October 9th Conference, cost to members - A Party conference with no members? - A view of conference
October 2nd Voter Registration - Police Commissioners Election - Seat for a sister plan
September 25th Labour Democracy? - Remove 10million voters?
September 18th Legal Duty to register to vote? - Milliband Leadership Vote?
September 11th Should the Party run candidates for Police Commissioners?
September 4thThe beginning of the end? What do you make of this?
August 28th House of Lords, points to consider
August 21st Party Accounts - Nigel Farage
August 14th Peter Oborne on the Riots - Surrender or Disaster
August 7th Voice of the Grass Roots
July 17th Coalition Candidates - Goose for the Gander?
July 10th House of Lords Reform - Murdoch - Zac Goldsmith
July 3rd HS2 - Party Membership - Liberal Democrat Influence - Lord Adonis
Political parties could get more state funding to make up for donation caps
Tories argue that they would lose a third of their income under the proposals, but the Lib Dems are strong supporters
Nick Clegg, who is responsible for party political reform, says he is determined to come up with an acceptable formula.
A huge increase in state funding of political parties, worth up to £100m over a five-year parliament, is being proposed by a government-commissioned inquiry.
The funding, which would be shared out according to the number of votes each party receives in a general election, would be presented as a way of compensating them for a huge loss of income as a result of introducing new caps on individual donations to parties. It would also be seen as a way of repackaging state funding that already goes to opposition parties.
The Tories have argued that a £50,000 cap on individual donations would see their party lose as much as a third of its donor income.
The state funding idea has been pushed hardest by the Liberal Democrats, who currently have the least independent income and are likely to benefit the most from the proposals. The party has had to lay off staff and sell its HQ to cut costs.
The draft report is proposing that parties receive funding worth £3 per vote they receive. On the basis of the last election, the Tories would get £32m, Labour £25.8m and the Lib Dems £20.4m. The figures could be higher if tax relief were added.
One idea proposed by the recent Power Inquiry and supported by LibDem leader Nick Clegg was for voter vouchers allowing voters to tick a box saying they wanted £3 state funding to be given to the party for which they are voting. Those familiar with the report suggest the proposal is not in the draft.Critics are likely to argue that such a degree of state funding would provoke public uproar and make it harder for small parties to break the stranglehold of the big three. But it would also act as an incentive for parties to get their vote out in seats that they are not likely to win. State funding is seen by most sides as the only way to reduce dependence on big backers.
In the wake of the expenses scandal, the Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said the public appetite for state funding of political parties had largely evaporated, but he conceded it might be acceptable if it was seen as part of a package.
Attempts by the Brown government to secure a cross-party consensus on party funding collapsed amid a welter of recrimination and accusations of bad faith.
Nick Clegg, who is responsible for party political reform, said he was determined to try again and asked the Committee on Standards in Public Life, chaired by Sir Christopher Kelly, to come up with a new formula acceptable to parties and public. All sides accept there is a need to take the perception of big money out of politics.
After a 17-month inquiry, a chairman's draft was presented to the committee on 15 September, but amendments from the parties are being drafted this weekend as they scramble to maintain their positions. The committee includes a representative from each of the three main parties and six independent members.
The Tories made a last-minute intervention, saying they could not accept a donation cap set as low as £10,000 – the figure proposed by the Liberal Democrats in their election manifesto.
Lord Feldman of Elstree, the Tories' co-chairman, said in a letter to the committee that the cap had to be £50,000 and even this would mean the loss of 37% of the party's donor income. He claimed: "A cap of £10,000 would hugely inhibit the ability of political parties to engage with the electorate."
The Conservatives are also continuing to press for a requirement that union members opt into affiliating to the Labour party, rather than the current system where they are required to opt out.
In Northern Ireland, where the opt-in system exists, only 35% of people do so – suggesting two thirds of union affiliation income to Labour would evaporate.
Labour has previously accepted that the system needed improvement. The Tories claim Labour receives a large proportion of donations from people who are not making a positive decision to contribute to the party.
The report is expected to recommend a small decrease in the current £20m cap on party election expenditure. The Tories outspent Labour by more than two to one at the last election. There may, however, be new caps on local election expenditure, caps that would be easier to police in the context of a fixed term parliament.
Democratic Audit told the inquiry on the basis of the Electoral Commission's register of donations, from 1 January
2001-30 June 2010, donations of £50,001 or more accounted for 41% of Liberal Democrat income, 54% of Conservative and 76% of Labour party declared donation income. The committee is likely to defend its proposals on the basis that state funding already exists but it is a patchwork including policy development grants, Short money paid to opposition parties, and indirect subsidies.
This is a disgraceful proposal. Why should the British public finance parties controlled by oligarchies?
The funding, which would be shared out according to the number of votes each party receives in a general election, would be presented as a way of compensating them for a huge loss of income as a result of introducing new caps on individual donations to parties. It would also be seen as a way of repackaging state funding that already goes to opposition parties.
The Tories have argued that a £50,000 cap on individual donations would see their party lose as much as a third of its donor income.
The state funding idea has been pushed hardest by the Liberal Democrats, who currently have the least independent income and are likely to benefit the most from the proposals. The party has had to lay off staff and sell its HQ to cut costs.
The draft report is proposing that parties receive funding worth £3 per vote they receive. On the basis of the last election, the Tories would get £32m, Labour £25.8m and the Lib Dems £20.4m. The figures could be higher if tax relief were added.
One idea proposed by the recent Power Inquiry and supported by LibDem leader Nick Clegg was for voter vouchers allowing voters to tick a box saying they wanted £3 state funding to be given to the party for which they are voting. Those familiar with the report suggest the proposal is not in the draft.Critics are likely to argue that such a degree of state funding would provoke public uproar and make it harder for small parties to break the stranglehold of the big three. But it would also act as an incentive for parties to get their vote out in seats that they are not likely to win. State funding is seen by most sides as the only way to reduce dependence on big backers.
In the wake of the expenses scandal, the Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said the public appetite for state funding of political parties had largely evaporated, but he conceded it might be acceptable if it was seen as part of a package.
Attempts by the Brown government to secure a cross-party consensus on party funding collapsed amid a welter of recrimination and accusations of bad faith.
Nick Clegg, who is responsible for party political reform, said he was determined to try again and asked the Committee on Standards in Public Life, chaired by Sir Christopher Kelly, to come up with a new formula acceptable to parties and public. All sides accept there is a need to take the perception of big money out of politics.
After a 17-month inquiry, a chairman's draft was presented to the committee on 15 September, but amendments from the parties are being drafted this weekend as they scramble to maintain their positions. The committee includes a representative from each of the three main parties and six independent members.
The Tories made a last-minute intervention, saying they could not accept a donation cap set as low as £10,000 – the figure proposed by the Liberal Democrats in their election manifesto.
Lord Feldman of Elstree, the Tories' co-chairman, said in a letter to the committee that the cap had to be £50,000 and even this would mean the loss of 37% of the party's donor income. He claimed: "A cap of £10,000 would hugely inhibit the ability of political parties to engage with the electorate."
The Conservatives are also continuing to press for a requirement that union members opt into affiliating to the Labour party, rather than the current system where they are required to opt out.
In Northern Ireland, where the opt-in system exists, only 35% of people do so – suggesting two thirds of union affiliation income to Labour would evaporate.
Labour has previously accepted that the system needed improvement. The Tories claim Labour receives a large proportion of donations from people who are not making a positive decision to contribute to the party.
The report is expected to recommend a small decrease in the current £20m cap on party election expenditure. The Tories outspent Labour by more than two to one at the last election. There may, however, be new caps on local election expenditure, caps that would be easier to police in the context of a fixed term parliament.
Democratic Audit told the inquiry on the basis of the Electoral Commission's register of donations, from 1 January
2001-30 June 2010, donations of £50,001 or more accounted for 41% of Liberal Democrat income, 54% of Conservative and 76% of Labour party declared donation income. The committee is likely to defend its proposals on the basis that state funding already exists but it is a patchwork including policy development grants, Short money paid to opposition parties, and indirect subsidies.
This is a disgraceful proposal. Why should the British public finance parties controlled by oligarchies?
Royal equality act will end succession of first born male - rather than older sister
Commonwealth leaders will pledge to amend legislation dating back to the 17th century to allow daughters of the monarch to take precedence over younger sons in the line of succession.
David Cameron will hail the agreement of the 16 Queen's realms, the Commonwealth countries where the Queen serves as head of state, to amend "outdated" rules that also prevent a potential monarch from marrying a Catholic.
The prime minister will introduce legislation in Britain before the next general election to ensure that the changes will apply to any children of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Officials say the changes will apply even if a child is born before the new legislation is passed.
Speaking before the opening of the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Perth, where the agreement will be sealed, Cameron said: "These rules are outdated and need to change."
In a meeting in Perth this morning, to be chaired by the Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, the leaders of the 16 Queen's realms will agree to amend rules that currently say:
• An elder daughter should be placed behind a younger son in the line of succession.
The order of succession will in future be determined by the order of birth. The immediate impact will place the Princess Royal, the Queen's daughter, fourth in the line of succession behind the Prince of Wales and his two sons. At the moment the princess is 10th. The Duke of York, who is fourth, will drop to seventh.
• Anyone who marries a Roman Catholic is barred from succeeding to the crown.
This will end. The change will not affect the position of the monarch as the supreme governor of the Church of England, because Catholics will still be barred from the throne. The Church of England will remain as the established church.
• Descendants of King George II need the monarch's consent to marry.
This will be reformed.
Cameron will tell the meeting: "The idea that a younger son should become monarch instead of an elder daughter, simply because he is a man, just is not acceptable any more.
"Nor does it make any sense that a potential monarch can marry someone of any faith other than Catholic.
"The thinking behind these rules is wrong. That's why people have been talking about changing them for some time. We need to get on and do it."
Downing Street has noted what would have happened if the rules had been different at key moments:
• Margaret Tudor would have succeeded Henry VII in 1509, denying the throne to her younger brother, who became Henry VIII. That raises the prospect that Henry VIII would not have been responsible for the greatest example of Euroscepticism: the break with Rome in 1533.
• Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter Queen of Bohemia, would have succeeded her father James I in 1625 instead of Charles I. The civil war, in which Charles was executed, might have been avoided.
• Queen Victoria's daughter, Princess Victoria, would have succeeded in January 1901, rather than Edward VII. The new queen would have died less than seven months later, handing the throne to Kaiser Wilhelm II. Britain would have been ruled by the German emperor during the first world war.
The announcement in Perth comes after Cameron wrote last month to the other leaders calling for change. Legislation will have to be introduced in Britain and some of the other 15 realms to amend laws including the Bill of Rights 1688, the Act of Settlement 1700, the Act of Union with Scotland 1706 and the Coronation Oaths Act 1688.
Primary legislation will be necessary in Antigua, Canada and Saint Lucia. Papua New Guinea and Tuvalu will not need to enact their own legislation.
Gordon Brown was keen to introduce the reforms but did not feel he could set aside enough parliamentary time.
Earlier this year Cameron played down the prospect of an imminent change in the rules of royal succession, partly because of concerns that constitutional tinkering could revive the campaign in Australia for it to become a republic.
But Downing Street believes that the Queen's diamond jubilee next year and the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in April show it is time to "secure a breakthrough".
Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, also supports the change. "If Prince William and Catherine Middleton were to have a baby daughter as their first child, I think most people would think it fair and normal that she would eventually become queen of our country," he said this year.
Buckingham Palace is understood to be supportive. One No 10 source said: "Downing Street has been working on this for five years. Buckingham Palace will not have been taken by surprise. This will welcome the crown into the modern age."
The changes have to be introduced by all 16 realms at the same time. Failure to amend the legislation in one or more could lead to a situation in which there were different monarchs, possibly both from the House of Windsor, in different countries.
A working group, to be chaired by New Zealand, will co-ordinate the legislation to make sure it is acceptable to all countries.
Cameron has been astonished that it has taken so long to amend such antiquated legislation. In 1955, when Anthony Eden succeededWinston Churchill, a civil service brief concluded that it was time for a change.
The brief said: "It is unsatisfactory that personal and constitutional questions of such high importance should still depend on the operation of an 18th-century statute which was admittedly passed hurriedly, and in the face of considerable opposition, to deal with an ad hoc situation created largely by the unsatisfactory conduct of King George III's brothers."
Successive governments have failed to act. In 1964 the then home secretary, Henry Brooke, declined to "proceed with legislation … at the moment" because of the challenge in winning agreement with other realms.
The bar on marrying a Catholic meant that Prince Michael of Kent, the grandson of George V, had to forfeit his place in the line of succession in 1978 when he married an Austrian Catholic, now Princess Michael of Kent. Autumn Phillips, the wife of the Queen's grandson Peter, converted to Anglicanism from Catholicism to preserve her husband's position in the line of succession. He is currently 11th in line but will jump to fifth when the first changes are introduced.
The leaders' group will also debate a report recommending that homosexuality should be legalised across the Commonwealth. Peter Tatchell, a gay rights campaigner, said last week that 40 Commonwealth countries still criminalise homosexuality.
Elizabeth I only gained the crown because her elder half-sister, Mary – a woman and a Catholic – died young and childless. She in turn had only become the first queen of England because there were no males left in the Tudor line once young Edward VI passed on in 1553. Three centuries later, Victoria, less glamorous but more fertile, was to preside over the high noon of empire. The present incumbent, currently enjoying adulation in the antipodes, personifies dignity and cool judgment. Things could have turned out worse. They could also have turned out better.
The Act of Settlement was passed by parliament and signed on 12 June 1701 by William III, a childless widower pushing 50, in poor health and largely immune to female charm. The question of succession had become desperate owing to the death in July 1700 of the 11-year-old William, Duke of Gloucester, the only surviving son of the heir to the throne, Princess Anne.
The exiled Stuarts may have been the divisive agents of a bloody civil war, and papists to boot, but they had male heirs, and James Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, was ready to pounce, with the aid of Louis XIV of France, who acknowledged him as James III. Had English rulers taken a more enlightened view of gender issues they might not have got into such a mess. Charles I, the fount of all the troubles of the 17th century, had an elder sister, Elizabeth, the Winter Queen of Bohemia and heroine of Protestant Europe.
