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+++Breaking news: Labour to propose electoral reform+++

By Mark Littlewood
June 9th, 2009 at 7:09 pm | 11 Comments | Posted in UK Politics

I know Gordon Brown and the Labour Party have the Midas touch at the moment :-) but I have a horrible feeling they might screw this up.

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Prime Minister Johnson will lose the election, but could still torpedo Cameron

By Mark Littlewood
June 1st, 2009 at 2:10 pm | 2 Comments | Posted in UK Politics

alan-johnsonWith expectations of a full scale Labour meltdown in the local and European elections this week, we are in another wave of speculation about whether the Prime Minister is about to be ousted in a coup. If the Labour Party had retained any sort of sense of self-preservation, Brown would have been shot long ago. But perhaps this time, his Cabinet colleagues will finally grow a backbone.

Surely, it’s way too late for the government to stand even a remote chance of clinging on for a fourth term. Their real challenge is just to avoid full scale electoral oblivion. Prevailing orthodoxy – although no actual polling data – suggests that Alan Johnson is the man to pull Labour back from its headlong dive towards annihilation.

That’s why the Health Secretary’s suggestion of a referendum on electoral reform might be more than mere kite-flying. Giving the public a straight choice between AV Plus and FPTP on General Election day could – if won by electoral reformers – cause the Tories some major positional difficulties during the election campaign and Cameron a huge headache as the incoming Prime Minister.

Although electoral reform wouldn’t necessarily be the dominant issue in the run-up to polling day, it would be a significant one. The Conservatives would be practically alone in advocating a “no” vote. This would flush them out as being merely committed to tinkering and cosmetic constitutional change.

But – deliciously – if the AV Plus proposal was carried, Prime Minister Cameron would be faced with having a duty to legislate for a major constitutional change that he personally opposed. If he failed to do so – and swiftly – his hand-wringing about the lack of a vote on the Lisbon Treaty would sound very hollow indeed.

As setting political traps goes, Johnson has a far sharper mind than the present incumbent of 10 Downing Street. Mind you, that’s not a particularly high hurdle to clear.

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Will Snoutgate lead to full blown constitutional reform?

By Mark Littlewood
May 20th, 2009 at 2:24 pm | 3 Comments | Posted in UK Politics

As Westminster takes its first, tentative steps towards a reform of MPs’ expenses, could full blown constitutional reform now be leveraged onto the agenda?

That’s the big challenge for Nick Clegg and the LibDems. Although modernising and democratising Britain has been a high priority for the party for decades – particularly securing electoral reform for the House of Commons – it has not been a major communications priority in recent years. The orthodox thinking has been that banging on about STV just does not resonate with the voters.

Has the zeitgeist just changed? Radio 5 this morning had an hour long phone-in on the topic. Hearing members of the public sounding genuinely impassioned about PR was bizarre – but encouraging. The Tories appear to have nothing to say on the matter – once the expenses regime is changed, and they are on  the government benches, they seem to think that the system is ‘fixed’.

The best case I’ve seen so far, linking the expenses scandal to our electoral system, was a wizard piece of research on Mark Reckons’ blog – he’s already been referenced by both Polly Toynbee and Guido Fawkes – an impressive straddle of the political divide.

Can the party come up with the same sort of elegant arguments to help make reform a major issue, rather than one seen as the particular preserve of ‘saddo’ LibDems?

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