Denham calls for vote on electoral reform
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Independent Minds
A second cabinet minister has urged Gordon Brown to hold a referendum on electoral reform to regain the political initiative.
John Denham said designing a system in which "every vote counts" would help rebuild the trust between MPs and their electors following the expenses scandal.
His call came after Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, argued that the issue should be put to the vote at the next election.
Mr Denham, the Secretary for Innovation, Universities and Skills, told The Independent: "One of the ways we can reconnect politicians with the voters is to increase the power of the voters. Letting people choose the electoral system would be a huge step forward."
He added: "The background ... is the need to look for ways of re-establishing better trust between the voters and the political system. Because of that, it takes on added potency and urgency."
Up to 100 Labour MPs could support the referendum plan. The issue of proportional representation has been on ice within Labour ranks for a decade.
But supporters say the expenses furore – and the possibility of a hung parliament after the next election – could give it new momentum. They are planning a Commons motion next week to gauge the extent of support.
John Grogan, chairman of the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform, said: "The political kaleidoscope has been completely shaken up in the last few weeks."
However, the majority of the Cabinet is thought to oppose discussion of electoral reform. Senior figures such as the Justice Secretary Jack Straw believe trust will be better restored by reform of the Commons. Denis MacShane, the former Foreign Office minister said PR allowed extremists into Parliament.
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Comments
Pale-blue Labour will almost cease to exist after the next election, but at least you lot will know exactly where you all stand after it. (Neither here nor there, and utterly unnoticed by the electorate by and large for at least 10 years once we've had the chance to kick you.)
The NulLabour Party: Jack-of-all-trades and rubbish at all.
The nutty fringe parties like the BNP they claim to be so scared of will ALWAYS remain at the fringes if every vote really did make a difference. If the next election actually had proper representation I would be shocked if the BNP got more than 10% of the vote. I think the Greens and UKIP would do better.
Given the last election gave a government with 28%-ish of the vote (Like Thatcher), proportional (proper) representation is so over-due it's almost surreal watching them saying they need to get their act together.
For whom? Them or our benefit?
GOOGLE:
fluoride Germans Soviet "brain damage" banned
Was it an "old wifes tale" or something? Come one Indie, spill the beans why dontcha!
I'm with you on this, just like Ireland and pretty much every other nation except France, the vote will get a resounding no.
The referendum on PR was first promised in the 1997 Labour manifesto.
I think you'll find that predates the European Constitution by about a decade.
Personally, Euro fanatic though I am, I'd happily vote to leave the EU if that was the only way to secure PR. - The reason being that for all the witterings of the Europhobes, Westminster is, and most likely always will be, where most of the real power in this country lies.
Let's have two referenda: on PR and on EU membership. Then everyone will be gloriously happy.
Like you, I too am pro-European, but the political side of it is in massive need of reform- now; not in twenty years when Russia joins.
Publicity and information are the best way to ensure that MPs behave properly. Giving more power to the party machines, (which is what PR tends to do), will not make MPs more accountable to the electorate.
If we want a different sort of MP, then there is much to be said for having more pensioners in parliament. First, if they have little or no political experience, they must have done a "real" job outside - giving them a more realistic outlook on "ordinary" life. Second, they would not be dependent for their livings on their parliamentary salaries. This will tend to make them more independent minded. Third, if parliament is really to represent the people, then it must be more representative of the people. Much has been siad about having more female MPs or more MPs from ethnic minorities. Why has one of the largest groups been ignored?
I think it's the other way around. The MPs are under the false impression that this is all about expenses, when in fact it is the entire system that is the source of dissatisfaction. The expenses was simply the catalyst - the straw across the proverbial camel's back. Expenses, cover-ups, misuse of public funds, party-political protectionism, the electoral disconnect and the "them and us" culture of politics are all sources of public angst, but it took a single issue to expose all these things under a single light - like the relatively inert constituent parts of gunpowder - and the whole thing has exploded in Parliament's face.
If you think things are bad now, just wait until Spkr Martin resigns and, appointed and not elected, takes his seat in the Upper House! You want to see what public dissatisfaction looks like? Wait until then! Woo!
Yo, Denis, that's democracy, ya dumbass!
Extremist views may not be everybody's cup of tea but at least, with proportional representation, minority extremists ONLY get proportionately minority voices! How difficult it is for these power-hungry ministers to grasp the very basic fundamentals of what a bloody democracy IS! But then they're ministers in an effective dictatorship - there's almost NO representation of the MAJORITY view coming from the completely unelected Mr Brown. And clearly they have no interest in finding what the majority view even IS.
We need proportional representation AND commons reform AND upper house reform. The whole damn thing is broken. I'm actually finding it rather entertaining, hearing the "hot fix" answers that the parties think will shut us up the quickest.. none of which will do anything on their own to dispel the mood of rage that we are feeling.
I just want all of us to be represented for the first time ever in this nation of ours.
Denham had the principles to resign his government position when Poodle Tony led our troops into Iraq; all the others just "tucked tail" and followed.