Having endured decades of religious and political turmoil, and fearful for the Protestant succession, it was to the descendants of this Stuart that William III's supporters went in search of a monarch to keep the other Stuarts out. They wanted the young elector George Lewis of Hanover, Elizabeth's grandson. He didn't speak English but was a Protestant and hated the French – qualifications suffice to make him king.
George and his Hanoverian successors were never popular and the monarchy was at a low ebb when Victoria ascended to the throne in 1837 in the absence of legitimate male candidates. Though the elderly Victoria came to symbolise a dowdy puritanism, the early years of her reign were marked by scandal and assassination attempts. Even her saintly consort Prince Albert only became popular after his premature death. But she made female rule acceptable.
Victoria's eldest child was also female and also named Victoria. She may well have proved a wiser monarch than her younger brother, the corpulent and foolish Edward VII, had she been allowed to succeed in January 1901. His love affair with France (or, at least its women) helped forge the entente cordiale with devastating consequences for Anglo-German relations, until then rather good.
Princess Victoria also happened to be the Empress of Germany and Queen of Prussia and would have united the crowns of the greatest military and industrial powers of the age. Her son, Kaiser Wilhelm II, would have been King William V, the first and second world wars would never have happened and we would all be driving top-of-the-range Audis and embracing low levels of personal debt.
Paul Lay is editor of History Today
David Cameron will hail the agreement of the 16 Queen's realms, the Commonwealth countries where the Queen serves as head of state, to amend "outdated" rules that also prevent a potential monarch from marrying a Catholic.
The prime minister will introduce legislation in Britain before the next general election to ensure that the changes will apply to any children of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Officials say the changes will apply even if a child is born before the new legislation is passed.
Speaking before the opening of the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Perth, where the agreement will be sealed, Cameron said: "These rules are outdated and need to change."
In a meeting in Perth this morning, to be chaired by the Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, the leaders of the 16 Queen's realms will agree to amend rules that currently say:
• An elder daughter should be placed behind a younger son in the line of succession.
The order of succession will in future be determined by the order of birth. The immediate impact will place the Princess Royal, the Queen's daughter, fourth in the line of succession behind the Prince of Wales and his two sons. At the moment the princess is 10th. The Duke of York, who is fourth, will drop to seventh.
• Anyone who marries a Roman Catholic is barred from succeeding to the crown.
This will end. The change will not affect the position of the monarch as the supreme governor of the Church of England, because Catholics will still be barred from the throne. The Church of England will remain as the established church.
• Descendants of King George II need the monarch's consent to marry.
This will be reformed.
Cameron will tell the meeting: "The idea that a younger son should become monarch instead of an elder daughter, simply because he is a man, just is not acceptable any more.
"Nor does it make any sense that a potential monarch can marry someone of any faith other than Catholic.
"The thinking behind these rules is wrong. That's why people have been talking about changing them for some time. We need to get on and do it."
Downing Street has noted what would have happened if the rules had been different at key moments:
• Margaret Tudor would have succeeded Henry VII in 1509, denying the throne to her younger brother, who became Henry VIII. That raises the prospect that Henry VIII would not have been responsible for the greatest example of Euroscepticism: the break with Rome in 1533.
• Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter Queen of Bohemia, would have succeeded her father James I in 1625 instead of Charles I. The civil war, in which Charles was executed, might have been avoided.
• Queen Victoria's daughter, Princess Victoria, would have succeeded in January 1901, rather than Edward VII. The new queen would have died less than seven months later, handing the throne to Kaiser Wilhelm II. Britain would have been ruled by the German emperor during the first world war.
The announcement in Perth comes after Cameron wrote last month to the other leaders calling for change. Legislation will have to be introduced in Britain and some of the other 15 realms to amend laws including the Bill of Rights 1688, the Act of Settlement 1700, the Act of Union with Scotland 1706 and the Coronation Oaths Act 1688.
Primary legislation will be necessary in Antigua, Canada and Saint Lucia. Papua New Guinea and Tuvalu will not need to enact their own legislation.
Gordon Brown was keen to introduce the reforms but did not feel he could set aside enough parliamentary time.
Earlier this year Cameron played down the prospect of an imminent change in the rules of royal succession, partly because of concerns that constitutional tinkering could revive the campaign in Australia for it to become a republic.
But Downing Street believes that the Queen's diamond jubilee next year and the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in April show it is time to "secure a breakthrough".
Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, also supports the change. "If Prince William and Catherine Middleton were to have a baby daughter as their first child, I think most people would think it fair and normal that she would eventually become queen of our country," he said this year.
Buckingham Palace is understood to be supportive. One No 10 source said: "Downing Street has been working on this for five years. Buckingham Palace will not have been taken by surprise. This will welcome the crown into the modern age."
The changes have to be introduced by all 16 realms at the same time. Failure to amend the legislation in one or more could lead to a situation in which there were different monarchs, possibly both from the House of Windsor, in different countries.
A working group, to be chaired by New Zealand, will co-ordinate the legislation to make sure it is acceptable to all countries.
Cameron has been astonished that it has taken so long to amend such antiquated legislation. In 1955, when Anthony Eden succeededWinston Churchill, a civil service brief concluded that it was time for a change.
The brief said: "It is unsatisfactory that personal and constitutional questions of such high importance should still depend on the operation of an 18th-century statute which was admittedly passed hurriedly, and in the face of considerable opposition, to deal with an ad hoc situation created largely by the unsatisfactory conduct of King George III's brothers."
Successive governments have failed to act. In 1964 the then home secretary, Henry Brooke, declined to "proceed with legislation … at the moment" because of the challenge in winning agreement with other realms.
The bar on marrying a Catholic meant that Prince Michael of Kent, the grandson of George V, had to forfeit his place in the line of succession in 1978 when he married an Austrian Catholic, now Princess Michael of Kent. Autumn Phillips, the wife of the Queen's grandson Peter, converted to Anglicanism from Catholicism to preserve her husband's position in the line of succession. He is currently 11th in line but will jump to fifth when the first changes are introduced.
The leaders' group will also debate a report recommending that homosexuality should be legalised across the Commonwealth. Peter Tatchell, a gay rights campaigner, said last week that 40 Commonwealth countries still criminalise homosexuality.
Expert view: Paul Lay
In our age of gender equality and religious tolerance there will be no further hindrance to an elder daughter succeeding to the crown before her younger brothers. Yet in one of those contingencies that makes history such a delight, the three most successful monarchs to have ascended to the English and then British throne have all been women.Elizabeth I only gained the crown because her elder half-sister, Mary – a woman and a Catholic – died young and childless. She in turn had only become the first queen of England because there were no males left in the Tudor line once young Edward VI passed on in 1553. Three centuries later, Victoria, less glamorous but more fertile, was to preside over the high noon of empire. The present incumbent, currently enjoying adulation in the antipodes, personifies dignity and cool judgment. Things could have turned out worse. They could also have turned out better.
The Act of Settlement was passed by parliament and signed on 12 June 1701 by William III, a childless widower pushing 50, in poor health and largely immune to female charm. The question of succession had become desperate owing to the death in July 1700 of the 11-year-old William, Duke of Gloucester, the only surviving son of the heir to the throne, Princess Anne.
The exiled Stuarts may have been the divisive agents of a bloody civil war, and papists to boot, but they had male heirs, and James Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, was ready to pounce, with the aid of Louis XIV of France, who acknowledged him as James III. Had English rulers taken a more enlightened view of gender issues they might not have got into such a mess. Charles I, the fount of all the troubles of the 17th century, had an elder sister, Elizabeth, the Winter Queen of Bohemia and heroine of Protestant Europe.
Having endured decades of religious and political turmoil, and fearful for the Protestant succession, it was to the descendants of this Stuart that William III's supporters went in search of a monarch to keep the other Stuarts out. They wanted the young elector George Lewis of Hanover, Elizabeth's grandson. He didn't speak English but was a Protestant and hated the French – qualifications suffice to make him king.
George and his Hanoverian successors were never popular and the monarchy was at a low ebb when Victoria ascended to the throne in 1837 in the absence of legitimate male candidates. Though the elderly Victoria came to symbolise a dowdy puritanism, the early years of her reign were marked by scandal and assassination attempts. Even her saintly consort Prince Albert only became popular after his premature death. But she made female rule acceptable.
Victoria's eldest child was also female and also named Victoria. She may well have proved a wiser monarch than her younger brother, the corpulent and foolish Edward VII, had she been allowed to succeed in January 1901. His love affair with France (or, at least its women) helped forge the entente cordiale with devastating consequences for Anglo-German relations, until then rather good.
Princess Victoria also happened to be the Empress of Germany and Queen of Prussia and would have united the crowns of the greatest military and industrial powers of the age. Her son, Kaiser Wilhelm II, would have been King William V, the first and second world wars would never have happened and we would all be driving top-of-the-range Audis and embracing low levels of personal debt.
Paul Lay is editor of History Today
Cameron consults Commonwealth on royal succession reforms
Prime minister proposes males should no longer take precedence as heir to the crown, starting with next generation
Any daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would take precedence over younger brothers in the line of succession, under David Cameron's proposals.
The proposed law change would apply to any children produced by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, even if a child was born before the revised law had reached the statute book. An elder daughter would therefore take precedence before a son.
In his letter, sent last month, Cameron wrote: "We espouse gender equality in all other aspects of life and it is an anomaly that in the rules relating to the highest public office we continue to enshrine male superiority."
The prime minister had previously played down the prospect of a change in the rules of royal succession amid concerns that constitutional tinkering could spark a fresh campaign in Australia for it to become a republic.
Cameron is also proposing that Catholics should continue to be debarred from being head of state, but that anyone who marries a Catholic should not be debarred. The family would be entitled to bring up their children as Catholics as long as heirs do not seek to take the throne as a Catholic.
"This rule is a historical anomaly – it does not, for example, bar those who marry spouses of other faiths – and we do not think it can continue to be justified," Cameron wrote.
The head of state is in communion with the Church of England under the Act of Settlement. The Roman Catholic church forbids that communion. Successive governments have looked at the issue and reflected on the anachronistic nature of British laws, but Cameron is taking the process further by tabling the plans ahead of the Commonwealth summit in Perth this month.
Cameron is also proposing the abolition of legislation that requires descendants of George II to seek the approval of the monarch before they marry if they are below the age of 25. In practice there may be thousands of married descendants of George II in the UK who may be unaware that they should have first sought such approval.
There is a broad hope at No 10 that the 16 Commonwealth heads of state would at minimum agree in principle to consult their domestic parliaments on the proposals.
The legal changes would require wide-ranging reform to UK laws including the Bill of Rights 1688, the Act of Settlement 1700, the Act of Union with Scotland 1706 and the Coronation Oaths Act 1688.
Cameron now needs to consult with countries including Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Lucia.
Downing Street said the royal wedding in April and the Queen's diamond's jubilee had put the issue of male primogeniture back into the spotlight.
Andrew Boff: The removal of the clauses from the Localism Bill allowing local people to originate policy, is a victory for the political class, not the public
Andrew Boff is a Conservative member of the London Assembly.
My faith in the radicalism of our party was rejuvenated when I read “Control Shift”, the party's green paper on localism in 2009. I was even more heartened when many of its provisions made their way into the Localism bill. Last night the LibDems eviscerated it in the House of Lords.
The removal of the clauses from the Localism Bill to allow for local referenda means that the political class, through its agents the LibDems, has scored a victory over the people. The clauses would have allowed residents, on securing a petition of 5% of the electorate, to force local referenda on local authorities which, whilst admittedly only advisory at this point, would have been one small step in putting a hand break on the excesses of elective dictatorships up and down the country. It would also have given the people the chance to originate policy rather than just be dependent on what a party puts in its manifesto.
If ever there was any doubt that we are in coalition with a bunch of statist control freaks then LibDem Lord Greaves, who proposed the amendment in the Lords last night, removed it completely. The irony of his hatchet job coming directly after a debate which bemoaned the lack of involvement of young people in politics was beyond parody.
He criticised the clauses because they “Would be open to people demanding large numbers of referendums on all kinds of things that the council would find extremely difficult to refuse to hold.” Duh! That's the POINT. If people don't want the question put or they think they've had too many already, then they don't sign the petition. If their Council is out of touch with what the people want then there will be plenty. It's up to them. The right of initiative has not resulted in vast number of questions being put in Switzerland and the states of the US that trust the people enough to have had such provisions for many years.My faith in the radicalism of our party was rejuvenated when I read “Control Shift”, the party's green paper on localism in 2009. I was even more heartened when many of its provisions made their way into the Localism bill. Last night the LibDems eviscerated it in the House of Lords.
The removal of the clauses from the Localism Bill to allow for local referenda means that the political class, through its agents the LibDems, has scored a victory over the people. The clauses would have allowed residents, on securing a petition of 5% of the electorate, to force local referenda on local authorities which, whilst admittedly only advisory at this point, would have been one small step in putting a hand break on the excesses of elective dictatorships up and down the country. It would also have given the people the chance to originate policy rather than just be dependent on what a party puts in its manifesto.
If ever there was any doubt that we are in coalition with a bunch of statist control freaks then LibDem Lord Greaves, who proposed the amendment in the Lords last night, removed it completely. The irony of his hatchet job coming directly after a debate which bemoaned the lack of involvement of young people in politics was beyond parody.
He went on - “Councils already have the powers to hold referendums when they choose to do so” Don't you get geddit m'Lud? What about when the people want to hold a referendum on an issue that they choose in one of the many local authorities which are one party states? Who the hell are local councillors if they are not servants of the people rather than their masters.
He was seconded by another good reason for the abolition of the Upper House, Lord Tope, who, wearing his smugness like a starlet wears a mink, said “I personally believe that there are better ways of testing public opinion fairly than using the very suspect means of a referendum” Suspect, I suspect, because they might disagree with the noble lord's 'progressive' leanings.
LibDems think their democratic credentials are boosted by their belief in PR once every four or five years at elections. They also think that the electorate are a bunch of ignorant bigots who can't be trusted to formulate a cogent opinion. Our party's credentials must be the belief in real democracy between elections. The Tory party is about liberation or it is nothing.
I'm bitterly disappointed that we didn't win this one and it will take an enormous amount of self control on my part to not spit in the eye of the next LibDem who tells me they “trust the people.”
