- Charlotte Gore thinks Liberal Conspiracy still has some way to go before it is the British answer to DailyKos.
- Constantly Furious has had enough of the drip-drip of the expenses scandal and writes an open letter to the Telegraph.
- Mark Wadsworth hearts Andy Marr.
- Dizzy has a mind boggling tale from the family court.
- And, just because I am so pleased, another mention for Douglas Carswell and his enthusiasm for electoral reform.
Pages
Sunday 31 May 2009
Other Reckonings - 31st May 2009
ICM Poll filtered through our rotten electoral system
Helping out with Iain Dale's election results coverage
Douglas Carswell - Changing his mind on electoral reform
Gordon Brown - pathetic performance on Andy Marr's show
Saturday 30 May 2009
If the latest poll is right, Brown is finished
Now I should be careful here. We are in the midst of a major crisis of confidence in politics with all parties and many politicians affected. This poll could be a rogue or an outlier. As Mike Smithson would I am sure say we need to wait to see if the poll is corroborated by others.
However, if it is proven to be roughly right by further polls and/or the election results on Thursday then Brown is finished. Despite the practical difficulties in getting rid of him, his colleagues will have no choice. His colleagues will have to find a collective back bone and a way will have to be found to get him out.
Nick Clegg is spot on about "Golden Goodbyes"
Friday 29 May 2009
Other Reckonings - 29th May 2009
- Anthony Barnett questions David Cameron's reforming credentials.
- Devil's Kitchen extrapolates from the current crisis that a General Election is the only way out.
- Paul Waugh from off of The Evening Standard questions if Cameron has handled this crisis well.
- Malcolm Clark from MVC posts about a rallying call for PR from Peter Tatchell.
- And Jennie Rigg aint happy with Cowley Street's web design standards.
This could be the only chance
I have thought for years that we need a propotional system of elections for the House of Commons. But because a new system would mean a good number of them would not be re-elected MPs under it they would not vote for a referendum on this. I have always found this incredibly frustrating because it seems to go against natural justice that MPs should be the final arbiters of the system that elects them. I feared it would never change for this reason.
Things have fundamentally changed in the last few weeks. 13 MPs have already announced that they are standing down at the next election. Before the next election there are predictions that at least 200 could have announced that they are also not standing. This gives us a unique opportunity as perhaps a third of the Commons will not have a vested interest in the existing system.
They would be doing their country a great service for the future if they were to honestly listen to the arguments and re-enfranchise the millions of people whose votes currently don't count.
We may never get a chance like the next few months could yield again.
Mark Reckons writes for Guardian datablog
Thursday 28 May 2009
BBC Question Time Live Chat - 28th May 2009
You can also follow people's comments on Twitter via the #bbcqt hashtag (you can also follow me here on Twitter by the way - I will try to join in the tweets too!).
Liberal Democrat Voice also always have an open thread for BBC Question Time which is usually posted just before the start of the programme.
The chat has now finished for this week. You can see what we said in the re-run below.
We will be back next week, please join us and in the meantime I will be on Twitter during the week if you want to follow me for more political microblogging!
Why are only junior MPs standing down?
Wednesday 27 May 2009
Update to MP expenses scandal and safe seats correlation
STV is the one for me
Tuesday 26 May 2009
Political Twitterers!
Video of Bracknell MP Andrew MacKay's meeting
Debating different forms of PR
David Cameron, Electoral Reform, Turkeys and Christmas
Alan Johnson the Health Secretary joined the debate yesterday with an article in The Times calling for a referendum on electoral reform to be put to the electorate and to coincide with the next General Election. It seems that his argument is winning support both within the cabinet and the Parlimentary Labour Party. Part of Mr Johnson's thesis is:
The adoption of AV+ (a proportional electoral system originally devised by the Jenkins Commission in 1998 by the late Roy Jenkins) would shift the political focus currently concentrated almost exclusively on a few swing voters in a handful of marginal seats. It would end the perversity of the party with the most votes nationally forming the opposition rather than the government, as has happened twice since the war.
