LibDems: “something went wrong” with the constitution
A debate is beginning to develop in the LibDem blogosphere about the opportunity – provided by the Snoutgate scandal – to secure full-blown constitutional reform.
This is surely the best oppportunity in years – if not decades – for the party to lead calls for the whole gamut of changes that LibDems have been so passionate about.
A tad worrying, then, that if you search for the term “constitution” on the party’s official website, the following message appears:
Hmmm…… Here’s hoping Nick Clegg and our frontbench are a little more forthright in their upcoming public pronouncements…
Cameron’s proposed constitutional reform package is timid and half-baked, but he is managing to set the media agenda on this issue.
UPDATE 2.45pm Weds 27th May : The website search now works!
May 26th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
LibDems are academic dreamers. The people are not clamouring for wholesale reform.
All they want is a bit of decency.
Decency in the behavoir in their representatives to act as the peoples representatives: hence the reforms Cameron has proposed today again show how he has judged the political mood so well to skew it in boosting his own leadership credentials.
And if the peoples representatives do not perform to the local electorates liking, then the people want the opportunity to remove them – a right of recall.
The solutions currently being proposed by all parties are party political solutions: the people want solutions that put the power in the peoples hands.
May 26th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
I think that’s a tad on the harsh side, John.
For example, Nick Clegg supports a recall option.
You’re right about the demand for decency – but there’s an issue about how you set up a democratic system to encourage decency and punish troughing. I’d like to rely on more than the self-denying ordinance of MPs.
Rock solid seats in a first-past-the-post system is not far away from teh rotten boroughs of centuries gone by.
I’m pleased Cameron has embraced some modest degree of constitutional reform, but a better electoral system is vital.