He was seconded by another good reason for the abolition of the Upper House, Lord Tope, who, wearing his smugness like a starlet wears a mink, said “I personally believe that there are better ways of testing public opinion fairly than using the very suspect means of a referendum” Suspect, I suspect, because they might disagree with the noble lord's 'progressive' leanings.
LibDems think their democratic credentials are boosted by their belief in PR once every four or five years at elections. They also think that the electorate are a bunch of ignorant bigots who can't be trusted to formulate a cogent opinion. Our party's credentials must be the belief in real democracy between elections. The Tory party is about liberation or it is nothing.
I'm bitterly disappointed that we didn't win this one and it will take an enormous amount of self control on my part to not spit in the eye of the next LibDem who tells me they “trust the people.”
This was a party conference without party members
By Tim Montgomerie
Follow Tim on Twitter.
This morning I want to briefly focus on the fact that there were hundreds of empty seats at the back of the hall for Cameron's speech. I've never known this before. In previous years it's been standing room only. In the early years of Blair's premiership the Labour Party organised overflow events in cinemas so delegates could watch the leader's speech.
There are all sorts of reasons for this but one big explanation is the huge cost of now going to Tory Conference.Follow Tim on Twitter.
This morning I want to briefly focus on the fact that there were hundreds of empty seats at the back of the hall for Cameron's speech. I've never known this before. In previous years it's been standing room only. In the early years of Blair's premiership the Labour Party organised overflow events in cinemas so delegates could watch the leader's speech.
ConservativeHome questioned nearly 400 people attending Tory Conference and asked them to estimate the costs of attendance. After removing the 25 lowest and 25 highest estimates in each category we arrived at the following numbers:
I was told by Tory HQ that only 4,000 of the 11,500 people attending the conference were grassroots members. One Conservative minister actually claimed that the number was closer to 2,000 than 4,000. Matthew Parris told me that he struggled to find Tory activists when he went round the exhibition hall trying to make a video. At fringe event after fringe event (with the exception of Simon Richards' brilliant Freedom Zone) 70% and more of questions are asked by NGOs, business representatives and journalists. The party makes a huge profit from conference but it is a great shame that it's now hard for ordinary members to afford to come to what should be a festival of politics. I've had talks in the last few days about ConservativeHome setting up an affordable and very political centre right conference where we bring together conservative historians, academics, journalists and elected representatives to discuss big ideas. Watch this space.
Registration fee: £80
+
Travel: £71.90
+
Accommodation: £258.97
+
Eating: £117.19
+
Drinking: £86.48
+
Other: £107.96
=
TOTAL: £722.50
Of course no person has to spend £86 on drink in four days but alcohol isn’t cheap in the conference bars. More significantly many costs are unavoidable. The conference fee, the travel, the accommodation. Veteran party democracy campaigner John Strafford recommends that the fee for attending conference be cut to £20 to encourage more member involvement. Others have suggested we go back to seaside locations like Blackpool. The facilities may not be so good as in Manchester or Birmingham but B&Bs on the Lancashire coast are a lot more affordable for ordinary party members.+
Travel: £71.90
+
Accommodation: £258.97
+
Eating: £117.19
+
Drinking: £86.48
+
Other: £107.96
=
TOTAL: £722.50
I was told by Tory HQ that only 4,000 of the 11,500 people attending the conference were grassroots members. One Conservative minister actually claimed that the number was closer to 2,000 than 4,000. Matthew Parris told me that he struggled to find Tory activists when he went round the exhibition hall trying to make a video. At fringe event after fringe event (with the exception of Simon Richards' brilliant Freedom Zone) 70% and more of questions are asked by NGOs, business representatives and journalists. The party makes a huge profit from conference but it is a great shame that it's now hard for ordinary members to afford to come to what should be a festival of politics. I've had talks in the last few days about ConservativeHome setting up an affordable and very political centre right conference where we bring together conservative historians, academics, journalists and elected representatives to discuss big ideas. Watch this space.
A Conference with no members?
by
John Strafford
At my first Conservative Party conference:
· There was no registration fee.
· The seaside bed and breakfast hotel cost £20 per night.
· We had motions for debate.
· All motions submitted were published in the Conference handbook.
All this has gone. If the costs of attending conference continue to increase we will soon have a conference with no members.
7,500 of those attending conference claim their costs on expenses (Media, lobbyists, etc.) The 4,000 members pay out of their own pocket.
Last year the Party made £1.7 million profit on conferences. The Party should reduce the registration fee to £20 for members. It will still make £1.5 million profit.
Party Chairmen: ACTION THIS DAY
A view of the Tory Party Conference
October 2nd
Why the Electoral Commission disagrees with Harman on voter registration
by www.politics.co.ukVoter registration isn't the most straightforward of matters
Thursday, 29 September 2011 2:50 PM
Harriet Harman wrapped up today's Labour conference with a speech attacking the coalition's planned voter registration changes. What she didn't mention is that the independent Electoral Commission is broadly in favour of the idea.I've been going through its submission to the Commons' political and constitutional reform committee, in which it states, in no uncertain terms:
"The Electoral Commission is clear that introducing IER is the right thing to do, because of the need:
• to improve the security of the system, making it less vulnerable to fraud
• to recognise people's personal responsibility for this important stake in our democracy
• for a system that people recognise as up-to-date, not rooted in Victorian ideas about households and 'heads of household'"
Labour say the changes are yet another form of partisan meddling with the constitution, exactly the sort of tinkering which I've pledged to make this blog about. They're worried because it's clear the changes will hit their vote: the socially disadvantaged are likely to fall off the electoral register. This could have a knock-on impact on boundary changes, as I've already noted.
But it seems there are real arguments for changing the system. The Electoral Commission says the UK is one of the only countries in the world not to have adopted a system based on registration by individuals. This may be something to do with the fact it has remained the same since the Victorian period, suggesting that having an ancient constitution is not always a good thing.There is another reason to change the system, too. Here's the Commission again:
"'Household' registration system means there is no personal ownership by citizens of a fundamental aspect of their participation in our democracy - their right to vote. This is too important to be left for anybody other than the individual citizen to register."
This is the direct opposite argument to that deployed by Ed Miliband and Harman in Liverpool this week.
"One of the most basic democratic rights of all is the right to vote," the leader told delegates. "We should be making it easier, not harder."
Miliband placed great emphasis on the "civic duty" to register to vote in the current system, in which it is a legal obligation to register. Under the coalition's changes, participating in the electoral process becomes a voluntary one.
Voter registration is a complex area which both parties have a predictably skewed view on. There are all sorts of complications which changing the way the electoral register works will have, which are set to muddy the debate still further. The Electoral Commission is worried about the edited register (it wants it abolished), the implications for selecting juries, concerns over personal data under the new registration system, the tick-box opt-out and even cuts faced by local electoral registration teams. Much to keep an eye on, it seems.
Conservatives should stand candidates for the police commissioner elections
by www.conservativehome.com
In November next year there will be elections in England and Wales (apart from London) for Police Commissioners across the 41 police authorities. Those elected will have the power to set priorities for fighting crime, to set the precept and to sack chief constables for fail to deliver.
Yet all the three main political parties are showing reluctance to field candidates. There is a sense that independents might be better suited. Paul has already written aboutthis.
Perhaps there will be independent candidates with tough and effective crime fighting credentials that will come forward. But can we be confident there would in all 41 areas? I think the electorate should be offered a choice that includes a Conservative candidate. The problem of splitting the vote does not arise as the Supplementary Vote method is being used (the same as for the Mayor of London.) So Conservative supporters could offer an independent they were impressed with their second preference.
The Local Government Chronicle reports (£) Labour MP and Shadow Policing Minister Vernon Coaker says Labour's "default position" is to run candidates but adds: “If the Tories don’t, we need to consider that carefully."
Yet all the three main political parties are showing reluctance to field candidates. There is a sense that independents might be better suited. Paul has already written aboutthis.
Perhaps there will be independent candidates with tough and effective crime fighting credentials that will come forward. But can we be confident there would in all 41 areas? I think the electorate should be offered a choice that includes a Conservative candidate. The problem of splitting the vote does not arise as the Supplementary Vote method is being used (the same as for the Mayor of London.) So Conservative supporters could offer an independent they were impressed with their second preference.
The Local Government Chronicle reports (£) Labour MP and Shadow Policing Minister Vernon Coaker says Labour's "default position" is to run candidates but adds: “If the Tories don’t, we need to consider that carefully."
Cllr Stephen Bett, a Conservative councillor and chairman of Norfolk Police Authority wants to be his county’s police commissioner, but says of his approach to CCHQ: “I have inquired what we are doing in this county and region and I’ve come up with a blank. There seems to be tremendous confusion."
The confusion should end. We should declare that we are running candidates and an effort should be made to get some of the highest calibre.
What about David Davis as the Police Commissioner for Humberside, asks Political Betting? Good idea. Not just for Humberside but for the rest of us who could see what he comes up with it and copy it if it works.
Come to that what about Lord Howard of Lympne as the Police Commissioner for Kent? He cut crime when he was Home Secretary. Perhaps Ann Widdecombe could give it a go if he wasn't interested..
What about Lord Ashcroft, who has done such a tremendous job with Crime Stoppers, as the Police Commissioner for Thames Valley?
Edward Boyd, Rory Geoghegan and Blair Gibbs wrote an excellent report for Policy Exchange about value for money in policing. So let's see them come forward as candidates. Blair says someone like Nick Ross would be a good independent candidate - but Ross can't stand everywhere. He may not stand anywhere.
It may well be that lots of independents are returned. But the Conservatives have a strong law and order brand. We have within our ranks lots of people who would make excellent Police Commissioners including some with a high profile and others less well known but with considerable expertise. they will cretainly include councillors who have served on Police Authorities but they shouldn't be limited to this category.
These are important elections and we should not be spectators.
The confusion should end. We should declare that we are running candidates and an effort should be made to get some of the highest calibre.
What about David Davis as the Police Commissioner for Humberside, asks Political Betting? Good idea. Not just for Humberside but for the rest of us who could see what he comes up with it and copy it if it works.
Come to that what about Lord Howard of Lympne as the Police Commissioner for Kent? He cut crime when he was Home Secretary. Perhaps Ann Widdecombe could give it a go if he wasn't interested..
What about Lord Ashcroft, who has done such a tremendous job with Crime Stoppers, as the Police Commissioner for Thames Valley?
Edward Boyd, Rory Geoghegan and Blair Gibbs wrote an excellent report for Policy Exchange about value for money in policing. So let's see them come forward as candidates. Blair says someone like Nick Ross would be a good independent candidate - but Ross can't stand everywhere. He may not stand anywhere.
It may well be that lots of independents are returned. But the Conservatives have a strong law and order brand. We have within our ranks lots of people who would make excellent Police Commissioners including some with a high profile and others less well known but with considerable expertise. they will cretainly include councillors who have served on Police Authorities but they shouldn't be limited to this category.
These are important elections and we should not be spectators.
Harriet’s seat-for-a-sister plan
by Women On.
September 27th 2011
Following Labour’s all-women meeting on Saturday, which featured the now-famous ‘honorary woman’ Ed Miliband, Harriet Harman is pushing forward her plan to ensure that either the leader or the deputy leader of the Labour Party is always female.
In the ultimate act of positive discrimination, Harriet wants to make sure there is a seat-for-a-sister, a place for a women on top.
This ridiculous act is based on two assumptions: that a women will always act in the best interests of other women, which is clearly untrue, and that there will always be a woman up to the job. Despite years of tinkering, culminating in all-women shortlists, less than a third of Labour MPs are female, so either the leader or the deputy leader will be selected from a smaller pool.
Yet again, Labour are attacking men by giving women greater rather than equal rights. Assuming that men can’t or won’t act in the best interests of women. What does that say about their ability to empathise with any group?
Must a leader be poor to empathise with the poor? Must a leader be a Muslim to empathise with Muslims? Must a leader be black to empathise with ethic groups? Clearly not.
Labour members and the Unions should reject Harriet’s ridiculous seat-for-a-sister plan as an out-dated idea from a radical feminist which is patently anti-men. Will ‘honorary woman’ Ed Miliband stand up to her?
In the ultimate act of positive discrimination, Harriet wants to make sure there is a seat-for-a-sister, a place for a women on top.
This ridiculous act is based on two assumptions: that a women will always act in the best interests of other women, which is clearly untrue, and that there will always be a woman up to the job. Despite years of tinkering, culminating in all-women shortlists, less than a third of Labour MPs are female, so either the leader or the deputy leader will be selected from a smaller pool.
Yet again, Labour are attacking men by giving women greater rather than equal rights. Assuming that men can’t or won’t act in the best interests of women. What does that say about their ability to empathise with any group?
Must a leader be poor to empathise with the poor? Must a leader be a Muslim to empathise with Muslims? Must a leader be black to empathise with ethic groups? Clearly not.
Labour members and the Unions should reject Harriet’s ridiculous seat-for-a-sister plan as an out-dated idea from a radical feminist which is patently anti-men. Will ‘honorary woman’ Ed Miliband stand up to her?
September 25th
Ed Miliband to open up Labour leadership elections to the public?
By Matthew Barrett
Follow Matthew on Twitter
Will Ed Miliband open up Labour's leadership elections to the public? Not quite. Mr Miliband has tabled proposals at a meeting of Labour's National Executive Committee to create "tens of thousands" of "registered supporters" who will be eligible to vote in future leadership elections. However, the "registered supporters" would be included in the part of Labour's electoral college which includes the unions and affiliated socialist societies (the Fabian Society, Christian Socialist Movement, Labour Students, etc), which means - on the face of it - the unions’ share of the leadership votes will be cut.
Contrary to how this news might be reported, the proposal is modest and does not mean ordinary folk will really be able to influence elections. The reality is that non-party members have always been able to vote - the affiliated societies section can include non-members, and the trade unions section already includes plenty of non-Labour members. For example, members and supporters of the Conservatives, who were also union members, were allowed a vote in last year's Labour leadership election.