I absolutely agree that it is dreadful how our existing "First Past the Post" electoral system causes all political parties to focus on a very small minority of "swing voters" in marginal constituencies hence allowing the winner of General Elections to be decided by a few tens of thousands of voters. Reform of the electoral system to a proportional system would completely transform the political landscape and would genuinely mean that every vote counted towards the end result. The benefits of this approach would be immense and would reenfranchise great swathes of the electorate whose votes are currently wasted.
Clearly David Cameron has sensed that proper electoral reform is quickly gaining traction as an idea and has leapt in to try and halt the debate. In a wide ranging article in The Guardian as part of their "A New Politics" series he argues for all sorts of reform including reducing the power of No 10, "seriously considering" the option of fixed term parliaments, boosting the power of MPs and curbing the power of the executive. All of these are welcome measures and (if implemented properly) would certainly help to improve our system of Government.
However, when it comes to the biggest reform of all and the one that would yield the most results in terms of improving democracy and empowering the electorate, i.e. a more proportional electoral system, Mr Cameron has this to say:
A Conservative government will not consider introducing proportional representation, as many participants in A New Politics have demanded. The principle underlying all the political reforms a Conservative government would make is the progressive principle of redistributing power and control from the powerful to the powerless. PR would actually move us in the opposite direction, which is why I'm so surprised it's still on the wish-list of progressive reformers. Proportional representation takes power away from the man and woman in the street and hands it to the political elites. Instead of voters choosing their government on the basis of the manifestos put before them in an election, party managers would choose a government on the basis of secret backroom deals. How is that going to deliver transparency and trust?
This strikes me as clangingly at odds with the rest of what Mr Cameron is arguing. He claims that PR will move power from the electorate to the political elite but at the moment a government can win 55% of the seats in parliament on 35% of the vote (Labour did this in 2005) so how is this empowering the voter? Great swathes of voters under the current system needent bother voting as their choice at the ballot box makes no difference to the end result. As for his argument about secret backroom deals by party managers, well that doesn't stand up to scrutiny either. Currently, this sort of thing happens anyway within the party of government as we effectively have an elective dictatorship headed by the Prime Minister. At least with a proportional system, any attempt to push legislation through will be under more scrutiny whether this is through a coalition or a minority administration. Laws and measures will be better as a result of being properly debated. At the moment the government can largely pass whatever it wants and just whip its troops through the relevant lobby without having to win the argument and convince other parliamentarians of its case.
I would not expect Mr Cameron to be in favour of PR. If the polls are correct, he is likely to become the next Prime Minister and under the current electoral system could find himself with a decent sized majority on a minority of votes. He is still a young man and is probably hoping to get at least two terms as Prime Minister to be able to govern the country according to his principles and along the lines that previous administrations with the ability to legilslate unhindered by the need for full scrutiny. Mr Cameron's best hope of this sort of untrammelled power is to do exactly what he is now doing. He is a canny enough politician to know that there is a clamour for change and he has to address it so he is positioning himself by offering some changes (and they are important ones). But without proper electoral reform his other measures are merely tinkering at the edges.
My view on this is that if Mr Cameron is so sure of his arguments then he should back a referendum campaign and then campaign against it. That is the way to win his argument properly. At the moment he is trying to prevent the argument from being taken to the people of this country so that they can decide and if he gets his way there will not even be a referendum. One has to ask oneself why he does not want a referendum on this, after all he is keen enough to have one on the Lisbon Treaty. On that issue, suddenly the views of the electorate are desperately important.
There is another very important point that I think needs to be made here too. The MP Expenses scandal that has dominated the political scene for the last two and a half weeks has come about directly as a result of MPs deciding the rules about how they are paid and remunerated for their time. It has been shown over the last couple of weeks that they cannot be trusted with this and politicians of all parties are now calling for the decisions about how MPs are paid to be decided by an external panel. MPs are only human and it is perhaps not surprising that left to their own devices they would come up with and support a system that was to their advantage even when it was against what was in the public interest.