Denham refused to be part of the WMD porkies and the Yellow Cakes cr@p that Tony was spewing out in his daily nonsense outbursts.
The first step must be to restore accountability through de-selections, prosecutions and a much needed General Election. Brown must listen and ask Her Majesty to dissolve Parliament and call a General Election NOW.
Which world are living in ? The World of Fairies ?
....bring back what ? How can you bring back something that was never there !
This fiasco has just exposed a system that has shafted the unwashed for centuries; this medieval ancient system of governance must be changed in line with the modern world !
Which of the two parties did you spend your life-working for in order to uphold an innoble belief?
Personally I spent my life waiting for a Labour government and got a party that travelled abroad just to sell off British companies in exchange. No sense of national pride it seems.
I have a "pick and mix" approach to all the two parties- I like some from both and hate some from both, if you dream of the magna carta, don't worry, a written constitution will ensure the rights of you and the peasants, no matter how many pigs you breed.
as for the public seeing this as labour trying to save its skin even if the tories won by a landslide under te curent rules the boundaries are so in labours favour they would still get more seats than they proportionally deserve
The issue for you might well be constitutional reform - but I suspect that that was the case even before the expense abuses came to light. The issue for most people is the news - i.e. the expenses abuse. As bgarvie wrote: "Constitutional reform bigots / zealots see they can finally realise their goal . . ". In other words, the expenses abuse is being used as an (illogical) excuse for them to further those ends in which they have always believed.
Does anyone really believe that MEPs, elected under a PR system, are actually better behaved than Westminster MPs in respect of their expenses? Why should an elected House of Lords show greater probity when an elected House of Commons does not?
Alan Johnson advocates putting fluoride in Great Britain's water.
GOOGLE:
fluoride Germans Soviet "brain damage" banned
(And stop posting)
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/liv
AH YES, IT'S 'FOR THE CHILDREN' IS IT?
Fluoride - The Lunatic Drug
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/water.htm
RIGHTLY BANNED IN MANY EUROPEAN NATIONS!
If Labour reneged on its promise in 1979, Labour is equally capable of reneging on its promise in 2010.
Sometimes the political class is too stupid for their own good: I would have voted Labour REGARDLESS of proper representation or not, watching 30% of a nation elect a representative and then be governed by them is not democracy in action.
I WILL vote Liberal at the next election and my vote WILL be wasted as those are not the TWO options who will be elected- one or the other WILL.
New_Tory WILL-NOT be in power after the next election, and the reason they will hold no power at all WILL BE as a result of dropping this 10 year pledge.
I WILL be happy they are no longer in power but I WILL NOT be happy with the other party.
They had one single chance to enfranchise the people, got power, then got greedy and BLEW IT.
We WILL suffer as a result, as the only two parties who could give us democracy have now said NO, both of whom use the BNP as the feeble excuse to deny US real DEMOCRACY.
Give us a spectrum of views and representation, even if I'll most always likely be left of centre, mind you, this for me currently means a bit left of an old minor party- they are called the Liberals- and once even held power about a hundred years ago!!! Have you heard of them?
Nah, thought not, I don't think even women were allowed the vote back then, no wonder they have been forgotten in the New Tory-Real Tory leadership, I mean government system.....
I'm curious about the process.
PR need not "allow extremists into Parliament" - it depends on which particular system is chosen. But even if it did, so what? Surely it is better we confront bigotry in the light than let it grow in the dark. Refusing to do the right and democratic thing out of fear of the BNP is absurd, and those who use this argument are probably more interested in the future of their party than a reformed Parliament or better democracy.
Referendum Now!
The Scots and Welsh have been largely ignored by a British Parliament essentially dominated by English MP's ever since the union.
To claim otherwise is nuts.
Put anotherway, tell me when you ever heard the main Scottish news item on the English news? They might as well not exist if the BBC were the government, the UK is already entirely weighted towards us English, propped up by failing institutions like the BBC who now seem (at least currently) obsessed with the North American market and not OUR union, never mind the promotion of it- something English MP's have had 200 years of experience in already.
Frankly, having been thru the Common market referendum, it was a historic disaster for this country. It was only held to keep the Labour party together, and they falsely pretended they got a better deal than the Tories on Common market membership, with business providing twice the funding for the yes campaign, which won a two-to-one victory.
And now also for the convenience of the Labour party, a referendum on PR is being mooted, after wasting more than a decade to get the issue properly discussed. So, to date, the right wing media are keeping mum, leaving The Guardian and The Independent to make the educational running on electoral reform.
In a sentence, there is democratic PR (STV) which allows the voters to prefer how otherwise wasted votes are transfered in a proportional count, or there are party list systems, including additional (list)
member systems, which deprived voters of the preference vote (envisaged by the independent inventors of PR, Carl Andrae and Thomas Hare) and replaced it with a party list, the exclusive preference vote of an oligarchy of bosses or activists.
The only way he could do that is quit and fuck off back to Scotland.