The second reason why this reform is not really radical is that putting the "registered supporters" in the third of the electoral college that includes union members, Ed Miliband is diluting the union vote to some degree, but not enough to sway a leadership election. Therefore, the unions will still dominate their part of the leadership vote. As the FT's Jim Pickard says, "Miliband’s team suggest that the figure will be “tens of thousands”. Perhaps. But simple maths would suggest that even a hundred thousand would only partially dilute the power of union members."Follow Matthew on Twitter
Will Ed Miliband open up Labour's leadership elections to the public? Not quite. Mr Miliband has tabled proposals at a meeting of Labour's National Executive Committee to create "tens of thousands" of "registered supporters" who will be eligible to vote in future leadership elections. However, the "registered supporters" would be included in the part of Labour's electoral college which includes the unions and affiliated socialist societies (the Fabian Society, Christian Socialist Movement, Labour Students, etc), which means - on the face of it - the unions’ share of the leadership votes will be cut.
Contrary to how this news might be reported, the proposal is modest and does not mean ordinary folk will really be able to influence elections. The reality is that non-party members have always been able to vote - the affiliated societies section can include non-members, and the trade unions section already includes plenty of non-Labour members. For example, members and supporters of the Conservatives, who were also union members, were allowed a vote in last year's Labour leadership election.
Finally, who would want to be a "registered supporter"? Is it going to be the long-time Labour voters whose views are generally ignored by the leadership - the Gillian Duffy type of Labour voter? That's unlikely. More realistic is that the average "registered member" will be an activist whose views are not representative of the public at large. This reform is unlikely to change anything much.
Another gimmick to avoid Labour Party democracy! One member one vote! Wait for it to be watered down!
Shocked MPs told electoral plan could remove 10m voters
As many as 10 million voters, predominantly poor, young or black, and more liable to vote Labour, could fall off the electoral register under government plans, the Electoral Commission, electoral administrators and psephologists warned .
The changes will pave the way for a further review of constituency boundaries that will reduce the number of safe Labour seats before the 2020 election.
MPs on the political and constitutional reform select committee only realised the implications of the plans following three evidence sessions with election experts over the past week to examine the white paper which proposes to introduce individual electoral registration rather than household registration before the 2015 election.
The committee chairman, Labour MP Graham Allen, said they were "genuinely shocked". Even Tory members such as Eleanor Laing expressed surprise.
The policy has been described by Jenny Russell, the chair of the electoral commission, as the biggest change to voting since the introduction of the universal franchise.
Ministers have unexpectedly proposed that it should no longer be compulsory to co-operate with electoral registration officers (EROs) when they try to compile an accurate register, in effect downgrading the civic duty to engage with politics.
Russell warned: "It is logical to suggest that those that do not vote in elections will not see the point of registering to vote and it is possible that the register may therefore go from a 90%completeness that we currently have to 60-65%."
John Stewart, chairman of the electoral registration officers, said the drop-off was likely to be 10% in "the leafy shires" but closer to 30% in inner city areas. He said there would be an incentive not to register as the list is used for jury service and to combat credit fraud. He said he expected large numbers of young voters would not register.
The Cabinet Office, overseen by Nick Clegg, which had already decided there would be no household canvass in 2014 to save money, is introducing individual registration before the 2015 general election. The Electoral Commission said the change would mean 10% of the electorate could fall off the register in as many as 300 local authority areas.
The full effect of voluntary individual registration will be felt at the 2020 general election because the constituency boundaries for that election will be based on a voluntary individual register compiled in December 2015.
The projected 30% fall off in registered voters, weighted towards poorer voters, would require the boundary commission to reduce the number of inner-city Labour seats because the Boundary Commission is required to draw up constituencies with the sole objective of equalising the size of the electorates and not to take into account natural or political borders.
It is already estimated that as many as 3 million people currently eligible to vote do not register even though it is compulsory to co-operate with the compilation of the registry.
Although individual registration will be introduced before the 2015 general election, ministers have said the names on the existing household register can be carried over on to the election register, so reducing the impact.
Tristam Hunt, a Labour committee member, said: "These plans show how little this government really cares about democracy or fairness. If they get away with it, the effect on the 2020 general election will make the chaotic boundary review published this week look minor. This is designed to wipe the poor and the young off the political map.
"We are moving from a notion of registering as part as a civic duty to something akin to personal choice like a Nectar card or BA miles."
Russell said the government's plans had "unforeseen consequences".
It is currently an offence, liable to a maximum fine of £1,000, to fail to comply with a request for information from an ERO or to give false information.
The Cabinet Office white paper, published in the summer said: "While we strongly encourage people to register to vote, the government believes the act is one of personal choice and as such there should be no compulsion placed on an individual to make an application to register to vote."
Roger Mortimore from pollsters Ipsos Mori warned: "It is a very dramatic change and I am opposed to it. So far there is a political effect, it is most likely to disadvantage Labour", because "people that are least engaged in politics — the poor, the young and the ethnic minorities and all those groups, when they do vote at all are more likely to vote Labour".
The changes will pave the way for a further review of constituency boundaries that will reduce the number of safe Labour seats before the 2020 election.
MPs on the political and constitutional reform select committee only realised the implications of the plans following three evidence sessions with election experts over the past week to examine the white paper which proposes to introduce individual electoral registration rather than household registration before the 2015 election.
The committee chairman, Labour MP Graham Allen, said they were "genuinely shocked". Even Tory members such as Eleanor Laing expressed surprise.
The policy has been described by Jenny Russell, the chair of the electoral commission, as the biggest change to voting since the introduction of the universal franchise.
Ministers have unexpectedly proposed that it should no longer be compulsory to co-operate with electoral registration officers (EROs) when they try to compile an accurate register, in effect downgrading the civic duty to engage with politics.
Russell warned: "It is logical to suggest that those that do not vote in elections will not see the point of registering to vote and it is possible that the register may therefore go from a 90%completeness that we currently have to 60-65%."
John Stewart, chairman of the electoral registration officers, said the drop-off was likely to be 10% in "the leafy shires" but closer to 30% in inner city areas. He said there would be an incentive not to register as the list is used for jury service and to combat credit fraud. He said he expected large numbers of young voters would not register.
The Cabinet Office, overseen by Nick Clegg, which had already decided there would be no household canvass in 2014 to save money, is introducing individual registration before the 2015 general election. The Electoral Commission said the change would mean 10% of the electorate could fall off the register in as many as 300 local authority areas.
The full effect of voluntary individual registration will be felt at the 2020 general election because the constituency boundaries for that election will be based on a voluntary individual register compiled in December 2015.
The projected 30% fall off in registered voters, weighted towards poorer voters, would require the boundary commission to reduce the number of inner-city Labour seats because the Boundary Commission is required to draw up constituencies with the sole objective of equalising the size of the electorates and not to take into account natural or political borders.
It is already estimated that as many as 3 million people currently eligible to vote do not register even though it is compulsory to co-operate with the compilation of the registry.
Although individual registration will be introduced before the 2015 general election, ministers have said the names on the existing household register can be carried over on to the election register, so reducing the impact.
Tristam Hunt, a Labour committee member, said: "These plans show how little this government really cares about democracy or fairness. If they get away with it, the effect on the 2020 general election will make the chaotic boundary review published this week look minor. This is designed to wipe the poor and the young off the political map.
"We are moving from a notion of registering as part as a civic duty to something akin to personal choice like a Nectar card or BA miles."
Russell said the government's plans had "unforeseen consequences".
It is currently an offence, liable to a maximum fine of £1,000, to fail to comply with a request for information from an ERO or to give false information.
The Cabinet Office white paper, published in the summer said: "While we strongly encourage people to register to vote, the government believes the act is one of personal choice and as such there should be no compulsion placed on an individual to make an application to register to vote."
Roger Mortimore from pollsters Ipsos Mori warned: "It is a very dramatic change and I am opposed to it. So far there is a political effect, it is most likely to disadvantage Labour", because "people that are least engaged in politics — the poor, the young and the ethnic minorities and all those groups, when they do vote at all are more likely to vote Labour".
Government plans could disenfranchise millions
Commenting on the government's proposals to remove the legal duty for people to register to vote, Director of Unlock Democracy Peter Facey commented:
“Unlock Democracy believes that individual voter registration is essential to improving the security of our elections and actively campaigned for it. It is an important mechanism to prevent fraud and ensure that the person who casts the vote in an election, is the person on the electoral register. But we have always recognised that its introduction, at least in the short term, would require Electoral Registration Officers to be more pro-active, not less.
“Scrapping the 2014 canvass alongside the legal duty for people to register represents a double-whammy and will lead to millions of people to fall off the register. Combine this with the new rolling boundary review rules and it will mean that many people on the margins of society will be disenfranchised in the 2020 general election.
“It is a simple fact of life that effective electoral administration costs money. This is not an administrative issue but one that cuts to the heart of our democracy. This isn’t a question of bureaucracy but of who gets to participate in our political system. It is bad enough that the voting system excludes so many people; when even the registration system is rigged against under-represented groups we cannot call ourselves a democracy by any definition.
Have the Government taken leave of their senses?
Miliband leadership vote 'was not free and fair', claims study
By Isabel Hardman on "politicshome"Ed Miliband will today come under renewed pressure to reform Labour's leadership elections after a study claimed his own election was not a "free and fair democratic" contest.
The research from academics at the University of Bristol, seen by PoliticsHome, claims the 2010 Labour leadership election did not meet the definition of a "free and fair democratic election". It also shows how the trade unions created a 'block vote' in favour of their preferred candidate – Mr Miliband - in Labour's leadership election last September.
Members of Mr Miliband's own campaign admitted to the authors during their research that the way he won the election, beating his brother David by 1.3% of the vote, created a problem of legitimacy.
The report, Reinventing the block vote? Trade unions and the 2010 Labour party leadership election, by Richard Jobson and Mark Wickham-Jones is likely to provide embarrassment for Mr Miliband as he addresses the Trades Union Congress this week, and considers plans to make his party more democratic ahead of its conference in Liverpool in a fortnight's time.
It argues that the leadership contest does not meet the definition of a free and fair election because the candidates did not secure equal access to the electorate in their campaigning, voters were not fully informed about the five candidates and their policies because the unions distributed information about only their preferred candidates alongside ballot papers, and the union contribution to certain campaigns meant an unequal distribution of resources between those standing.
The report says: "It is because of these conditions that we question the normative legitimacy of the process by which Ed Miliband was elected. Legitimacy is clearly a contested and normative concept. A legitimate election, we believe, is one conducted under fair procedures and one in which participants consent to the result on the basis that the contest was handled on an even-handed and non-discriminatory basis, irrespective of the result.
"In other words, we conclude that the 2010 leadership contest does not meet the criteria mapped our in our introduction as to what is a free and fair democratic election."
Membership lists
One team member told the researchers that preventing other candidates from using the membership lists was like “running a national election campaign with someone deciding who to give the electoral register to... you can't [campaign], you have no list, you can't tell, you have no access.”Another campaigner working for David Miliband claimed: “We didn't have access to union lists because we didn't get the union nomination.”
The influence of the unions over how their members voted was powerful, with 49% of voters following their union's recommendation. In a private interview with Mr Wickham-Jones and Mr Jobson, a member of Mr Miliband's campaign team admitted that had he also won the membership section, rather than simply the union vote, it would have “transformed the legitimacy of his win”.
The report's authors argue that they are not attempting to criticise Mr Miliband's own role in the electoral process. But they add: “However, the circumstances of his election can hardly have assisted him in his new post and may in part explain the rumblings of dissatisfaction that have been commonplace concerning his performance since his victory.
“It may also go some way to explain his difficult relations with the trade unions over the issue of public sector strikes in the summer of 2011 – by way of the need for a counter-reaction. Legitimate electoral processes confer authority upon the winner.”
Reform
They call for reform of the party's electoral college, arguing that "at the very least Labour needs a set of clear rules, which prohibit trade union leaderships from exercising the kind of interventions that had such an impact in 2010."Mr Miliband is reported to be mulling over plans to force the unions to hand over their lists of 3m political levy payers to enable leadership candidates to contact them directly. Yesterday, Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said he was willing to discuss any plans to make the party more democratic.
He told the Andrew Marr Show that plans to change the voting process were “not particularly a worry for me, I mean the issue of Refounding Labour and the question of trying to make the Labour party vibrant is something I'm happy to look at. If there's some perceived democratic deficit, I'm prepared to look at it.”
September 11th
Should the Party run candidates for election as Police Commissioners?
By Paul Goodman
Follow Paul on Twitter
The first tranche of elections for police commissioners is expected to take place next spring. A reader asked recently whether the Party intends to stand candidates for them - and, if so, how the selection process will work.
There is obviously an option at either extreme. The first is that Downing Street and CCHQ could decide that Conservative candidates should stand for every vacancy, and devise an interventionist selection procedure like those that help shape the choice of candidates for Westminster and the European Parliament.
The second is that both conclude that police commissioners should be independents, and announce that no official Conservative candidates will contest the elections.
I gather that some senior Tories briefly considered going even further than the second extreme, if that's possible. They chewed over the possibility of the legislation actually barring political party candidates from standing - before swiftly rejecting the idea, rightly, as illiberal.Follow Paul on Twitter
The first tranche of elections for police commissioners is expected to take place next spring. A reader asked recently whether the Party intends to stand candidates for them - and, if so, how the selection process will work.
There is obviously an option at either extreme. The first is that Downing Street and CCHQ could decide that Conservative candidates should stand for every vacancy, and devise an interventionist selection procedure like those that help shape the choice of candidates for Westminster and the European Parliament.
The second is that both conclude that police commissioners should be independents, and announce that no official Conservative candidates will contest the elections.
The instinct behind it has roots in parts of the Home Office and Justice teams that have survived from opposition - particularly those with a sturdy track record of support for localism.
Nick Herbert, the energetic Home Office and Justice Minister, has long been an enthusiast for the emergence of independent candidates with robust views on law and order - and perhaps some policing expertise, too - in the police commissioner elections.
Obviously, he and other Ministers will want such candidates to have vigorous support from and excellent relations with local Tories. But the itch for these independents is understandable.
I understand that discussions are taking place at the moment about what exactly should be done. And that no-one in Downing Street, CCHQ or elsewhere is pressing for the first option - Conservative candidates for every vacancy.
