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A good day for democracy

August 8, 2012 3:00 pm

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Brian Barder

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Nick Clegg announced on Monday that the Prime Minister has decided to abandon the Lib Dems’ House of Lords Reform Bill, and that in retaliation (not Mr Clegg’s word, but that’s what it amounts to) the LibDems will vote against the Tories’ plan to reduce the size of the house of commons and have the constituency boundaries re-drawn to the advantage of the Conservative Party by a speeded-up process in time for the election scheduled for 2015.

This is very bad news for the Coalition, marking a stinging humiliation of its junior partner by the Tory right-wing Neanderthal tendency, but very good news indeed for the country.

With luck it will allow time for a fundamental re-think about the place of the second chamber at Westminster in the context of devolution, the Scottish independence/devo max referendum in 2014, and the constitutional future of the UK as a whole. And with a bit more luck it should spell the end of a shameless attempt by the Tories to gerrymander the House of Commons to their own advantage in time for the next election — something the Lib Dems were prepared to go along with, to their everlasting shame, in exchange for Tory support for their ideas about reform of the House of Lords (the kind of cynical horse-trading that makes the wheels of coalition government in a hung parliament go round).

So: a good day for democracy, for once!

If Labour has its wits about it, now is the time for an offer of collaboration with the LibDems on a completely new approach to reform of the second chamber in the context of the whole constitutional future of the United Kingdom. Ed Miliband and Sadiq Khan have a golden opportunity to seize the initiative by offering a national constitutional convention to be set up immediately after the next general election to consider the next steps on constitutional reform, including the replacement of the House of Lords by a wholly elected second chamber, on the basis of proposals to be drawn up jointly by the Labour and LibDem parties between now and the next election.

Just_Another_Voter

Strange use of the word gerrymander. I thought it meant to produce a political advantage not take away one. Labour currently have a 5-6% advantage and it’s only fair that this is removed.
- John Ruddy
  
  The way the boundaries are drawn up were agreed by all parties to be fair ever since the second world war. At times one party has been “favoured” at other times another. Never has anyone previously had an issue.
  
  The way these changes have been designed has solely been about giving one party an advantage – combining them with a reduction in numbers and a restriction on the variation allowed to accommodate local factors.
  
  Its not the Labour party’s fault that the conservatives pile up votes in places they dont need them, nor that Labour voters are more “efficiently distributed”. It has been independently proven that the boundaries only provide a very small benefit to Labour, but these changes give the tories a 20 seat advantage.
  
  Before you post again, please check some facts.
  - http://www.barder.com/ephems/ Brian Barder
    
    @John Ruddy: Exactly so. There’s a full discussion of the Tory plan for boundary changes, and why it can properly be labelled a gerrymander, here.
    - jaime taurosangastre candelas
      
      …except that I do not believe your argument at the link exposes what can be properly labelled a “gerrymander”. I believe that you have a view, a position or an opinion, and that you abandon neutrality and choose the word “properly” improperly to report upon your own view in commenting (above) on your own comment at the link. It’s also not a full discussion, as you claim.
    - Bill Lockhart
      
      I am a principled democrat
      You are a pragmatic politician
      He is a gerrymandering crook.
      - Brumanuensis
        
        ‘We’ find these pseudo-grammars of yours exceedingly dull
        ‘They’ contribute nothing to the discussion
  - aracataca
    
    What a Tory bother with facts? Pushing the boat out in terms of expectations me thinks Mr Ruddy.
- Mikecareywigan
  
  One of the main issues is that in Labour areas there tends to be a much greater problem with voter-registration, because of the poll tax, social exclusion, disconnection from politics felt by the poor etc. So by ‘equalising’ constituencies by registered voter, you merely give the areas most in need of strong representation a lower MP-to-people ratio.
  - Bill Lockhart
    
    If people refuse to identify register in order to avoid paying tax, they rightly forego the franchise.
    - Mikecareywigan
      
      But they are still represented by a member of Parliament, correct? They still use services, they still pay other taxes, they still add to an MPs work. And what of the people in these areas that do register, would you have them inevitably suffer from lack of adequate representation because the constituency has many more people than it’s supposed to due to this false ‘equalization’?
      
      What really needs to happen is a revolution in voter-registration, and a removal of everything that bars individuals from registering. Only then can constituencies be sized properly.
    - Brumanuensis
      
      Given that the franchise hasn’t been linked to taxation or property-ownership since 1918, this is an irrelevant consideration.
      - JoeDM
        
        Maybe taxpayers should have an extra vote. After all, they are paying for the State’s activities.
      - Brumanuensis
        
        By ‘taxpayers’ I presume you mean income tax-payers. Otherwise your statement is meaningless, as we all pay some tax.
        
