I apologise for revisiting this issue, but the Tories’ approach to selecting parliamentary candidates is very important. The composition of the House of Commons is at the very heart of our democratic system, because the quality of our legislators has a direct impact on how well
our country is governed. It is for that reason that I am opposed to the Tories’ stated aim of getting more women into Parliament through the mechanism of All Women Shortlists. As I have argued before, such a system should have no place in a democratic society, in which we all expect to be judged on our merits alone. Since my last blog on this issue, David Cameron appears to have dropped the policy..…[Continue Reading]

 The election of David Cameron as Prime Minister, coupled with his plans to reduce the size of Parliament by 10%, and the pressure on the devolved budgets will all conspire to increase the momentum behind calls from the SNP to hold a referendum on Scottish independence sometime in Spring/Summer 2010. A smaller Parliament in Westminster, and the loss of crucial support in Scotland following a ‘Yes’ vote for independence, could turn Gordon Brown into the last Labour Prime Minister. His only chance to prevent political oblivion is to hold a referendum on electoral reform…[Continue Reading]

Bar the current fixation on spending cuts and whether they are going be ‘kind’, ‘savage’ or ‘sustainable’, when did Parliamentary reform slip off the political agenda? When the MPs’ expenses scandal was unravelling one could be forgiven for thinking we were on the cusp of wholesale constitutional, electoral and parliamentary reform. Yet following mild suggestions from Brown in support of Alternative Vote and hints from Cameron for the introduction of ‘citizens’ initiatives’, parliamentary reform has slipped off the political agenda…..Continue Reading