Instead, there is likely to be a localist solution. If Conservative Associations in one area want to run a candidate, they'll be able to do so. And if they don't, no-one will force them to.
This solution, though elegant - and I think correct - raises a practical question and a more philosophical one. The practical one is: if Associations in any area (for example, the Thames Valley, with which I've some familiarity) want to select a candidate, how will the process work?
The philosophical one is: while the desire for independents fits the anti-establishment mood of the times, shouldn't it be questioned? After all, what's the point of a political party that doesn't stand candidates?
To continue with this way of thinking: if independents who have good relations with local Conservatives are suitable to be police commissioners, why aren't they suitable to be MPs? And if they are, why bother standing Tory candidates in constituencies at all?
The narrow question of whether the party, at both a national and local level, should back Conservative or independent candidates for these elections thus turns out to have very wide implications.
The Liberal Democrats, we read, are already advertising for candidates - while simultaneously plotting to halt the elections altogether. I'd like to see local Conservative decision-making on the matter - and hope that in most areas party members either select a Tory candidate or support a strong centre-right independent.
Discuss this issue at the next COPOV Forum on 24th September
Nick Herbert, the energetic Home Office and Justice Minister, has long been an enthusiast for the emergence of independent candidates with robust views on law and order - and perhaps some policing expertise, too - in the police commissioner elections.
Obviously, he and other Ministers will want such candidates to have vigorous support from and excellent relations with local Tories. But the itch for these independents is understandable.
I understand that discussions are taking place at the moment about what exactly should be done. And that no-one in Downing Street, CCHQ or elsewhere is pressing for the first option - Conservative candidates for every vacancy.
Instead, there is likely to be a localist solution. If Conservative Associations in one area want to run a candidate, they'll be able to do so. And if they don't, no-one will force them to.
This solution, though elegant - and I think correct - raises a practical question and a more philosophical one. The practical one is: if Associations in any area (for example, the Thames Valley, with which I've some familiarity) want to select a candidate, how will the process work?
The philosophical one is: while the desire for independents fits the anti-establishment mood of the times, shouldn't it be questioned? After all, what's the point of a political party that doesn't stand candidates?
To continue with this way of thinking: if independents who have good relations with local Conservatives are suitable to be police commissioners, why aren't they suitable to be MPs? And if they are, why bother standing Tory candidates in constituencies at all?
The narrow question of whether the party, at both a national and local level, should back Conservative or independent candidates for these elections thus turns out to have very wide implications.
The Liberal Democrats, we read, are already advertising for candidates - while simultaneously plotting to halt the elections altogether. I'd like to see local Conservative decision-making on the matter - and hope that in most areas party members either select a Tory candidate or support a strong centre-right independent.
Discuss this issue at the next COPOV Forum on 24th September
Is this the beginning of the end?
Murdo Fraser is standing for Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party. This is what he says:
“If I am elected as leader of the party, I will turn it into a new and stronger party for Scotland. A new party. A winning party with new supporters from all walks of life. A new belief in devolution. A new approach to policy-making. A new name. But, most importantly, a new positive message about the benefits of staying in and strengthening our United Kingdom. A new party. A new unionism. A new dawn."Will Wales and Northern Ireland be next and after that will the Tories realise that they do not have enough members to fight a National campaign and abandon all seats North of Birmingham? Instead of creating a new Party why will they not solve the real problem, which is the decline in membership? The writing is on the wall. Without action now this is the beginning of the end. What the Tories desperately need to do is to create a democratic Party, but will they? We shall see.
What do you think of this?
- If you could fit the entire population of the world into a village consisting of 100 people, maintaining the proportions of all the people living on Earth, that village would consist of
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 Americans (North, Central, South)
8 Africans
21 Europeans
14 Americans (North, Central, South)
8 Africans
There would be:
52 women and 48 men
30 Caucasians and 70 non-Caucasians
30 Christians and 70 non-Christians
89 heterosexuals
11 homosexuals
52 women and 48 men
30 Caucasians and 70 non-Caucasians
30 Christians and 70 non-Christians
89 heterosexuals
11 homosexuals
6 people would possess 59% of the wealth and they would all come from the USA
80 would live in poverty
70 would be illiterate
50 would suffer from hunger and malnutrition
1 would be dying
1 would be being born
1 (yes, only one) would have a university degree
80 would live in poverty
70 would be illiterate
50 would suffer from hunger and malnutrition
1 would be dying
1 would be being born
1 (yes, only one) would have a university degree
- If we looked at the world in this way, the need for acceptance and understanding would be obvious but consider again the following:
- If you woke up this morning in good health, you have more luck than one million people, who won't live through the week.
- If you have never experience the horror of war, the solitude of prison, the pain of torture, were not close to death from starvation, then you are better off than 500 million people.
- If you can go to your place of worship without fear that someone will assault or kill you, then you are luckier than 3 billion (that's right) people.
- If you have a full fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are wealthier than 75% of the world's population.
- If you currently have money in the bank, in your wallet and a few coins in your purse, you are one of 8 of the privileged few amongst the 100 people in the world.
- If your parents are still alive and still married, you are a rare individual.
- If someone sent you this message, you are extremely lucky, because someone is thinking of you and because you don't comprise one of those 2 billion people who can't read.
AND SO? - WORK like you don't need the money
LOVE like nobody has ever hurt you
DANCE like nobody is watching
SING like nobody is listening
LIVE as if this was paradise on Earth
SEND this message to your friends
Bypass those who are determined to see the worst in the world no matter what. - If you don't send it, nothing will happen.
- If you do send it, someone might smile while they are reading it, and that will be positive.
AND APART FROM THAT SIMPLY HAVE A NICE DAY
To comment on this article visit: - http://ourfightfordemocracy.blogspot.com/2011/09/what-do-you-think-of-this-if-you-could.html
House of Lords - Points to think about
- There are about 130 active members of the House of Lords and they are mainly former politicians.
- There are 92 hereditary peers
- There are 26 Bishops representing the Church of England. Note the Church of Wales and the Church of Ireland have been disestablished.
- 79 Peers did not attend a single session of the House in the last year.
- At the time when Tony Blair ceased to be Prime Minister over half the members of the House of Lords had been appointed by one man - Tony Blair.
- The House of Lords has almost 800 members - other than the Peoples Congress of China this is the biggest parliamentary body in the world.
- The United States Senate has 100 members
- 61 countries in the world have elected second chambers
- Criminals can sit in the House of Lords and when they finish their prison sentences they can go on sitting in the House of Lords. Remember Lord Jeffrey Archer, Lord Taylor of Hanningfield, Lord Conrad Black(at present in prison in Florida)
- Those members of the House of Lords that have been convicted of theft regarding their expenses can go back into the House of Lords when they finish their prison sentences.
- Some members of the House of Lords owe their allegiance to the European Union. In order to get their pensions that allegiance is paramount. e.g Lords Kinnock, Patten, Brittan.
- Lord Heseltine has sat in the House of Lords for 11 years and has yet to make his maiden speech.
- 9 members of the House of Lords have never made a speech there, but that does not stop them from claiming their expenses.
- Lady Falkender has been in the House of Lords since 1976 and has never made a speech there.
Isn't it time the House of Lords was reformed?
Party Accounts
In the Labour Party accounts they show that membership has increased during 2010 from 156,205 to 193,961, Why doesn't the Conservative accounts show the information about their membership?. The only clue you get is from the membership income figures which show a drop during 2010.
There are two interesting points in the Conservative accounts. Fund raising income is £492,000 but the cost of fund raising is £747,000!
Now that the Party is running the Party conference it was interesting to see that they made a profit of £1.7 million on it. In which case why do they charge members so much to go to it? They could let them in for free and still make a profit of £1.4 million. If they had any sense they would do so and give people a benefit from being a Party member! Come on Central Office, how about it?
Nigel Farage
In Nigel Farage's autobiography he points out that he is allowed to make 28 speeches a year in the European Parliament at 1.5 minutes a time, i.e 42 minutes in all. Taking overheads into account an MEP costs the taxpayer £1.2 million per year or put another way Nigel Farage costs us £500 per second for every speech he makes in the Parliament. Makes you think!
Great Article
by
Peter Oborne in The Daily TelegraphDavid Cameron, Ed Miliband and the entire British political class came together yesterday to denounce the rioters. They were of course right to say that the actions of these looters, arsonists and muggers were abhorrent and criminal, and that the police should be given more support.
But there was also something very phony and hypocritical about all the shock and outrage expressed in parliament. MPs spoke about the week’s dreadful events as if they were nothing to do with them.
I cannot accept that this is the case. Indeed, I believe that the criminality in our streets cannot be dissociated from the moral disintegration in the highest ranks of modern British society. The last two decades have seen a terrifying decline in standards among the British governing elite. It has become acceptable for our politicians to lie and to cheat. An almost universal culture of selfishness and greed has grown up.
It is not just the feral youth of Tottenham who have forgotten they have duties as well as rights. So have the feral rich of Chelsea and Kensington. A few years ago, my wife and I went to a dinner party in a large house in west London. A security guard prowled along the street outside, and there was much talk of the “north-south divide”, which I took literally for a while until I realised that my hosts were facetiously referring to the difference between those who lived north and south of Kensington High Street.
Most of the people in this very expensive street were every bit as deracinated and cut off from the rest of Britain as the young, unemployed men and women who have caused such terrible damage over the last few days. For them, the repellent Financial Times magazine How to Spend It is a bible. I’d guess that few of them bother to pay British tax if they can avoid it, and that fewer still feel the sense of obligation to society that only a few decades ago came naturally to the wealthy and better off.
Yet we celebrate people who live empty lives like this. A few weeks ago, I noticed an item in a newspaper saying that the business tycoon Sir Richard Branson was thinking of moving his headquarters to Switzerland. This move was represented as a potential blow to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, because it meant less tax revenue.
I couldn’t help thinking that in a sane and decent world such a move would be a blow to Sir Richard, not the Chancellor. People would note that a prominent and wealthy businessman was avoiding British tax and think less of him. Instead, he has a knighthood and is widely feted. The same is true of the brilliant retailer Sir Philip Green. Sir Philip’s businesses could never survive but for Britain’s famous social and political stability, our transport system to shift his goods and our schools to educate his workers.
Yet Sir Philip, who a few years ago sent an extraordinary £1 billion dividend offshore, seems to have little intention of paying for much of this. Why does nobody get angry or hold him culpable? I know that he employs expensive tax lawyers and that everything he does is legal, but he surely faces ethical and moral questions just as much as does a young thug who breaks into one of Sir Philip’s shops and steals from it?
Our politicians – standing sanctimoniously on their hind legs in the Commons yesterday – are just as bad. They have shown themselves prepared to ignore common decency and, in some cases, to break the law. David Cameron is happy to have some of the worst offenders in his Cabinet. Take the example of Francis Maude, who is charged with tackling public sector waste – which trade unions say is a euphemism for waging war on low-paid workers. Yet Mr Maude made tens of thousands of pounds by breaching the spirit, though not the law, surrounding MPs’ allowances.
A great deal has been made over the past few days of the greed of the rioters for consumer goods, not least by Rotherham MP Denis MacShane who accurately remarked, “What the looters wanted was for a few minutes to enter the world of Sloane Street consumption.” This from a man who notoriously claimed £5,900 for eight laptops. Of course, as an MP he obtained these laptops legally through his expenses.
Yesterday, the veteran Labour MP Gerald Kaufman asked the Prime Minister to consider how these rioters can be “reclaimed” by society. Yes, this is indeed the same Gerald Kaufman who submitted a claim for three months’ expenses totalling £14,301.60, which included £8,865 for a Bang & Olufsen television.
Or take the Salford MP Hazel Blears, who has been loudly calling for draconian action against the looters. I find it very hard to make any kind of ethical distinction between Blears’s expense cheating and tax avoidance, and the straight robbery carried out by the looters.
The Prime Minister showed no sign that he understood that something stank about yesterday’s Commons debate. He spoke of morality, but only as something which applies to the very poor: “We will restore a stronger sense of morality and responsibility – in every town, in every street and in every estate.” He appeared not to grasp that this should apply to the rich and powerful as well.
The tragic truth is that Mr Cameron is himself guilty of failing this test. It is scarcely six weeks since he jauntily turned up at the News International summer party, even though the media group was at the time subject to not one but two police investigations. Even more notoriously, he awarded a senior Downing Street job to the former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, even though he knew at the time that Coulson had resigned after criminal acts were committed under his editorship. The Prime Minister excused his wretched judgment by proclaiming that “everybody deserves a second chance”. It was very telling yesterday that he did not talk of second chances as he pledged exemplary punishment for the rioters and looters.
These double standards from Downing Street are symptomatic of widespread double standards at the very top of our society. It should be stressed that most people (including, I know, Telegraph readers) continue to believe in honesty, decency, hard work, and putting back into society at least as much as they take out.
But there are those who do not. Certainly, the so-called feral youth seem oblivious to decency and morality. But so are the venal rich and powerful – too many of our bankers, footballers, wealthy businessmen and politicians.
Of course, most of them are smart and wealthy enough to make sure that they obey the law. That cannot be said of the sad young men and women, without hope or aspiration, who have caused such mayhem and chaos over the past few days. But the rioters have this defence: they are just following the example set by senior and respected figures in society. Let’s bear in mind that many of the youths in our inner cities have never been trained in decent values. All they have ever known is barbarism. Our politicians and bankers, in sharp contrast, tend to have been to good schools and universities and to have been given every opportunity in life.
Something has gone horribly wrong in Britain. If we are ever to confront the problems which have been exposed in the past week, it is essential to bear in mind that they do not only exist in inner-city housing estates.
The culture of greed and impunity we are witnessing on our TV screens stretches right up into corporate boardrooms and the Cabinet. It embraces the police and large parts of our media. It is not just its damaged youth, but Britain itself that needs a moral reformation.
Surrender or disaster
By Robert Peston on the BBC
Let's just think for a second what is entailed by the kind of fiscal integration required to make a practical reality of euro bonds.
There would be a permanent surrender by member states of important rights over how much they could raise in tax and spend on public services. The new decision-making body would probably have to be some kind of finance ministry - which would presumably be in Brussels - for the whole of the eurozone, which would be headed by a European uber finance minister.