        Unless this is comment along the lines of Swift’s ‘A Modest Proposal’.
      - Bill Lockhart
        
        Perhaps many of the unregistered are not aware of the actual legal position but err on the side of caution. Since there is a very large though unquantified number of illegal immigrants in the UK, there is at least one group of “citizens” in inner cities with a keen interest in staying off any official register. Many on the Left doubtless feel that illegal immigrants should be “represented” in Parliament.
      - Brumanuensis
        
        In a word, yes.
  - AnotherOldBoy
    
    The simple fact is that seats in Wales and Scotland have far fewer voters than those in England and that rural seats (where there are plenty of poor people) tend to have more voters than urban seats.
    
    And no one area has more need of representation than any other: that’s democracy!
    
    The traditional over-representation of Scotland and Wales in the House of Commons is no longer justified now that both enjoy some devolution.
    
    It is odd – unless one sees him as a shameless Labour partisan, which I am sure he is not – that Sir Brian talks about reform of the House of the Lords “in the context of devolution” but then describes a sensible measure to reform the Commons in that very same context as “a shameless attempt by the Tories to gerrymander the House of Commons to their own advantage in time for the next election”.
    
    What appears from LabourList every time the proposal to make the size of constituencies more equal is that Labour supporters are desperate to keep the current system which favours their party. That is no more moral – and indeed, less so and more shameless – than seeking to achieve a proper balance between constituencies.
    - http://www.barder.com/ephems/ Brian Barder
      
      I don’t think anyone disagrees that constituency boundaries need to be reviewed and up-dated regularly to take account of population changes and to make them as nearly equal in population size as can be achieved. But the Tory proposals are objectionable on various grounds:
      1. the proposed reduction of the number of constituencies by the completely arbitrary figure of 50 is manifestly chosen to give the Conservatives maximum benefit at the expense of the other main parties;
      2. their proposed basis for calculating population sizes is deliberately skewed to benefit the Tories (see Martin Kettle in today’s Guardian, href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/08/failure-lords-reform-great-british-democracy”>here, quoted in my separate comment today;
      3. the Tory proposal dismisses or devalues such criteria for drawing constituency boundaries as cultural, geographical, historic and traditional homogeneity, which make most constituencies recognisable communities, not just a mathematical collection of people exactly equal to all the other constituencies — a radical departure from how these things have been done in the past and one that will lead to huge anomalies such as geographically gigantic constituencies in thinly populated areas, and slabs of mainland having to be tacked on to islands or groups of islands; and
      4. the Tories want to telescope the procedures for consultation over the commission’s proposed new boundaries, reducing the time and scope for appeals and reviews, purely to get the new boundaries into place in time for the next election.
      You don’t, surely, need to be a Labour zealot to feel profoundly uneasy about all these nakedly partisan and undemocratic departures from a system which all parties have hitherto accepted as broadly fair.
      
      It’s true that the present boundaries give Labour and the LibDems an advantage and that it’s clearly time to review them. In the past the same system has for a good many years benefited the Tories, without Labour at that time seeking to cure their disadvantage by moving the goalposts and re-writing the rule book. In 1951 Labour won almost 2 million more votes and a higher percentage of the total vote than it had won in its famous landslide victory of 1945, and won then over 231,000 more votes than the Tories: yet Labour lost that election to the Tories, marking the end of the historic Attlee government era. In the first election of 1974, Labour won with a majority of just four seats over the Tories but with a smaller share of the vote — by a margin very similar to Labour’s in 1951. You win some and you lose some, but you don’t try to load the dice in your own favour.
      
      I make no apology for my general commitment to Labour, but when I think Labour is wrong, I don’t hesitate to say so, as I think a quick scan through my past posts on Labour List will confirm. Equally, when I believe that the Tories are up to their old tricks again, my overall support for Labour and its principles can’t reasonably debar me from saying so, and giving my reasons.
- Brumanuensis
  
  Regardless of what you think of the principle of the boundary changes, removing the optimal number of seats (50) to maximise your (i.e. the Conservatives) advantage and damage your opponent (i.e. Labour), is basically a gerrymander.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Stephen-Collins/100000033820132 Stephen Collins
    
    Funny, that sounds just like what Labour did to the House of Lords in 1999.
    
