The Reform Bill

Running a bit late for thoughts on this one, but for what itc worth here are some thoughts on Nick Clegg's proposed political reforms.

Fixed Term Parliaments - the proposals here seem to have been changed both to head off backbench opposition and to undermine Labour resistance. Gone is the idea of 55% to remove the government, instead a simple majority in a no confidence vote would remove a Prime Minister (this should satisfy the rebellious nutters on the Tory backbenches). Meanwhile for the government to dissolve parliament early would take 66% of MPs. Labour would struggle to have much objection to this as this is very close to the system they set up for the Scottish Parliament.

Reducing the Number of MPs. Its impossible to say without new boundaries being suggested who this would favour the most, but its very hard to argue against equal sized constituencies, so Labour need to watch out with their accusations of gerrymandering. The current system does have an inbuilt bias towards Labour and attempts to protect this look like self-interest and could play very poorly for them. Jack Straw's comments that this is an attack on Labour are absolutely incredible and unbelievable - to accept this is to accept that voters in small urban seats deserve more say than those in large rural seats. Our system is deeply unfair in many ways, such defences of the status quo should be avoided.

Of the exceptions, Orkney and Shetland are so remote that a separate seat is warranted. The geograhical cap size also seeems reasonable as for an MP to cover a vast area would make the job unfeasible. I'm less convinced about the Western Isles exception - historically it has been joined to the mainland in single seat and I see no particular reason it can't be again. Especially if you consider that rigid sticking to the size rules will produce a situation where the Isle Of wight is split into two constituencies with half forced into a seat straddling the Solent. Curiously the main beneficiary of this exception are the SNP.

The AV referendum. This is going to produce one of the most bizarre things in British politics that I can think of. The two coalition parties will introduce a referendum bill for something in neither manifesto. The one party who did have it in their manifesto (Labour) could well oppose it in the Commons. If it does get through parliament, the two coalition partners will then fight on different sides of the campaign.

I have mixed views about AV. I don't see it as a more proportional system. It could as its critics say, produce bigger swings to the bigger parties. I would hate to see a No vote for AV mean an end to the chances of electoral reform for another generation. But could a YES vote be a stepping stone to further change, or would we be stuck with AV for the foreseeable future.

Conventional wisdom suggests that its easier for smaller parties to break through under FPTP, but in close elections their vote tends to get squeezed in FPTP (as happened to the Greens is all but two or three seats thios time around). AV would provide some protection from this and enable a build up of votes election on election, but ultimately might make it harder to win seats. So I'm still torn as to which way I would vote should there be a referendum. I also think that somebody needs to pay attention to what Mr Salmond is saying about the timing producing a clash of focus in the campaigns for the referendum and Scottish elections to the detriment of both.

On more positive news, the announcement of a review into counter-terrorism measures is to be welcomed. Whilst I remain dubious about some of the coalitions decisions, the noises being made about civil liberties are rather more encouraging.