So the tax-and-spending relationship between - say - the French governenment and the new eurozone super finance ministry would be similar to the relationship between the Scottish and Welsh governments and HM Treasury.
Quite apart from the serious practical and technical challenges of establishing this new fiscal decision-making body for the eurozone, it is not at all clear that the citizens of eurozone countries would feel comfortable about even greater distance being put between their votes and decisions that have a direct impact on their quality of life and prosperity.
It is difficult to see how eurozone fiscal integration designed to close a financial deficit can be achieved without enlarging Europe's democratic deficit.
Voice of the Grass Roots
A musing on the death of the Tory Party ...
Written by Peter Bingle, Chairman, Bell Pottinger Public AffairsDoes the Tory Party still exist? Is it still the political voice of nice people living in the nicest parts of England and Wales or is it just a figment of our imagination?
I suspect that when Tory MPs return home to their constituencies on a Friday evening they wish it didn’t exist. Tory activists like Tory voters are not happy bunnies. They share the frustration increasingly being voiced by the righty-wing media. What has happened to the Tory Party? Where has it gone? Why is the coalition government not pursuing a Tory agenda?
Take Baroness Warsi who is supposed to be the Chairman of the Tory Party. In a disappearing act worthy of the great Harry Houdini she has quite simply vanished. Has she become shy? Has she got a very bad dose of tonsillitis? It is more than just counter-intuitive to have a Tory Party Chairman who is never seen or heard. I will buy lunch or dinner for the first person who can prove to me that Baroness Warsi still exists.
At a time of coalition government (and I remain a fan) it is all the more important that the Tory Party has a voice. Our values are important values. We believe in the family but embrace diversity. We believe in a small state and empowered citizens. We believe in strong defence and we support the police. We believe in low taxes and choice. I could go on …
There is part of me which believes that the PM and his key aides aren’t that bothered about the Tory Party. He is clearly a Whig and puts pragmatism before conviction or ideology. I am not even sure that he cares very much about the Tory Party and its quaint ways. I was brought up in Putney Conservative Association. The local branch structure. The formidable Women’s Committee. Executive Committee Meetings. Jumble Sales. Political Suppers. These are what make (or rather made) the Tory Party so special. Like Tony Blair I think that the PM doesn’t have much time for any of it.
When God created the world he spent a whole (coffee) morning creating a creature called ‘Tory Woman.’ There is nothing quite like them in the whole animal kingdom. Perhaps David Attenborough should do a series about a species that was created to organise coffee mornings, political suppers, Tory Balls and run committee rooms on polling days. I do not mock Tory Woman. Over the years I have grown very fond of them. I love them dearly. They must be despairing about what is happening to the party they have devoted their lives to serving.
If we aren’t careful the Tory Party will wither on the vine and then die. In many parts of the country it is already the case that Tory activists are, to quote W S Gilbert, in the autumn of their lives. There are far too few young activists. This situation will only get worse if there is not a cogent, populist and compelling Tory case being made to the public. We are witnessing the slow painful death of the Tory Party.
Why is the Tory case not being made? Does anybody really care? When will Baroness Warsi be replaced by somebody who actually exists? Is the Tory Party finished?
I suspect that when Tory MPs return home to their constituencies on a Friday evening they wish it didn’t exist. Tory activists like Tory voters are not happy bunnies. They share the frustration increasingly being voiced by the righty-wing media. What has happened to the Tory Party? Where has it gone? Why is the coalition government not pursuing a Tory agenda?
Take Baroness Warsi who is supposed to be the Chairman of the Tory Party. In a disappearing act worthy of the great Harry Houdini she has quite simply vanished. Has she become shy? Has she got a very bad dose of tonsillitis? It is more than just counter-intuitive to have a Tory Party Chairman who is never seen or heard. I will buy lunch or dinner for the first person who can prove to me that Baroness Warsi still exists.
At a time of coalition government (and I remain a fan) it is all the more important that the Tory Party has a voice. Our values are important values. We believe in the family but embrace diversity. We believe in a small state and empowered citizens. We believe in strong defence and we support the police. We believe in low taxes and choice. I could go on …
There is part of me which believes that the PM and his key aides aren’t that bothered about the Tory Party. He is clearly a Whig and puts pragmatism before conviction or ideology. I am not even sure that he cares very much about the Tory Party and its quaint ways. I was brought up in Putney Conservative Association. The local branch structure. The formidable Women’s Committee. Executive Committee Meetings. Jumble Sales. Political Suppers. These are what make (or rather made) the Tory Party so special. Like Tony Blair I think that the PM doesn’t have much time for any of it.
When God created the world he spent a whole (coffee) morning creating a creature called ‘Tory Woman.’ There is nothing quite like them in the whole animal kingdom. Perhaps David Attenborough should do a series about a species that was created to organise coffee mornings, political suppers, Tory Balls and run committee rooms on polling days. I do not mock Tory Woman. Over the years I have grown very fond of them. I love them dearly. They must be despairing about what is happening to the party they have devoted their lives to serving.
If we aren’t careful the Tory Party will wither on the vine and then die. In many parts of the country it is already the case that Tory activists are, to quote W S Gilbert, in the autumn of their lives. There are far too few young activists. This situation will only get worse if there is not a cogent, populist and compelling Tory case being made to the public. We are witnessing the slow painful death of the Tory Party.
Why is the Tory case not being made? Does anybody really care? When will Baroness Warsi be replaced by somebody who actually exists? Is the Tory Party finished?
Law change paves way for Coalition candidates
Planned changes to electoral law which pave the way for Coalition candidates to stand at the next election have been quietly slipped out by ministers, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.
Goose for the Gander?
Row breaks out as Labour backs proposals to elect all AMs by first-past-the-post
A huge row has blown up after Labour proposed changing the National Assembly’s electoral system so all AMs were elected on a “first-past-the-post” basis.
The change in policy – announced by Shadow Welsh Secretary Peter Hain – breaks a consensus between the parties which has lasted since the Assembly was set up following a referendum in 1997.
And it involved Mr Hain making the remarkable admission that Labour had “got it wrong” when devising the current two-tier system for electing AMs.
Under present arrangements, 40 of the 60 AMs are elected from single-member constituencies covering the whole of Wales. The remainder are elected on a regional list system designed to compensate parties whose level of support was not reflected in the number of constituency seats won.
But changes must now be made because of plans to cut the number of constituencies in Wales from 40 to 30.
Today Mr Hain will meet Conservative Secretary of State Cheryl Gillan and tell her that the existing electoral system should be scrapped.
He told us: “The only acceptable option given the AV referendum result is to have all AMs elected by first-past-the- post, and we believe that each of the 30 new constituencies should elect two AMs by that system.
“The case for AV at Westminster level was defeated, against my vote and my longstanding support, by a thumping vote for first-past-the-post. Every single part of Wales voted against AV.
“In Wales we shall be losing 25% of our representation at Westminster, while across Britain the reduction is 8%. We have been punished enough.
“In Scotland the decoupling of constituencies [where Westminster and Scottish Parliament seats now have different boundaries] has been disastrous. If that happened in Wales, you would be likely to have a situation where one Assembly seat straddled three parliamentary seats, with all the problems that causes.
“I think in retrospect we have to accept that we got it wrong when we set up the Assembly with a two-tier electoral system that has two kinds of AM, and it should now be changed. The Conservatives back first-past-the-post – they ran the No campaign in the AV referendum.”
Mr Hain said he did not accept that having all AMs elected by first-past-the-post would result in a permanent Labour majority: “We can’t predict what would happen,” he said.
A source close to the First Minister said: “A system based on proportional representation would be difficult to support, given the result of the referendum in May.
“The First Minister believes that 60 AMs, elected by first- past-the-post, is the best option for the future.”
But opposition parties reacted angrily to the proposal.
Paul Davies, the acting leader of the Welsh Conservatives in the National Assembly, said: “It is extraordinary that the Labour Party is once again seeking to manipulate the Assembly’s electoral system for its own ends.
“Labour already forced through a change to the Assembly’s electoral system which was condemned as undemocratic by the Government’s own electoral watchdog and rejected in Scotland, while Labour AMs have previously called for a system which gives Labour a massively disproportional advantage.
“At the election in May they won 70% of the constituency seats on barely 40% of the popular vote. Labour is clearly trying to turn Wales into a one-party state as a means of avoiding accountability and scrutiny of its government’s shameful record.
“As the Secretary of State for Wales made clear to Parliament two months ago, the UK Government will look carefully at the implications of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act on the Assembly’s constituencies.
“No decisions have been taken and full discussions will be required before any changes are made.”
Conservative sources pointed to a statement made by Mr Hain in the House of Commons in 1999, two weeks after the first Assembly election.
Speaking as a Wales Office Minister he said: “Proportional representation ... gave all the minority parties representation that they would not otherwise have achieved and which we believe they should have had.”
Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards, who first raised the issue of the Assembly’s electoral system in a parliamentary question to Mrs Gillan in May, said: “It is typical of Labour to want to replace an unfair electoral system with one that is even more unfair.
“In May’s election, Labour won 50% of the seats despite getting only 42.3% of constituency votes and 36.9% of regional votes. Electing two AMs for each constituency on a first-past-the-post basis would distort the result even further and I think it would give Labour a permanent overall majority.
“It seems they have done a 360 degrees turn. Only last week it seemed that they didn’t want to have coterminous boundaries for Westminster and Assembly elections – now it seems they do.
“Plaid’s preference would be for all AMs to be elected by STV [Single Transferable Vote]. But with that option not on the table, the fairest solution would be 30 AMs elected by first-past- the-post and 30 from regional lists.”
A Welsh Liberal Democrat spokesman said: “We are not remotely interested in discussing any voting system that does not increase democracy and put more power in the hands of voters to ensure that outcomes are fair.
“It’s lamentable that Peter Hain, Carwyn Jones and Labour are now looking to form a backward-looking alliance with the Conservatives to force an unfair electoral system on the Welsh people.”
Read More http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2011/07/14/first-past-the-post-for-senedd-has-labour-vote-91466-29049445/#ixzz1SO1fuY6nThe change in policy – announced by Shadow Welsh Secretary Peter Hain – breaks a consensus between the parties which has lasted since the Assembly was set up following a referendum in 1997.
And it involved Mr Hain making the remarkable admission that Labour had “got it wrong” when devising the current two-tier system for electing AMs.
Under present arrangements, 40 of the 60 AMs are elected from single-member constituencies covering the whole of Wales. The remainder are elected on a regional list system designed to compensate parties whose level of support was not reflected in the number of constituency seats won.
But changes must now be made because of plans to cut the number of constituencies in Wales from 40 to 30.
Today Mr Hain will meet Conservative Secretary of State Cheryl Gillan and tell her that the existing electoral system should be scrapped.
He told us: “The only acceptable option given the AV referendum result is to have all AMs elected by first-past-the- post, and we believe that each of the 30 new constituencies should elect two AMs by that system.
“The case for AV at Westminster level was defeated, against my vote and my longstanding support, by a thumping vote for first-past-the-post. Every single part of Wales voted against AV.
“In Wales we shall be losing 25% of our representation at Westminster, while across Britain the reduction is 8%. We have been punished enough.
“In Scotland the decoupling of constituencies [where Westminster and Scottish Parliament seats now have different boundaries] has been disastrous. If that happened in Wales, you would be likely to have a situation where one Assembly seat straddled three parliamentary seats, with all the problems that causes.
“I think in retrospect we have to accept that we got it wrong when we set up the Assembly with a two-tier electoral system that has two kinds of AM, and it should now be changed. The Conservatives back first-past-the-post – they ran the No campaign in the AV referendum.”
Mr Hain said he did not accept that having all AMs elected by first-past-the-post would result in a permanent Labour majority: “We can’t predict what would happen,” he said.
A source close to the First Minister said: “A system based on proportional representation would be difficult to support, given the result of the referendum in May.
“The First Minister believes that 60 AMs, elected by first- past-the-post, is the best option for the future.”
But opposition parties reacted angrily to the proposal.
Paul Davies, the acting leader of the Welsh Conservatives in the National Assembly, said: “It is extraordinary that the Labour Party is once again seeking to manipulate the Assembly’s electoral system for its own ends.
“Labour already forced through a change to the Assembly’s electoral system which was condemned as undemocratic by the Government’s own electoral watchdog and rejected in Scotland, while Labour AMs have previously called for a system which gives Labour a massively disproportional advantage.
“At the election in May they won 70% of the constituency seats on barely 40% of the popular vote. Labour is clearly trying to turn Wales into a one-party state as a means of avoiding accountability and scrutiny of its government’s shameful record.
“As the Secretary of State for Wales made clear to Parliament two months ago, the UK Government will look carefully at the implications of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act on the Assembly’s constituencies.
“No decisions have been taken and full discussions will be required before any changes are made.”
Conservative sources pointed to a statement made by Mr Hain in the House of Commons in 1999, two weeks after the first Assembly election.
Speaking as a Wales Office Minister he said: “Proportional representation ... gave all the minority parties representation that they would not otherwise have achieved and which we believe they should have had.”
Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards, who first raised the issue of the Assembly’s electoral system in a parliamentary question to Mrs Gillan in May, said: “It is typical of Labour to want to replace an unfair electoral system with one that is even more unfair.
“In May’s election, Labour won 50% of the seats despite getting only 42.3% of constituency votes and 36.9% of regional votes. Electing two AMs for each constituency on a first-past-the-post basis would distort the result even further and I think it would give Labour a permanent overall majority.
“It seems they have done a 360 degrees turn. Only last week it seemed that they didn’t want to have coterminous boundaries for Westminster and Assembly elections – now it seems they do.
“Plaid’s preference would be for all AMs to be elected by STV [Single Transferable Vote]. But with that option not on the table, the fairest solution would be 30 AMs elected by first-past- the-post and 30 from regional lists.”
A Welsh Liberal Democrat spokesman said: “We are not remotely interested in discussing any voting system that does not increase democracy and put more power in the hands of voters to ensure that outcomes are fair.
“It’s lamentable that Peter Hain, Carwyn Jones and Labour are now looking to form a backward-looking alliance with the Conservatives to force an unfair electoral system on the Welsh people.”
July 10th
House of Lords Reform - Did you know?