    Paybacks a bitch isn’t it?
    - http://www.barder.com/ephems/ Brian Barder
      
      @Stephen Collins: But since the membership of the House of Lords depends almost entirely of people appointed by the party leaders, with the leadership of the party in power determining how many nominations each party is allowed, Labour’s action in 1999 can’t be called a gerrymander: it didn’t involve fixing or distorting an electoral process or result. Cameron’s plan to appoint yet more peers to this already obscenely bloated body until its composition reflects the results of the 2010 election to the House of Commons — i.e. with the Tories having more peers than any other party — is peculiarly misguided, since it contradicts the principle that the second chamber should be so constituted as to make it independent of the executive (whose political colour automatically reflects that of the House of Commons). We need a wholly elected second chamber, elected on a different basis and probably at a different time from the HoC. Ideally it should be a federal-type States’ house with equal numbers of representatives elected in each of the four UK nations. But that’s another story and deserves a separate post.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
  
  Its hardly our fault that the Tories build up huge majorities in their safe seats. Its largely that which leads to the advantage
http://www.facebook.com/people/Stephen-Collins/100000033820132 Stephen Collins

This:

“national constitutional convention”

Is contradicted by this:

“ basis of proposals to be drawn up jointly by the Labour and LibDem parties between now and the next election.”
- http://www.futureeconomics.org Diarmid Weir
  
  Er, No. I think if you read Brian’s text carefully, he is suggesting that the convention would consider (after the election and among other things) proposals for reform of the HofL drawn up (before the election) by Labour and LibDems. Perhaps Brian should, as a matter of fact, have considered other parties willing to work on these proposals, but it seems fair to assume that the Tories would not be among them.
- http://www.barder.com/ephems/ Brian Barder
  
  @Stephen Collins: No, I don’t think there’s any contradiction. I’m suggesting that between now and the next general election (which by the way could well be before 2015) there should be an informal working party comprising Labour and the LibDems, perhaps to include the Green and a selection of representatives of the nationalist parties, to try to agree on the basic principles for Lords reform, in the context of our evolving constitution and the outcome of the Scottish referendum in 2014 on independence versus full internal self-government. If this produces an agreed document, Labour and the LibDems (and any other signatories) would include it in their election manifestos. After the election, if Labour came back into office with or without LibDem support, both parties would be committed to establishing a national constitutional convention whose remit would include the Lords reform proposals put forward by the Lab-LibDem group before the election, but which would place that in the context of the wider picture of our present constitution, where devolution is leading us, how the West Lothian Question can best be resolved, internal self-government for England, and the shape of the federal institutions at Westminster in a fully federal UK. There would be further scope for Labour-LibDem collaboration in drawing up recommendations for all these other aspects of the convention’s work as it proceeded. The convention’s proposals for constitutional changes would mostly require approval in a referendum as each of them emerged, as well of course as approval by parliament, before being implemented. This would be a long-term project stretching over at least two or three years, perhaps longer.
  
  I don’t think this programme needs to be worked out in minute detail at this stage. But this is an especially good opportunity for Labour to discuss its main features with the LibDems as a possible option of immense potential benefit to both parties, laying the groundwork for constructive Labour-LibDem collaboration both before and after the next election, whatever its result.
Max

I can’t see Cameron walking into a certain parliamentary defeat on this.My guess is that the vote will be a combined confidence vote as Major did over Maastricht.
jaime taurosangastre candelas

It’s not a very good day for democracy at all. It’s a terrible outcome for democracy, and the fault spreads pretty equally between all three main parties.

So what is the result of this very petty politicking? House of Lords reform – a good thing for democracy – is dead for another 5 years. Boundary changes – a good thing for democracy – is also dead, maybe for 5 years but more likely for 10 years.

So the tory rednecks don’t like the idea of a slightly more (and extremely imperfectly designed) democratic than the completely undemocratic House of Lords, and kill that. Tory failure on that.

The Lib Dems get completely unhinged and act like spoilt children, claiming some mythical breach of the coalition agreement. And yet if you read the agreement, it is only agreed that proposals will be put forward by a committee – which have been – and even that is linked in the same sentence to the AV referendum, which has already happened, and which the Lib Dems lost. Lib Dem failure on that. If they want to talk about breaking the coalition agreement, they need to be careful, as proportionately more Lib Dems rebelled against tuition fees (31% of Lib Dem MPs) than the 90 tory Lords Reform incorrigibles (29% of tory MPs).