There is a direct parallel between this and the electoral system. Exactly the same principles apply to this as to MPs expenses and salaries. By the status quo of a desperately unfair electoral system being allowed to remain, most MPs benefit. Most MPs are in very or relatively safe seats and as long as they toe the party line can expect to be in parliament for many years, often decades. However, if a new electoral system was brought in, suddenly quite a lot of MPs may find that their positions were not as secure as they were before. There would be more democratic accountability and their chances of remaining in a safe seat for their entire career would be diminished.
The phrase "Turkeys don't vote for Christmas" is often used about this subject and it is spot on. As I said, MPs are only human and it is unsurprising that many of them are opposed to electoral reform as it endangers their personal careers. If I worked in a company with 645 other people and was given a vote on changes that would make my job less secure I would find it difficult to vote yes to that.
This is why the choice should be taken out of the hands of MPs. Just as with their expenses and their salaries they cannot be expected to do what is in the public's best interests when it comes to the electoral system. It needs to be put out to an external scrutiny panel.
And the best external scrutiny panel is the one made up of the electorate of the United Kingdom.
A broad range of people have launched a campaign this week for a referendum on PR to coincide with the next General Election. Please see my previous post here for details and how to get involved.
Sunday 24 May 2009
Electoral Reform - Referendum 2010 campaign launched
Dear Mark,
We have already been active on this for the past week (and thanks for all the letters and emails already despatched to MPs and to the press), but today the public campaign is officially launched. A broad range of civil society organisations and individuals have come together to call for a referendum on the day of the next general election to change the way we elect our MPs.
http://www.makemyvotecount.org.uk/referendum2010
- launch letter in The Observer: signed by a range of leading figures from across the cultural, academic, political and civil society worlds. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/24/letters-mps-expenses
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/24/mps-expenses-commons-reform
http://www.makemyvotecount.org.uk/blog/archives/referendum2010/index.html
http://www.makemyvotecount.org.uk/donate.html
Director, Make Votes Count
I am fully behind this campaign and feel it is the best way for the public to have their say in what should happen.
If you agree, please get involved as Malcom suggests!
Mark Reckons - Blogging will be light for a couple of days
Independent on Sunday - safe seats and expenses scandal correlation - 2 mentions
Saturday 23 May 2009
+++ My local Bracknell MP Andrew Mackay is standing down+++
James Graham is spot on about Jo Swinson
I attended Andrew MacKay's meeting and I think his position is now untenable
- He apologised "profoundly" for dragging the constituency into the expenses furore.
- He said that he took a "tough line" on MPs expenses. However I noted as wrote this that he voted against transparency last year.
- He said that as he submitted his claims to David Cameron's scrutiny team he had "no knowledge" of what was to come.
- He resigned because he thought he would be a distraction to what the Conservatives are trying to do.
- He said that he did not hide from the media.
- One of his main lines of defence was that he had "voluntarily" submitted his claims to the scrutiny panel and that he had spoken to the Daily Telegraph after his resignation and they said to him that they had not been going to run a story on him about this. He seemed to think that this fact was somehow in his favour. It is worth unpacking this a little bit. His claims that the submission was voluntary seems disingenuous. All Cameron's advisers had to submit them, if he had not done he would have surely been sacked so it was in effect compulsory. Also, just because the DT had not twigged the significance of Mr MacKay and Ms Kirkbride's situation does not seem to me to be any sort of defence.
- He said that he had taken advice from the fees office and they had not pointed out at all that there was any problem. A familiar defence from MPs caught up in this and cuts no ice with the public now. Why didn't HE think it was wrong?
- Finally he announced that he would put himself up for readoption by his local party in order that they could decide if following this scandal they still wanted him to stand but he insisted he would fight to remain as the MP and candidate. At this point, to me it seemed like he was pleading for his political life and it was not an edifying sight.
- One person stated that he did not wish to be represented by a thief.
- Another accused him of fraudulent behaviour.
- There were several questions and comments about why he did not live in the constituency. He did not have a good answer for this.
- Several commenters stated that he had damaged or ruined the constituency.