As no new peers of Scotland were created after the Act of Union in 1707, their numbers gradually dwindled, and since the enactment of the Peerage Act 1963 all holders of Scottish peerages had a right to membership of the House of Lords. The position and rights of Scottish peers in relation to the House of Lords was unclear during most of the eighteenth century. In 1711, James Douglas, 4th Duke of Hamilton, a peer of Scotland, was appointed Duke of Brandon in the Peerage of Great Britain. When he sought to sit in the House of Lords, he was denied admittance, the Lords ruling that a peer of Scotland could not sit in the House of Lords unless he was a representative peer, even if he also held a British peerage. They reasoned that the Act of Union 1707 had established the number of Scots peers in the House of Lords at no more and no less than sixteen. In 1782, however, the House of Lords reversed the decision, holding that the Crown could admit anyone it pleases to the House of Lords, whether a Scottish peer or not, subject only to qualifications such as age and citizenship.
Currently the hereditary peers elect 93 from amongst their number to sit in the House of Lords.
Voting by proxy in the House of Lords was an ancient custom, often abused. In Charles II's reign the Duke of Buckingham used to bring twenty proxies in his pocket, and the result was that it was ordered that no peer should bring more than two. In 1830 to 1867 inclusive proxies were only called seventy-three times; and on the 31st of March 1868, on the recommendation of a committee, a new standing order was adopted by which the practice of calling for proxies on a division was discontinued.
MurdochIn January I was told that James Murdoch was favourable to supporting the Alternative Vote in the referendum. Subsequently Jeremy Hunt gave permission to News International to proceed with their bid for BSkyB. Subsequently The Sun launched a strong campaign against the Alternative Vote. The Prime Minister launched his campaign against the Alternative Vote. Were all these connected? I think we should be told.
Zac Goldsmith
Before I became a member of parliament in May last year, my limited experience told me that British democracy was flawed. After just over a year as an MP, I now know that it is utterly dysfunctional. Politicians are already deeply disliked, and the expenses scandal didn't help. But, despite the horror stories, the real scandal has absolutely nothing to do with expenses. It is that parliament routinely fails in its most basic duties.
A backbench MP is paid to do two things - hold the government to account and vote in a way that is good for the people they represent. The present structures ensure they do neither, and the effect is that decisions taken by a very small number of politicians are subjected to virtually no scrutiny at all.
You have only to look at the maths. Nearly a third of MPs are on the "payroll". That includes ministers, shadow ministers and also parliamentary private secretaries, who are not paid, but who are bound by the code of loyalty that requires them always to vote with the government. Of the remaining two-thirds of MPs, most want to join the payroll. That requires a political lobotomy, and unthinking submission to the party line.
Loyalty is one thing, but we have reached an extreme. If a backbench MP speaks out against a government decision, it is seen as an act of aggression. If he tables a minor amendment, it's worse still. And if he votes against his party, it's an act of career suicide.
Consider the vote at the start of the year on the proposed forest sell-off. Many coalition MPs were bitterly opposed. And yet, when the division bell sounded, just seven voted against. Had all those who opposed it used their vote accordingly, the policy would have been buried instantly and the government would have been reminded that parliament exists.
It is tempting to blame the whip system, but that misses the point. The whips have a crucial job to do. They are there to help push through the government's agenda. It is the job of backbenchers to resist that pressure.
That doesn't mean endless gridlock and rebellion. It means creating a healthy tension, so that the executive is required to think before acting and to take on board the advice of the legislature. I do not believe we will have a vibrant and functioning democracy without a more independent legislature. Unfortunately, none of the reforms on offer today is designed to address that core issue.
There are, however, some simple reforms that would help improve British democracy. For example, we should end the ludicrous situation whereby a handful of MPs can kill off a bill by "talking it out" and pushing it off the agenda. We should ensure that, as the number of MPs is reduced as planned, so too is the number of MPs on the payroll. If not, the balance will become still more skewed. The language used in parliament could be much clearer. It's an embarrassing secret that if you were to stand outside the lobby after a division and ask MPs what they had just voted for, only a handful would be able to tell you. Why not accompany every bill, motion and amendment with a plain English explanation before asking MPs to vote on it?
Overall, though, if we want to counter the inability (or unwillingness) of parliament to scrutinise the executive, we need something bolder. A very significant start would be for the coalition partners to honour a pre-election promise made by all of the then party leaders. Following the expenses scandal, each of the leaders made a promise to allow constituents to "recall" their representative between elections. That pledge has, in effect, been scrapped.
True recall, indeed true democracy, allows people to remove their representative if most constituents have lost confidence in him or her, for whatever reason. It is a right that should exist for voters at every level, from councillor to MP. This is not a new idea. There have been failed recall attempts in California, including one against Ronald Reagan in 1968. However, in 2003, voters successfully recalled the sitting governor, Gray Davis, and replaced him at a new election with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
That couldn't be further from where we are today in Britain. Under the current rules, a new MP could theoretically move to another country for five years and leave constituency work to a caseworker. Local voters would be lumbered with a useless representative until the next general election.
Most MPs occupy "safe" seats and are hard, if not impossible, to shift. The pressure they feel is from their party, not from the voters. Recall would keep even these MPs on their toes, because a member of one party could be replaced by another from the same party.
The coalition insists that it will still introduce a version of recall, but the small print makes it worse than useless. Instead of handing the decision to the voters, the government will pass it up to MPs on a parliamentary committee. Its members alone will decide if a member has behaved badly enough to be "recalled".
I have tabled an Early Day Motion calling for true Recall, and so far, nearly 50 MPs from all parties have endorsed it. I hope many more will join them. With enough support, we will be able to facilitate a debate on the Chamber followed by a vote. And if it goes the right way, I have no doubt Parliament, and indeed democracy will benefit.
Zac Goldsmith is the MP for Richmond Park and North Kingston
July 3rd
HS2
Conservative Associations in Aylesbury, Chesham and Amersham and Buckingham have decided to withhold quota money from Central Office because of the Party's support for HS2. This is all perfectly legitimate. However we are told by conservativehome that the Beaconsfield association have decided to donate a £1,000 to the Anti HS2 campaign. Think again Beaconsfield. The Objects of the Beaconsfield constituency are as follow:
The Objects of the Association shall be to sustain and promote the objects and values of the Party in the Parliamentary constituency of Beaconsfield("the Constituency"); to provide an effective campaigning organisation in the Constituency; to secure the return of Conservative candidates at elections; and to raise the necessary funds to achieve these objectives; to contribute to the central funds of the Party.
By no stretch of the imagination can you say that a donation to a campaigning group which is opposed to Conservative Party policy is promoting the objects and values of the Party in the constituency. In other words the Association is acting "Ultra Vires". If I were an officer of the Constituency I would be a bit worried that I became financially liable for £1,000. You can be sure of one thing. With the amount of money involved in the HS2 project there will be some highly paid lawyers looking at the funding of the HS2 campaign just to make sure that its funding is legitimate.
Party Membership
Every time there are local elections you will find that somewhere in the country a long standing Party member has decided for one reason or another to stand against the official Party candidate. They nearly always lose. There is then a debate about what should happen to the membership of the long standing member, who is a good old soul really and has worked so hard for the Party in the past. Let me tell you.
Under the Party Constitution Schedule 6. 13 it states the following
Any Party Member who stands in an election against an official party Candidate will have his name removed from the National Membership List and be expelled from the Party forthwith.
There we are, no debate required. In the act of standing the member has excluded themselves from the Party. They are no longer a member.
Liberal Democrat Influence
Many Conservatives complain about the disproportionate influence that the Liberal Democrats have on Coalition policies. Part of the remedy lies with themselves. Look what has happened on reform of the National Health Service. The Lib-Dems signed up to the reforms, Nick Clegge signed them off. Then suddenly they had to be changed. The reason is that the Liberal Democrats are a democratic party and they are beginning to see the value of using democracy to get their way. Unlike the Conservative Party, the Lib-Dems actually debate issues at their conferences, so at their Spring Conference it was natural that the subject of NHS Reform should come up. It did and the conference passed thirteen changes they wanted to see in the Health Service reform package. This now became Party policy. The Lib-Dem MPs were given the backbone to stand up and demand that the changes be made regardless of what had been agreed beforehand. This strengthened Nick Clegge's hand. The end result was that the Tories had to give way on no less than eleven of the thirteen demands. The Conservative Party cannot use this tool of pressure because it does not allow motions at their conferences let alone any debate on policy.
We will shortly be approaching the Autumn Party conferences. Expect to see another issue chosen by the Lib-Dems used to pressurise changes to Coalition policy. What will it be this time? Trident, Green policies, who knows, but what we do know is that the Coalition will make another "U" turn, just to keep the Lib-Dem members happy. A triumph for democracy!
Lord Adonis
The Lords is much overrated as an assembly of the wise and the independent. Most non-party peers make little if any contribution to the house, while most party appointees are long-retired former MPs, councillors or failed Commons candidates. Almost all are very old and very "ex". And they are fairly random in their activities. The Lords has no committees whatever that scrutinise large areas of government activity, including foreign affairs, defence, welfare or the public services.
Interesting comment!
Party Membership
June 19th House of Lords - Lord Tebbitt and Central Office
June 12th Immigration - Localism
June 5th European Scrutiny Committee - James Elles Blog
June 19th House of Lords - Lord Tebbitt and Central Office
June 12th Immigration - Localism
June 5th European Scrutiny Committee - James Elles Blog
Party
Membership
Extract from today's Mail on Sunday
By James Forsyth
Reviving Conservative Party membership across the country is not
going to be done by updating the coffee morning for the 21st Century or laying
on special trips for them. Instead, it needs members to be given a real,
substantive reason to sign up. In the modern age, where people don’t join the Young Conservatives to meet a future spouse at a ball, they need to be given a political, not a social reason to become a member of the party. They need to be offered, at the very least, the chance to pick their own candidate and probably far more than that. How many more people would sign up as Tory members if it gave them a real chance to set party policy on tax?
The Cameroons argue that the membership is too small to make this a sensible move, that the result would be unrepresentative candidates and policies that were unsellable to the public. But unless the party in the country is given some real power, it will continue to wither away. If the Prime Minister’s own association can add only 20-odd members in the year its MP enters Downing Street, what hope is there for other local parties?
If the leadership are not prepared to trust their members with some real powers, then they are going to have to find a whole other way to organise the party. Otherwise, it is going to die under them
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2008127/JAMES-FORSYTH-Theres-reason-join-Tories-Weve-come-voracious-crass--Who-says-Daves-constituency-chairman.html#ixzz1QPTLcthU
James Forsyth sums up the position exactly
Many condolences to Christopher Shale's family
House of Lords isn't getting with the programme
by Openeurope
Almost entirely unnoticed by the UK media (with
the exception of the Guardian), the House of Lords is doing its best to rip
the heart out of the Government's EU Bill and accompanying "referendum lock".
The Government last night suffered its third and fourth defeats on the Bill in a
week, with peers voting by 242 to 209, to modify the Bill's "sovereignty clause"
and by 209 to 203 to introduce a "sunset clause", which would see the entire
Bill lapse at the end of this Parliament.
We have always felt the sovereignty clause the less important aspect of the Bill compared with the referendum lock but the latter, designed to give Parliament and voters a say over any significant future transfers of power to Brussels, has now been attacked and severely mauled by peers.
On Monday, peers voted to restrict the issues on which referendums should be held to only three: joining the euro, the creation of a "single, integrated military force", and changes to border control. This would leave the public without a say over several important issues such as whether a future UK Government could sign up to the creation of a new European Public Prosecutor or give up arguably the UK's most important veto of all: it's right to veto the multi-annual EU budget.
And, in the words of Foreign Office Minister Lord Howell, these amendments completely "undermine the direct and frank and honest commitment that we wish to make to the British people...I really would suggest that the public can be trusted to determine what is in their own interest."
As we've noted before, there is a certain irony in the fact that it is an unelected body, the House of Lords, which is displaying such great suspicion and hostility to giving people a greater say over their country’s relationship with the EU - and peers have given us some unintentionally hilarious quotes during the often bizarre debates on the Bill (we'll give you a few samples shortly). But the fact that it is being allowed to do so completely under the political radar is probably even more worrying.
We have always felt the sovereignty clause the less important aspect of the Bill compared with the referendum lock but the latter, designed to give Parliament and voters a say over any significant future transfers of power to Brussels, has now been attacked and severely mauled by peers.
On Monday, peers voted to restrict the issues on which referendums should be held to only three: joining the euro, the creation of a "single, integrated military force", and changes to border control. This would leave the public without a say over several important issues such as whether a future UK Government could sign up to the creation of a new European Public Prosecutor or give up arguably the UK's most important veto of all: it's right to veto the multi-annual EU budget.
And, in the words of Foreign Office Minister Lord Howell, these amendments completely "undermine the direct and frank and honest commitment that we wish to make to the British people...I really would suggest that the public can be trusted to determine what is in their own interest."
As we've noted before, there is a certain irony in the fact that it is an unelected body, the House of Lords, which is displaying such great suspicion and hostility to giving people a greater say over their country’s relationship with the EU - and peers have given us some unintentionally hilarious quotes during the often bizarre debates on the Bill (we'll give you a few samples shortly). But the fact that it is being allowed to do so completely under the political radar is probably even more worrying.
Lord
Tebbitt
"Do not give up. Conservatives can take over
Conservative Associations and simply decline to support Central Office clone
dummies as Parliamentary candidates. It can be your party".
Read the following brilliant
response by "Archbishop Cranmer":
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Lord Tebbit urges Conservatives to mutiny against CCHQ
And he usually knows what he’s talking about.
But the above quotation comes at the end of a post which is essentially a criticism of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
It is a curious addendum; almost an afterthought; tangential if not irrelevant to the subject matter of the post. It could almost be missed (indeed, it has been by all but His Grace). It is cannily sneaked in right at the end, so the Conservative-supporting, bishop-bashing blogs will freely link, tweet and re-tweet Lord Tebbit’s essential thesis that the bearded lefty Dr Rowan Williams is a whole mitre short of a bishopric. And yet when the Archbishop refers to the Conservative Party implementing policy without democratic legitimacy, Lord Tebbit exposes an inconvenient truth: the Party has long ceased being democratic, and under David Cameron it is manifesting decidedly anti-democratic tendencies.