And Labour equally shoots itself in the foot for supporting both Lords reform but not the proposals put forward, while not putting forward any themselves, and supporting boundary changes in principle but not the proposals put forward by the independent commission, and at the same time supporting the ridiculous position of constituency sizes being decided by the electorate (not total population), but then not wanting to adjust current constituency sizes on the grounds of unregistered voters, and even more by not supporting a voter registration drive. No, the prize of hanging onto clearly undersized constituencies for Labour party advantage is too great.

And as for the unregistered voters, and those who support the reasons for them remaining unregistered? I have read all of the arguments, of which most local to LL Brian Barder makes as ever an eloquent case. But I am completely unpersuaded. If you want to vote, bloody well register. If you cannot be bothered, so be it. But do not complain that you are both unregistered and somehow disenfranchised. The solution is in your own energy – do something about it.

No one is unrepresented, by the way. An MP represents everyone in his or her constituency, whether or not they have a vote.
- Brumanuensis
  
  The question is not whether or not someone who is unregistered should be allowed to vote – I agree with registration, as do most people on this site – it’s whether the basis of drawing up seats should be on registration – when as you note, MPs are supposed to represent all people in their constituency.
  - jaime taurosangastre candelas
    
    @ Brum,
    
    oh, I agree. It should be on census information, and if it was, it would support the Labour position that there are lots of people in the inner city seats that currently appear to be very low in numbers of registered electors. But the fact is that Labour had the opportunity to make that point, to inject that into the debate (and even had 13 years in power to drive that through), but for reasons that I cannot work out, deliberately set out to support the status quo i.e. number of registered electors, and NOW complain that there are lots of adults unregistered in some inner city Labour seats, so the existing boundaries should remain the same.
    
    I cannot find it now with a search, but there was an example of this crass idiocy by Emily Thornberry in an “OP ED” piece in either the Telegraph or Guardian about 6-9 months ago. Her logic was infantile, and she was completely shot down in the comments (actually, I think it was the Guardian – my surprise being that even such partisans as normally read the Guardian were mocking her).
    - PeterBarnard
      
      The problem with census information (and I agree with that approach), Jaime, is that a census is only taken every ten years and elections (now) are scheduled for every five years.
      You now receiving “funny boxes?”
    - Brumanuensis
      
      It’s a fair point to criticise Labour for not having done anything about it between 1997 and 2010. However as Peter points out, 10 years is possibly too long a period, although given that boundary revisions need public consultations and careful consideration, it might be best to do as the Americans do and use census data, with the view to adjusting boundaries every 10 – 15 years or so (which was the post-war average I think, slightly skewed by a large gap between 1955 and 1974).
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        Peter B and also to Brum,
        
        10 years, 5 years, whatever works best. I suspect that synchronising boundary reviews to the census – both being currently ten years – is good enough.
      - PeterBarnard
        
        I think “ward swapping” will be inevitable, Jaime, given the constraint (+/- 5%) on constituency size.
        You are correct : censuses and Boundary Reviews cost £sd but if the +/- 5% rule is to apply, I don’t see an alternative.
        Tangled webs weaved an’ all that …
      - http://www.barder.com/ephems/ Brian Barder
        
        Sorry — what exactly is Labour supposed to have failed to do while in office? The fifth boundaries review was undertaken in accordance with the requirements of the law between 2000 and 2007 by the Boundary Commissions in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for the Parliament of the United Kingdom to review constituency boundaries. The changes to constituencies from those reviews were approved and took effect at the 2010 United Kingdom general election, except for Scotland where they took effect at the 2005 election. How was the Labour government at fault in complying with the law throughout that time? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Periodic_Review_of_Westminster_constituencies for the details.)
      - Brumanuensis
        
        No no, that wasn’t what I meant Brian. I wasn’t suggesting that Labour had failed to act in accordance with statute; I was agreeing with Jaime that if Labour wanted to use population rather than registration as the basis for calculating constituency size, then they ought to have done so between 1997 and 2010.
      - http://www.barder.com/ephems/ Brian Barder
        
        Oh, I see, Brum. Thanks, and apologies for having misunderstood you. It’s a fair point, but only if Labour does in fact now and earlier want the basis to be population rather than registration: I know I do, but I suspect that Labour still might not, for some impenetrable reason. No time just at present to do the necessary research, I’m afraid.
- http://www.futureeconomics.org Diarmid Weir
  
  ‘they disenfranchise themselves by not registering’
  
  Maybe they do. But is it good for democracy, and therefore the rest of us, that their interest/trust in the process is so low? You assume this is purely a lack of ‘energy’, but perhaps it is something more worrying?
  - jaime taurosangastre candelas
    
