UK at present, its clear that the various proposals for electoral reform floating around largely reflect calculations of party advantage. To say this is not to be 'cynical'. Its just basic poltiical science. So adopting a citizens' convention process is crucial to giving electoral reform integrity and (hence) legitimacy.

However, by doing the right thing, its possible that Labour could in this case also gain some party advantage. If Labour were to come out in favour of a citizens' convention process it would certainly help give the Brown government some of the momentum and sense of mission it is looking to regain.

So, even if you only care about Labour's interests (!), why not follow Ontario's lead?

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Why Labour shouldn't propose AV

Over at Liberal Conspiracy, Stuart Weir has an impassioned post arguing that for the government to propose electoral reform in the shape of the AV would be a 'Labour stitch-up'. I am inclined to agree. But aside from the substance of what the government might propose by way of reform, I am struck, like Stuart, by the apparent conservatism of the process by which the government appears to be approaching the whole issue of political reform.

Let's start with AV. As has been widely pointed out, AV is not a proportional system, and so simply does not address the intrinsic unfairness of radical disproportionality between votes and seats. Depending on the distribution of preferences, AV can actually produce even more disproportionate results than the current system.

Compared to PR, I think AV is also likely to put minor, radical parties at a disadvantage. This has its obvious upside: no BNP in parliament. But it has an equally obvious downside: fewer Greens. If, like me, you think the future of progressive politics is Red-Green, you will naturally want an electoral system that allows the latent support for the Greens to come through. I stand to be corrected on this, but my guess is that PR is likely to do this better than AV.

Sunder has proposed a compromise along the lines of AV for the Commons and PR for the second chamber. (Correct me, Sunder, if I am oversimplifying.) But this strikes me as a very unconvincing compromise. Under this proposal, many people would quite reasonably see the second chamber as having more democratic legitimacy than the Commons. What would happen then? Either the second chamber would retain its subordinate status, and many citizens would ask why the more democratic chamber was being overruled by the Commons. There would be a crisis of legitimacy for the Commons. Alternatively, the second chamber would achieve equal status with the Commons. But what, then, if the majorities in the two chambers do not match up? How is the government to be formed?

The compromise of 'AV plus' for the Commons strikes me as more plausible, and preferable to the pure AV proposal. So should Labour put this proposal forward instead?

This brings us back to the second point. Whatever the merits of specific proposals, I think we have reached a point where it is inappropriate for one specific governing party, or even the Westminster elite as a whole, to hold control over the reform process. The process of reform needs itself to address the underlying problem of disconnection and distrust between the political elite and the public. Moreover, if this is a constitutional moment, and we believe in the sovereignty of the people, there is a fundamental matter of principle in seeing that the process of reform is one which gives real, meaningful input to the people.

This is why it is a profound mistake for the Brown government to off into a huddle with a small group of selected advisors and come up with a plan for constitutional reform. That's the mentality of the Treasury technocrat, not the democratic citizen.

For a man who pledged on Monday night to start doing things differently, it is a sign that Gordon Brown still doesn't grasp the huge, qualitative change in his approach to governance that the times demand.

The alternative is for the political elite to let go and bring the people in. The idea of a citizens' convention, as the culmination of a wide and inclusive process of public meetings and consultations, is much preferable as a way forward. The convention would produce a set of proposals which would then be put to Parliament, and to a referendum if Parliament rejected them.

Of course, at the end of the public deliberation, the citizens' convention might come up with a proposal for an electoral system based on AV. So be it. At least then I would have confidence that this represented a genuine, deliberated popular will and not - as Stuart Weir rightly worries - an opportunistic stitch-up by the elite of one political party. Read more...

Electoral reform myths: Janet Daley gets it wrong

Since there will be a lot of nonsense talking about the subject, let's begin a short series pointing some of it out.

Janet Daley is quickly out of the blocks with an argument I expect many people will make, even though it is obviously incorrect.

What the "alternative vote" would mean is that it would be virtually impossible for the Conservatives ever to regain power. Labour and LibDem supporters could simply institutionalise their game of tactical voting: by always placing each other's party as their second choice, they would guarantee Left-liberal coalition governments forever.

Nonsense.

Unless Janet thinks that Ken Livingstone is still Mayor of London - and that Boris Johnson lost.

In fact, under the supplementary vote system (a simpler cousin of AV), Ken Livingstone received 135,000 second preferences and Boris almost 125,000 second preference votes, meaning that Boris' first round lead was closed only marginally.

Before Janet opines further on the subject, I suggest that she might want to ask Mike Smithson of Political Betting for a briefing on how LibDem second preferences often divide quite equally between the major parties - though no doubt with some bias to the Tories in circumstances like those of last week's elections, in contrast to a strong bias to Labour in 1997 when the country was united in wanting to get the Conservatives out. Read more...