Fixed-term parliaments are profoundly undemocratic and an abomination in the context of our constitution. They would ensure that a useless government stayed there.. The idea that people want 50 fewer MPs is a fetish of the elite. Voters would certainly like there to be fewer departments of state and fewer ministers, so why not start there? And what about the alternative vote? Given that we are in a parlous financial predicament, and are fighting an overseas war, and our public I am very struck by the suggestion floated byLord Tebbit and expanded by Fraser Nelson that David Cameron may be moving towards an outright merger with the LibDems. This clearly wasn’t part of some long-gestated strategic plan; I gather that on the morning after the general election which Cameron failed to win, he was totally undecided about his best course of action. But clearly he saw no overriding problem with the non-negotiable condition laid down by Nick Clegg for joining the coalition, that there had to be a move towards some kind of proportional representation system -- albeit the...Wednesday, 7th July 2010
Melanie Phillips
The coalition's frivolous atrocity
11:06am
In the Daily Telegraph today, Simon Heffer has written a blistering column which perfectly expresses why the coalition’s whole constitutional bag of tricks – fixed term Parliaments, AV, constituency carve-up – is a frivolous atrocity and should be fought tooth and nail by anyone who cares about democracy and the integrity of the British constitution. Here’s a sample:
...Tuesday, 6th July 2010
A realignment of British politics?
11:45am
Reports that Labour MPs are joining forces with Tory ‘right-wingers’ to fight the Coalition’s proposal to gerrymander Britain’s voting system into favouring the LibDems merely adds to the sense that politics in Britain has been turned upside down.
Thursday, 8 July 2010
Posts