    No, I don’t think it is worrying. I do not suppose all of the unregistered voters are criminals on the run, or battered housewives on the run. I suggest it is lazy people, or people unconcerned with voting. It is possible to construct a set of circumstances in which someone has socially justifiable reasons for not wishing to register to vote, but I suggest that those people would only be a tiny minority of those who are unregistered.
    - http://www.futureeconomics.org Diarmid Weir
      
      You miss the point somewhat. This isn’t about the rights or justifications of those not registered, but what it might mean for democratic legitimacy that so many feel that voting is of no consequence. Of course, you suggest it is just the lazy or unconcerned – but where is the evidence for that?
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        Well,the fact that they have not registered to vote. That’s pretty solid.
      - http://www.futureeconomics.org Diarmid Weir
        
        Hmmm – I think the GMC need to know about your logic!
      - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZPXYLRVP4XOIGGDJWAL6HUO7U4 David
        
        The conclusions appear to suggest that voter registration is most significantly down to people moving and “not getting around” to updating their details in the lead up to election.
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        AKA (well, by me at any rate) “Laziness”.
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
        
        But it is an established fact that those not on the register are more likely to be poorer and more deprived than average, live in reduced circumstances, etc.
        As I believe politics should be there for them more than anyone I think it is vital that their needs be considered. There are all sorts of lists available which detail who lives where – which make the idea of an entirely separate and voluntarily collected electoral register somewhat outdated. the most complete and full listing is what we should be aiming for.
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        “But it is an established fact that those not on the register are more likely to be poorer and more deprived than average, live in reduced circumstances, etc. “
        
        And? Are you somehow trying to make some correlation to laziness being an income related condition? I could not agree that it should be as a matter of principle, although it may very well be in reality.
        
        There’s no excuse by income for not registering to vote if that is what you wish to do. It only costs a really very small amount of effort, and no money at all.
        
        Please don’t come back with some concept of it being mentally harder or more challenging for some social groups to register to vote, or else we’ll have to get into the whole business of whether someone’s vote is worth as much as someone else’s if the level of intellectual input and careful balancing of alternatives is equal, or if someone ticked the first box on the list with a grunt while failing to unfold the full list of candidates.
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        You will need to explain further about your worries about my logic, particularly as you impute them personally to my professional registration body (even if, to pre-empt David Stone’s observation, I post on LL under a Hispanicisation of my legal UK name, so there is a degree of separation and anonymity – don’t worry, unlike Newsbot9 who is unlamented by his absence, there is no implication of threat by me).
        
        Your link is clearly interesting and seems authoritative, and I will read in detail. Upon a first skim, the point that most clearly needs to be made is that the data samples come from 8 significantly inner-city constituencies, and one rural constituency.
        
        And there is the point: people in inner cities “tend” to be younger, more mobile, less set in their ways. And, at the near certain risk of being “flamed” for generalisation, probably more likely to stick two fingers up to authority, to not care about societal engagement, to view their current residence as temporary, and in many other ways to differentiate themselves against the largely more settled, older and conformist population of a rural constituency for whom the act of registration is uncontentious, easy because each year there are no changes, and not an act of state spying into their lives.
        
        So, boring and non-confrontational against fast-moving and “not bovvered”. How is that for a generalisation?
      - http://www.futureeconomics.org Diarmid Weir
        
        ‘don’t worry’
        
        I don’t, and neither should you. Logic starts with an L, not an A! (Medics’ in-joke)
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        Must have escaped me, that one, although I am turning it over in the mind, also trying some Latin and Greek lettering to see if that works (not so far, although it has caused me to remember the notes appendation of PP, or “pendulum plumbii” for “swinging the lead”).
        
        But I am known – and joked about – by my department for being slightly slow to uptake these things, and then even when I do understand, for being a bit grumpy about it.
        
