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The shadow cabinet should be elected, not selected

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk Today the PLP have a real choice to make that could prove just as important for the party as the leadership election. As they vote on proposals to alter the way in which the shadow cabinet is chosen, the PLP will ultimately be choosing between a democratic and plural system, or increased levels of top-down patronage within the party. For the party to flourish in opposition, the PLP should choose the former. The current system,...
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Naked gerrymandering

By Chris Williamson MP On Monday evening the ConDem coalition secured the second reading of its gerrymandering Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Bill, that will reduce the number of constituences and introduce AV. It passed its second reading even though most of the Tory MPs who spoke in the debate opposed it. In his rather ham-fisted speech introducing the bill, the deputy prime minister tried to reassure the House of Commons that the bill was “not an attempt to gerrymander”. Who...
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Is the Labour leadership contest democratic?

By Robert Peaty At the moment, I am eagerly awaiting my ballot paper so I can vote in the Labour leadership election. Or should I say ballot papers. I get two votes; one through my membership of the Labour Party, another through my membership of Labour Students. If I wanted I could join LGBT Labour, the UNITE union (membership of which has been offered various times at work) and the Socialist Health Association, which would give me five votes in...
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Equalising constituencies must mean the end to double registration

By Paul Smith “There will be a consistent approach towards the equalisation of constituencies throughout the nation” Nick Clegg June 7th 2010 I hope that a blog about the mathematics of the forthcoming parliamentary boundary review will not lead to too many readers dozing off. However an important fact has been largely ignored in the discussion of creating constituencies which are broadly equal in numbers. Nick Clegg has talked about equalisation and the value of votes; in the same debate...
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The last monarch?

By Graham Smith The Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, currently fighting a close election against her conservative opponents, has reignited debate in her country about the future of the monarchy. She has said that the current Queen should be the last monarch to serve as Australian head of state, and after her death the country should move to become a republic. This is the latest installment of a long running issue that simply refuses to go away in Australia. Its...
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The nonsense of the alternative vote

By Jim Sweetman / @jimbo9848 Sometimes our political system has a real knack of messing up change. The fuss over who might benefit from an alternative vote, the associated gerrymandering, the phrasing of the question, the difficulty of having a government half of which opposes its own referendum on principle, and even the arguments over the date are conspiring to achieve an undesirable outcome. This is alternative voting introduced without proportional representation and without support from a majority of the...
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How can we make voting easier?

By Vincenzo Rampulla / @VMRampulla Over at Left Foot Forward, Will Straw has highlighted the issues MPs are currently debating given the content of the government’s Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. Labour will be rightly worried that the proposal of a referendum on the Alternative Vote (AV) system is being used to push through proposals that will restrict electors representation and gerrymander constituencies to the benefit of the parties in power rather than the electorate as a whole. Whilst...
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Straw attacks coalition "trick"

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk Jack Straw has attacked the coalition over electoral reform, and said that the proposals were a "trick", intended to gerrymander constituency boundaries. Speaking to Radio 4, Straw said: "If this bill, which is in two parts, just had a single part in favour of the Alternative Vote referendum, of course we'd vote in favour." "We're not arguing about the equalisation of seats. We are arguing about the unnecessary reduction in the size of the House...
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No mention of PR in the AV referendum

By Stephen Newton The Lib Con coalition has now published its proposed wording for the alternative vote referendum – 'Do you want the United Kingdom to adopt the "alternative vote" system instead of the current "first past the post" system for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons?' – and we may all breathe a sigh of relief that it does not mention proportional representation. Nick Clegg has so far handled the Lib Con constitutional reform programme about...
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Clegg reforms will disenfranchise poor: 8 in the morning - July 20th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk * A rush to boundary changes will disenfranchise the poor and minority voters, says Tristram Hunt MP. * Polly Toynbee warns of "tax-funded madrasas" in the Guardian... * Is the Big Society too nebulous a concept? * "But what if the big society doesn't work?" asks Steve Richards in the Indie. * Left Foot Forward explores the links between climate change deniers and the BNP. * Ed Balls writes about yesterday's "Save our Schools" rally....
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Harriet and Jon - a deal?