- I asked him how he responded to a poll on the Get Bracknell website where 65% of respondents (out of 628 votes) had said he should step down. His response was that was not the reaction he was getting from other people he had spoken to. I have to say though that the feeling from the hall seemed to me that more than 65% of people were against him.
- A former metropolitan Police Officer read out excerpts from the Green book on parliamentary expenses and concluded that Mr MacKay's actions based on that were fraud.
- One audience member quoted an e-mail exchange he had had with him where on the 12th May Mr MacKay had stated that anyone caught up in the scandal should lose the party whip. This was of course just before Mr MacKay himself got caught up in the scandal. the questioner than said: "So mr macKay, should you lose the whip". For me, this was the question of the night and Mr MacKay was all at sea. He did his best to get out of it and did so by not really answering.
Friday 22 May 2009
Mark Thompson - "More or Less" safe seats expenses analysis
1:30pm today, I am on Radio 4's "More or Less"
Thursday 21 May 2009
Ben Bradshaw uses "Mark Reckons" research on BBC Question Time to argue for electoral reform
BBC Question Time Live Chat - 21st May 2009 - 9:00pm Start!
+++ Lord Rennard to step down as Lib Dem Chief Executive +++
The candidates for Speaker should all go on a special BBC Question Time
Calls for constitutional change and electoral reform grow
Wednesday 20 May 2009
Lib Dem Blogs needs our help
Other Reckonings - 20th May 2009
- Transform summarises a new Centre for Policy Studies report on drugs as "Prohibition doesn't work, so let's have more prohibition!"
- Malcolm Clark from MVC lists the great and the good who have called for electoral reform in the last few days.
- Tony Sharp worries about the consequences of letting the Speaker dictate terms for parliamentary reform. Surely this is a job for his successor?
- Cicero's Songs thinks that a constitutional convention is the only way now to sort the mess out.
- And Skipper senses a "Quiet Revolution" underway.
I'm going to be on Radio 4's "More or Less" this Friday!
Eight things I hate
6) Big Brother. I know CF also listed this but he is bang on. What had the potential in series 1 to be an interesting sociological experiment (indeed that's how Endemol first tried to sell it) quickly degenerated into what it is now. A bunch of ecomaniacal, attention seeking idiots scratching each other's eyes out for the chance to get their boat on the box for an extra few seconds and thus score the front cover of Sleb magazine. No talent, no redeeming features and no shame.
7) Marmite - nuff said
- It is so slow. I am certain my current Vista machines (work and home) are both slower than my previous XP machines even though the hardware in both cases is significantly better. It still amazes me how speed considerations just seem to go out of the window for OS and application developers. I don’t want to have sit there for 5 minutes waiting for a load of unnecessary services to load up. I also don’t want to see a spinning blue circle for 20 seconds after I invoke Windows Explorer. I just want Windows Explorer! The worst example of this is clicking CTRL-ALT-DEL. Even this can take 15 – 30 seconds to bring up the low level menu. This is supposed to be a shortcut to the low level of the OS!
- Windows Explorer seems to choose the style and fields available for my view all by itself. Sometimes it will go for thumbnails, sometimes lists. I have tried forcing it to always be “details” with the fields most useful to me (filename, size, attributes, date modified) for all folders but this does not work. I have lost count of the number of times I have to turn off “Artists”, “Album”, “Genre”, “Rating” and “#”. It seems to assume every folder is to be used by a 13 year old child cataloguing their mp3 collection. Even folders that do not contain any mp3s. Beyond frustrating.
- UAC is just intrusive and as far as I can tell in my case pointless. However I have been warned it is a bad idea to turn it off so I put up with it.
- I have reminders of things like “Div X update” every time I want to run Windows Media Player but when I say “OK” there is no update available and I am unable to turn this off.
- The “All Programs” section of the windows menu is worse than in XP.
- Silly things like changing the name of “Add/Remove Programs” to “Programs and Features”. Why!!? It just confuses long time users of Windows. I still have to think every time I need to do this now, “what is it called again?”. Unnecessary cognitive overhead.
- Loss of up arrow in Windows Explorer. This is such a stupid omission.
I now tag Oranjepan and Norfolk Blogger.