        I can however very slightly make up for that by conversing in Serbian with Danushka, my Ukrainian Senior Charge Nurse, about the foibles of both colleagues and patients. We can both do the arm-charge that Serbs like doing as a physical exclamation to accompany an emphatically made point, or a joke, and it is totally mystifying to both colleagues and to patients. Danushka speaks 4 European languages and is invaluable here in East Anglia where we have many Eastern Europeans. She speaks Serbian with expertise, I can just about ask for some coffee and only in the present tense, but no one else in the Department can speak Serbian at all.
      - http://www.futureeconomics.org Diarmid Weir
        
        Addiction, Adultery, Alcoholism, Association (with an unlicensed practitioner) and Advertising – I think that’s what we were taught to avoid if we wanted to stay on the register!
      - Robertcp
        
        Jaime, you are missing the point that in a democracy everybody should have the opportunity to vote. That includes the apathetic, stupid and lazy (including me on a bad day!)
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        People should only have the opportunity to vote – under the current system – if they have bothered to register. I don’t really like that, as I favour (my phrase) “automatic universal enfranchisement” of over 18s, but then I also dislike my own like as to be manageable, my preferred automatic enfranchisement does need to be a little bit managed to prevent nonsenses like every student in London trying to vote in one borough in one day. You need to tell the authorities who you are and where you want to vote ahead of the election, so there is little logical difference in between the current system, and an automatic system of enfranchisement in which for administrative reasons you pre-register. Actually, there is no difference at all.
        
        It would be chaos otherwise. Just imagine (I’m sure some would like to) every student in the country rushing to vote against Nick Clegg in Sheffield on the day itself to show disgust about tuition fees. Of course, Clegg would be out on his ear, but the constituency would apparently balloon to about 1 million voters, and then contract after midnight to the normal 80,000.
    - treborc
      
      Non interest in politics, with words like they are all the same, which they basically are.
- Brian Barder
  
  Sorry, but (as you might expect!) I don’t buy any of this. Are you seriously saying that if you’re in favour of Lords reform, you have a duty to support any Lords reform bill that the LibDems come up with, however terrible it might be (and is)? And that if you’re in favour of bringing electoral boundaries up to date, you have a duty to support any old plan that the Tories come up with, however many distortions and departures from precedent in the Tories’ interests it might (and does) contain? Both propositions seem to me plainly nonsensical. Labour was willing (I think mistakenly) to debate Clegg’s awful Lords reform bill and to try to amend it into a form which they could support; it’s hardly Labour’s fault that Cameron lost control of his party and the Tory rebels shot it down.
  
  You need to interpret the coalition agreement excessively literally, and with a cynical disregard for its spirit and obvious intentions, to be able to argue that the Tories were not in breach of it by withdrawing the Lords reform bill before it could even be debated, amended and theoretically improved. It’s true that the agreement seems to link Lords reform with the referendum on AV, not explicitly with the boundary changes plot, but Clegg is perfectly entitled to point out that the clutch of constitutional and parliamentary measures in the agreement are an inter-related clutch of reforms and that Cameron can’t cherry-pick those he likes and discard the rest. The proposed boundary changes and reduction in the numbers of backbenchers in relation to the members of the government would increase the government’s already excessive control of the HofC, which the LibDems were prepared to accept only if it was offset by simultaneously strengthening the ability of parliament to hold the executive to account by democratising the House of Lords. Clegg says the Tories can’t have one and scrap the other. Perfectly fair and sensible.
  
  There’s no relevant comparison between the sizes of the Tory revolt against the Lords reform Bill and the LibDem revolt against student fees. Cameron weakly surrendered to the first: Clegg delivered (regrettably) on the second. Even if the LibDems had betrayed their commitment on student fees, which they clearly didn’t, that wouldn’t make Cameron’s betrayal of the coalition agreement on Lords reform any less reprehensible. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and tu quoque is a contemptible form of rebuttal. The fact that Cameron’s surrender to his rebels on Lords reform has saved us all from a thoroughly bad and damaging piece of legislation is something to celebrate, but hardly to Cameron’s credit. And the fact that Clegg’s decision not to support the Tory boundary changes wheeze after all may save us all from a nasty and dishonest attempt at gerrymandering is hardly to Clegg’s credit, either.
  
  I don’t think that headmasterly lectures about the duty to register to vote (“If you can’t be bothered, you have only yourself to blame if you find yourself disfranchised”) bear any relation to the reality among large swathes of the population. But anyway, the argument here is not about disfranchising people who haven’t registered to vote — under existing laws, which are not affected by the Tory boundaries proposals, if you aren’t registered, you can’t vote. The question is different: should constituency population sizes, as measured for the proposed equalisation of constituencies, take into account adults who are eligible to vote but who haven’t registered to do so, or only those who have registered? Since, as you rightly say, an MP has to represent and work for all his constituents regardless of whether they voted or were registered to vote, the answer is obviously that the whole adult population of the constituency, registered or not, should be taken into account in assessing its population size. Indeed, there’s a good case for including the whole population of the area, including children, aliens and those in prison, who can’t register or vote but who are entitled to the help and support of their MP, and whose interests the MP is obliged to defend in parliament. The Tory proposal to count only those registered to vote is cynically self-interested and flies in the face of elementary constitutional principles.
  
