Vote for a change

I have just signed this, the petition on the "Vote for a Change" website. They are campaigning for a binding referendum at the next General Election on proportional representation and already have considerable backing from people including Stephen Fry, Damon Albarn and Philip Pullman (incidentally, if you haven't seen his barnstorming speech at the Convention on Modern Liberty earlier this year then you can do so here).

Here is what I submitted as my comment to the petition:

This latest scandal has demonstrated how woefully out of touch our political classes are with ordinary people. One of the reasons I think is because of the large amount of safe seats gifted to MPs by our rotten electoral system. There is even some evidence that the safer an MPs seat is, the more likely they are to have been involved in this expenses scandal.

We need a fair electoral system that makes all votes count and reconnects our politicians to the public.

If you agree with letting the public decide how we should elect our parliament, rather than leaving it up to the main parties who have a vested interest in the existing system then please go and sign it and/or donate to the campaign.