By Peter Kenyon / @peterkenyon A media blitz this weekend here, here and here with Jon Cruddas at the forefront of calls for the election of a Labour Party chair (all neatly parcelled on LabourList) have got me wondering: what has been going on? The post does not exist in the Labour Party Rule Book as we currently know it. It was a patronage device invented by former leader, Tony Blair, in the wake of the 2001 general election when...
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The questions Ed Miliband must answer

By Daniel Blaney On 10 June 2010, the day after nominations for the leadership of the Labour Party closed, Ed Miliband addressed supporters in Leeds. In claiming he was best placed to take the party forward he was bold in acknowledging recent mistakes. For example, he criticised a “culture in our party that stifled dissent and debate”. The significant constitutional change under Tony Blair was never clause four, as the media always suggest. It was the complete transformation of the...
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The World Cup final: A day of reflection

By Olly Deed As the World Cup draws to a close, England fans will reflect on what could have been. As Casillas or Van Bronckhorst stride up to receive the World Cup the vast majority of England will be wishing it was Steven Gerrard popping the champagne. Alas, it wasn't to be. Yet, it is hard to get that nagging question out of your head. Why? Does England's failure reflect something more endemic in our domestic game? Let us have...
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The coalition's reforms are a great threat to our cause

By David Levene “It is repugnant ... to use the power of a party majority in the House of Commons ... solely to do political damage to their opponents about a controversial matter concerning the machinery of election and party administration”. Lord Halisham, 15th Dec 1949 (a particularly odious Tory, but one with a point). The ConDem coalition’s plans – to “reform” trade union donations, reduce the number of seats in primarily Labour-supporting regions (or at least regions where the...
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This reform isn't poisonous. It's soulless and that's worse

The Labour movement column By Anthony Painter / @anthonypainter One of the remarkable things about Michael Braddick’s "God’s Fury, England’s Fire" - his new history of the English Civil Wars - is the deep sense you get about English society in the early-to-mid seventeenth century. Of particular interest is the way in which he describes English civic life of the time. The most surprising aspect is the degree of civic activism in Stuart England. As Braddick puts it: “English people...
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Straw hails first major u-turn of new government

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Prescott attacks "poisonous package" of reforms: 8 in the morning July 6th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk * John Prescott has attacks Nick Clegg's reform package, which he described as "the biggest gerrymandering of seats that I have ever seen in my 40 years in politics." * Gordon Brown looks set to take up an academic post - alongside his work as an MP. * Sir Michael White on the "sideshow" that is the Labour leadership race. * Tony Blair rejected fears about post-war planning in Iraq from a junior minister. *...
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The price of this reform is too high

By Darrell Goodliffe It is fitting that on the same day as Nick Clegg announced his package of constitutional reforms, Michael Gove announced the decimation of the Building Schools of the Future fund. Although they are seemingly unconnected, it is my belief that they are not; rather that they are a stark illustration of the price that is being paid for Nick Clegg being allowed to indulge his obsession with reform at all costs. Let me lay my cards on...
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What we need are Non-Voter ID days

By Kezia Dugdale / @kezdugdale Watching Nick Clegg deliver his statement on electoral reform caused me to shout at the TV and gesticulate so much that I accidentally emptied a box of cereal all over our office floor. What a mess… (I’ll deal with the cereal later…) The merits, or otherwise, of AV is an argument for another day, the big question for me is what to do about Voter Registration. Labour MP after Labour MP stood up to highlight...
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Labour must seize this chance to deliver change

By Michael Calderbank Assuming that David Cameron can deliver the support of his MPs on a whipped vote, we look set to see a referendum on the Alternative Vote next May (alongside the elections to the devolved assemblies and local councils outside London). This is something that Labour promised in its own election manifesto, and finally gives the British voters the chance to change the way MPs are elected. Alongside elections to the second chamber to be conducted using a...
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