  I appreciate your kind remark about my ‘eloquent’ case. I’m only sorry that you weren’t persuaded by it!
  - jaime taurosangastre candelas
    
    We won’t agree on categorising the tory or Lib Dem position. You have your view, me mine.
    
    I actually agree on constituencies being decided by census as the most accurate way to reflect population. But you avoid my observation that (1) Labour had 13 years of a decent majority to change this, and (2) Labour still doggedly sticks to the “registered elector” yardstick, and then declares it is faulty in constituencies that Labour would rather like to retain. It is shameless.
    
    So we have Labour MPs declaring tory gerrymandering, while ignoring the opposite face of the penny that Labour benefit from the continuance of the status quo.
    
    It would be quite nice if the Speaker – an independent voice – had the sanction of declaring that “the Hon Member for X has been all over the press repeating some demonstrable rubbish that is nothing more than party political nonsense, and therefore he or she can’t vote on the next 3 line whip, because he or she has proven him / herself to be nothing more than a lickspittle and a shill for the party line“. Clearly that would not ever happen, but it would be good and honest if it did.
    - http://twitter.com/mistyblulabour dave stone
      
      If your proposed sanction were implemented there’d be very few front benchers in the division lobbies.
    - http://www.barder.com/ephems/ Brian Barder
      
      @google-285908a073bfe41d26f162a0d9780abd:disqus : Whenever an opposition party criticises a government policy, or plan for reform, on specific and explicit grounds, pointing out its defects, someone invariably pops up with the complaint that that opposition party was in power for x years, only y years ago, and did nothing to address the problem which the government is now claiming to tackle. No doubt in an ideal world every conceivable problem would be tackled immediately by the government of the day during its first month in office — although in this case, it’s far from clear what you think the Labour government failed to do during its 13 years in power. Even if Labour can justly be blamed for some failure of omission while in office, it surely can’t thereby be disqualified from pointing out that the present government’s plans are objectionable on at least four factual grounds (identified in other comments here), and that accordingly it is impossible to support them.
      
      On your second point, I stand by my condemnation of numbers of registered voters as the basis for calculating constituency boundaries for equalisation purposes, for reasons set out at tedious length elsewhere in these comments, whether or not that condemnation corresponds to the small print of Labour party policy — which is a matter of complete indifference as far as I’m concerned. I don’t take the Labour whip, so it can’t be withdrawn from me!
      
      There’s a useful and objective account at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Periodic_Review_of_Westminster_constituencies of how these things have been done in the past, as generally accepted by all the parties and presumably by the public, and the ways in which a series of controversial changes have been forced through parliament by the Coalition in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, sharply reducing the discretion formerly exercised by the boundaries commissions in various ways – in each case to the advantage of the Conservative party. If this doesn’t add up to a disgraceful gerrymander, I don’t know what does.
- geedee0520
  
  No need to worry about all this – the EU institutions will take over as proposed here
  http://labourlist.org/2012/08/francois-hollandes-new-vision-for-europe/
  
  The EU elite will run all this as they are in Italy & Greece. No need for elections etc.
Robertcp

Brian, I agree with the main point of your article that Labour should include in the manifesto a constitutional convention for all parties after the General Election.

Regarding House of Lords reform, I am wondering if the truth is that most people can live with an appointed Lords so long as no party has a majority. Labour’s interim measure of getting rid of most heriditary peers might end up lasting a long time.
Vicky Seddon

Interesting proposal, Brian, around a constitutional convention. Scottish devolution followed from the proposals that came from the establishment of a broadly-based convention outwith any Parliamentary process, and including community, trade union and church representatives as well as from the political parties.

We don’t have to wait for the next election; no reason why such a body cannot be set up now. Not as a Labour party initiative, but called by a group of well-respected figures working across parties. As many parties as will take part.

We certainly need to seek to build bridges with those parts of the Lib Dems who are unhappy with the coalition. I believe a hung parliament is likely after next election. This would be one way of doing so
http://www.barder.com/ephems/ Brian Barder

Some of the comments here seem to confuse two distinct issues, only one of which is relevant to my original post. The irrelevant issue (however important or unimportant it might be) is about how to encourage the maximum possible number of eligible people to register and then to vote, whether registration is necessary, whether there should be proactive efforts to get people both to register and to vote, or whether those who can’t be bothered to register should be left to stew in their own lazy juice. Opinions on those questions belong somewhere else, not here.

But the relevant issue concerns the basis on which, under the Conservative party’s proposals, the electoral boundary commissioners calculate the sizes of constituencies’ populations for the purpose of making them all equal (or as equal as humanly possible, without regard to cultural, geographical or traditional homogeneity). Some of us argue that the commissioners should work on the basis of total population, including those eligible to vote but who don’t bother to register (or to vote), and also including those not eligible to vote, such as foreigners, children, persons in prison, etc., — because each constituency MP has an obligation to represent all those in her constituency, attend to their problems at her surgeries and promote their interests in parliament, whether or not they are eligible or registered to vote. The Tory proposals take a different view, and require the commissioners to assess constituency sizes only on the basis of the numbers eligible and registered to vote. It’s clear that this must benefit the Tories at the expense of other parties. As Martin Kettle says in today’s Guardian, here:

…the coalition is set on introducing a new system of voter registration which discriminates against students, rental tenants, immigrants and the young – and will thus particularly disadvantage the parties for whom such citizens tend to vote: Labour and the Liberal Democrats. If this shockingly incomplete voters’ roll is embedded as the basis on which future boundary changes are calculated, the Tories will have carried out a national gerrymander unprecedented in the universal suffrage era.

I don’t suggest that a Guardian column has the status of Holy Writ, but I don’t think a journalist of Martin Kettle’s stature will carelessly use such a word as ‘gerrymander’, nor describe the Tories’ proposal as a national gerrymander “unprecedented in the universal suffrage era”, without having given the matter serious thought. I’m satisfied that he’s right, for the explicit reasons that he gives. There are other reasons for condemning the Tories’ plans and the procedures they propose for implementing them, but this is surely conclusive on its own.
- PeterBarnard
  
  (i) I think that you have a tenable proposition, Brian, that the the count in a constituency should include everyone, children an’ all. If that’s a step too far for some, then for sure it should be based on actual voting-age population, not just registered electors
  
  (ii) the difficulty for me on a wholly-elected second chamber is that gives it a firm foundation and legitimacy to challenge the HoC, especially if the turnout for the second chamber elections is comparable to the elections for MPs? And, it still has to be decided what the “constituencies” would be for these second chamber folk …
  
  (iii) if we followed the US Senate model, with two members for each “old English shire,” with none of this metropolitan county interference, then the two members could be said (perhaps) to be very representative of their shire
  
  (iv) there then follows the question of who is the actual representative in Parliament for a constituent?
  
  (v) perhaps, we should be like Sweden (I think it’s Sweden) and go unicameral … it would solve a lot of problems …
  - http://www.barder.com/ephems/ Brian Barder
    
    @PeterBarnard:disqus : I have set out the main arguments for the kind of second chamber that I advocate at http://www.barder.com/3602, and in several other blog posts at http://www.barder.com/ephems/, including responses to comments on some of them. I will just say now that I envisage a second chamber of, probably, 80 Senators in total, 20 elected in each of the four UK nations, i.e. regardless of population numbers, exactly as in the US and Australia. An elected second chamber couldn’t challenge the primacy of the House of Commons for the reasons I try to explain in http://www.barder.com/3602 and elsewhere. Old English shires would have nothing to do with it. The 20 Senators elected from, e.g. Scotland would all represent the whole of Scotland, not a particular constituency within it. They would not have any constituency responsibilities because all Scottish internal affairs are the responsibility of the Scottish parliament, or will be.
    
    It’s hard to imagine a unicameral federal legislature in a federal system (such as we already largely have) since there’s an obvious need for a ‘states house’ to give the units of the federation (the four nations, in the case of the UK) an input into affairs at the federal level in a way that protects the smaller ones against being steam-rollered at that level by the biggest (England).
    
    Clegg’s hopeless Lords reform bill recognised none of these factors and deserves the fate it now faces, although for all the wrong reasons!
    - PeterBarnard
      
      Thanks for taking the effort to respond, Brian.
      
      Whatever reform takes place, I think that it’s certain that it can only occur under a Labour government with a good working majority – and even then, it may not be certain to occur, as we saw 1997-2010.
    - John Dore
      
      Brian,
      
      I have to say I like what you have suggested with one exception, I dont understand why Scotland or Wales should have so many ‘Senators’ when they are so small in relation to England. Please can you explain your reasoning?
      - Brumanuensis
        
        Equal representation of the four countries of the Union. The House of Commons already has proportionate representation and if the House of Lords is to serve a different function, it should equally represent all parts of the UK.

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