And perhaps this is evident nowhere more than in the stranglehold exerted by Conservative Campaign Headquarters over candidate selection. The ‘Approved List’ used to consist of intelligent, discerning, loyal and true Tories with real experience in the world who wanted to bring their expertise into Parliament. So important were these qualities that if an aspiring candidate had dared to stand against the Party, they could not become ‘approved’ for at least the succeeding period of government – up to five years of ‘cooling off’, during which suitability could be assessed. When a seat became vacant, a local association would be sent the CVs of as many who had applied – sometimes hundreds – and it was for the local association to whittle them down to a long-list, then produce a short-list, and then to vote on a winner. The process was very open, democratic and fair.
Over the past decade, the emphasis has been more on gender than intelligence; more on ethnicity than loyalty; more on sexuality than a grasp of philosophy; and more on an appreciation of diversity than political discernment. And to ensure the ‘right sort’ of candidate succeeded, CCHQ embarked on a process of limiting candidate selection in its ‘plum seats’ to just six good men and true, three of which must be women. It was not unheard of for the three men to be black, Asian or gay. There was even candidate selection by religion.
As His Grace wrote at the time, candidates are:
...hand-picked for each Conservative Association by two of the most powerful people in CCHQ – John Maples MP and
It is telling that in 2009 His Grace pointedly crossed out ‘Baroness’, yet just a year later she had indeed become Baroness Ritchie of Brompton, just as Patricia Morris before her went on to become Baroness Morris of Bolton. Both of their Wikipedia entries refer to their ‘efforts of diversity’, including ‘women2win’ and the formation of ‘Priority List’ (A-List) candidates.
This is a curious centralisation, which effectively exempts the internal workings of the Conservative Party from David Cameron’s commitment to localism, devolution, subsidiarity and democracy. While the Party Leader is preaching the gospel of demos, the party practises kratos. Before the election, he promised to shift power:
From the state to citizens; from the government to parliament; from Whitehall to communities. From Brussels to Britain; from judges to the people; from bureaucracy to democracy. Through decentralisation, transparency and accountability we must take power away from the political elite and hand it to the man and woman in the street.Yet while he preaches parliament, communities, Britain, people and democracy, we still get government, Whitehall, Brussels, judges and bureaucracy. Okay, the Conservative Party didn’t win the election. But there is absolutely nothing preventing the Prime Minister from practising what he preaches within the party he leads. Why talk of shifting power from the state to the citizens and from Whitehall to town halls while centralising your own bureaucracy?
If the intelligent, discerning, loyal and responsible local Conservative associations are not ready for democracy, what makes Mr Cameron believe the town halls are? How can one persuade the electorate that one stands for something out of conviction if one’s instinct is to practise the contrary. Is a man not best judged by what he does in his own home?
It is puzzling in the extreme that the Conservative Party has learnt nothing from the electorate’s reaction to the controlling and centralising tendencies of Labour. When the people of Wales wanted Rhodri Morgan, Labour imposed Alun Michael; when the people of London wanted Ken Livingstone, Labour imposed Frank Dobson; when the people of Blaenau Gwent wanted to select their own candidate, Labour imposed an all-women shortlist. And when Harriet Harman wanted her husband elected to Parliament, the all-women shortlists were conveniently set aside and, lo and behold, Jack Dromey was elected. It is the Socialist way.
Conservative philosophy is quite different. We believe that the State should enable, not control. And in order to fulfil the Conservative aspiration to shrink the State, policies must be introduced to encourage individual responsibility and strengthen the ‘little platoons’. If David Cameron cannot achieve this even amongst his own faithful, it is highly questionable that he is committed at all to ‘decentralisation, transparency and accountability’.
It is worth considering that had the Conservative Party exercised central control over its MPs throughout its history, it would doubtless have removed Churchill, Eden and Macmillan from its approved list. And it is highly likely that they would have become more than a little exasperated by a shrill candidate called Margaret Thatcher who complained numerous times to Central Office of her inability to get selected.
His Grace mused two years ago:
It is not entirely beyond the realms of possibility that proud and independently-minded Conservative associations, increasingly exasperated by an autocratic centralised power antithetical to all that is being preached about localism, might eventually stick two fingers up to this ultra-Approved List, which is essentially the resurrected ‘A-List’, and begin to field their own ‘democratic’ or ‘independent’ Conservative candidates.
But he never expected such a distinguished Conservative as Lord Tebbit to foment the rebellion.
This tantalising intervention comes at a time of acute embarrassment for the Candidates’ Department, having just dismissed (‘right-wing’, ‘eurosceptic’) Annunziata Rees-Mogg (along with reportedly 200 other formerly-approved candidates).
Louise Mensch (née Bagshaw) MP called the decision 'hugely unfair'. She accused CCHQ of ‘pushing forward young female candidates such as Ms Rees-Mogg as part of a PR drive to present a fresh image for the party, only to then drop them abruptly after Election day’.
Jacob Rees Mogg MP has gone further. He called the decision ‘contemptible’, adding: ‘The attitude of Central Office is shameful... I think my sister has been treated disgracefully by an unjust procedure that brings the party into disrepute. Traditionally the Candidates’ department was well run by an experienced MP and senior members of the voluntary party. It is now run by arrogant, discourteous apparatchiks.’
Mr Rees-Mogg also condemned the ‘poor manners’ of
Indeed it is not. But Party Co-Chairman Andrew Feldman has responded defiantly, insisting that the Candidates’ Department is ‘determined not to be influenced by the friends of candidates' and that he intends to 'take the small "p" politics out of candidate selection'.
His Grace doesn’t have a clue what Mr Feldman means by taking the small ‘p’ politics out of candidate selection (it is oxymoronic and humanly impossible). But when you consider the number of Shadow Cabinet senior aides and chiefs of staff who went on to be selected for ‘plum seats’, the assertion that the influence of ‘friends’ has been eradicated is laughable.
But back to Lord Tebbit’s solution. It is unfortunate that he does not explain what he means by ‘take over’. If he means ‘assume control’ (OED), he is fomenting a fruitless discord and appears to be alarmingly ignorant of the Conservative Party Constitution which has changed somewhat since he was chairman.
Under the Hague reforms in the wake of the Neil Hamilton affair, the Conservative Party became an unincorporated association. Prior to that it had no official legal status: it was essentially the private office of the Leader, and local associations were autonomous. As far as candidate selection was concerned, they could simply ignore Conservative Central Office (as it was then) by having the candidate run as an independent Conservative. Although there was an ‘Approved List’, CCO had no way of enforcing their preference for an ‘approved’ candidate. In 1997, CCO threatened to remove Neil Hamilton from the list but were told by his Association that he would run anyway without their support. CCO was impotent to do anything about it.
After that general election, the Constitution was codified and previously autonomous associations dutifully signed up to it (some with a little ‘persuasion’). As a result, associations surrendered their sovereignty and became subject to an omnipotent and unaccountable bureaucracy. CCHQ (as it became) acquired the power to appropriate constituency property and cash. If a local constituency association ever again refused to comply with a central directive, they could be put it into ‘support status’ (ie sacked en masse and administered centrally). CCHQ has not only threatened a number of ‘troublesome’ associations with this humiliating treatment, they have done it.
Lord Tebbit appears not to know that an oligarchical CCHQ is now omnipotent over both candidate selection and the internal workings of all local associations: they can appoint and dismiss as they see fit, in accordance with the will of the Party Board. And that Board is empowered by an ‘enabling clause’ which permits it to do whatever is necessary ‘in the interests of the Party’.
If, therefore, local members were to attempt a democratic ‘take over’ of their CCHQ-compliant association, or if they were to ‘decline to support’ the CCHQ-approved candidate, as Lord Tebbit advocates, they could be individually disciplined and expelled from the Party, or the whole association put into ‘support status’. A local association cannot be ‘taken over’ by democratically-minded Conservatives: if an attempt were to be made, it would be ‘taken over’ by the Board. And this could be threatened (and implemented) over a fairly minor dispute or for (undefined) ‘poor performance’. The assessment of the seriousness of a misdeamanour is wholely subjective and carried out by CCHQ (ie the Board). There are no checks and balances; just a series of rigged appeals.
So, Lord Tebbit, would you care to elucidate, as a few of your your own commenters have requested? Are you suggesting that the loyal Conservatives of Somerton and Frome re-adopt Annunziata Rees-Mogg in defiance of CCHQ? Are you proposing that they volunteer for certain ‘support status’? Are you suggesting that they reject the next ‘clone dummy’ candidate CCHQ decides to impose? Having been party chairman, how do you think Baroness Warsi might react to your suggestion? Could you please elucidate either in the thread below or upon your own august blog? Or (if you prefer), you may email His Grace in confidence directly (address top right of his blog). Bless you.
And Lord Tebbitt replys:
Is Lord Tebbit about to be suspended or expelled from the Conservative Party?
His Grace asked:
Are you suggesting that the loyal Conservatives of Somerton and Frome re-adopt Annunziata Rees-Mogg in defiance of CCHQ, who have just removed her from the 'Approved List'? Are you proposing that they volunteer for certain ‘support status’? Are you suggesting that they reject the next ‘clone dummy’ candidate CCHQ decides to impose? Having been party chairman, how do you think Baroness Warsi might react to your suggestion? The Noble Lord has responded upon his blog:
Sally Roberts questioned what I would have said to ‘entryism’ when I was Party Chairman. Well, I always did and still do encourage Conservatives to join the Conservative Party and to fight for conservative policies and to select and elect Conservative Members of the Commons. Of course, in my day local Conservative Associations were autonomous bodies over which I did not have control, whereas today they are more like branches of the central Party, a point well made by Cranmer.
My message is that local Conservatives should control constituency associations and insist on selecting Conservative candidates who they like, not Central Office nominees. It could be called the Big Society politics. As Wuffothe Wonderdog says, Central Office might not like it, but faced with Conservatives willing to run independent Conservative candidates against imposed ones, they would probably think again.
This is both refreshingly forthright and very interesting indeed, not least because Lord Tebbit - who takes the Party Whip on the House of Lords and is a card-carrying member of the Conservative Party - is suggesting that local Conservative associations should threaten to run independent Conservative candidates against those imposed centrally. Of course, CCHQ will insist that they never impose anyone, but the facts of history rather negate such an assertion. Lord Tebbit urges this rebellion knowing full well that in the past it has led to associations being threatened with 'support status' (ie, 'taken over' by CCHQ) and, in one case, a whole association being dismissed for expressing support for an 'un-approved' candidate.
Lord Tebbit has clarified that 'local Conservatives should control constituency associations and insist on selecting Conservative candidates who they like, not Central Office nominees'. This can only be achieved by rejecting 'Central Office clone dummies', as he calls them. There are those who will view this as a direct challenge to the authority of the Conservative Party Board, which is omnipotent on all matters relating to the conduct of members.
Shedule 7, article 3.5 of the Conservative Party’s constitution states:
‘The Officers of the Association may move before the Executive Council the suspension or termination of membership of the Association of any member whose declared opinions or conduct shall, in their judgement, be inconsistent with the objects or financial well-being of the Association or be likely to bring the Party into disrepute. Similarly, the Officers may move the refusal of membership of the Association for the same reasons. Following such a motion, the Executive Council may by a majority vote suspend, terminate or refuse membership for the same reason.’
By exhorting Conservative Party members to reject CCHQ-approved candidates in favour of independents, Lord Tebbit is indeed declaring opinions and conducting himself in a manner that is inconsistent with the objects (and financial well-being) of his local association and the Conservative Party nationally.
Is CCHQ about to suspend or terminate Lord Tebbit's membership of the Conservative Party?
posted by Archbishop Cranmer at 4:07
PM Permalink 
Immigration
We will soon have in place a system
of checking immigrants who come into and leave the country outside of the
European Union. When will this happen to immigrants from the European
Union? We know that many Tunisians got into Italy and then had permission to
go to France. What happens if they turn up at Calais? This is a potentially
serious problem. All the "Aire" car parks between Calais and the Belgium
border have been closed because this was where the immigrants got onto lorries
for the UK. On a recent visit I made to France there was no check going out or
coming back!
Localism
by Douglas Carswell MP and Dan Hannan MEP
Councils are being told by Whitehall how often they must empty bins.
Universities are told whom to admit. Local authorities are told how much council
tax they can raise. National plans to protect designated wildlife sites are
being formulated. Decisions over sea defences continue to be made with almost no
regard to the communities who live along the coast. Food hygiene quangos
centrally determine the price they might extract from farmers for laboriously
inspecting them. There is to be a massive house-building programme on public
sector land. The much heralded White Paper on public service reform, which we were promised would “signal the decisive end of the old-fashioned, top-down, take-what-you’re-given model of public services” seems to have been abandoned. Far from revolutionising choice over who provides state-funded services, we learn that the process of public procurement within the public sector is actually being centralised around the Cabinet Office.
European Scrutiny
Committee
Just before the General Election David Cameron, in
answer to a question put to him by a COPOV member, said that the European
Scrutiny Committee would meet in public. True to his word it did meet in
public on three occasions but we understand that there was a private meeting
beforehand at which civil servants were present. The Committee has now decided
to meet in future in private so they can talk to the civil servants. You could
use this argument for all the parliamentary committees. It is scandalous that
this committee has taken this stand. What about transparency. Isn't the
public entitled to know what this committee is talking about? Their decision
should be reversed.
James Elles
blog
According to the European Commission's recent
Digital Agenda Scoreboard, the UK scores higher than the EU average for most
broadband indicators. This compares with France, which is one of the few
countries with 100% fixed broadband penetration. While European comparisons are
currently not so bad, looking at global comparisons we are clearly lagging
behind. Whereas only 1% of UK households currently have access to fast broadband
(over 25 Mbps), Singapore has had 99%
penetration and speeds of 100mbps (megabits per
second) since 2009.
Better to spend our
money on uprating our broadband than on the useless HS2 project.
May
29th Parliamentary Candidates List - Lord Turnbull on Climate Change - The
Political Hack
May 22nd Why the referendum on the Alternative Vote was lost - Joseph Rowntree Trust - Europe, did you know? - European Aid
May 16th House of Lords Reform - Our Fight for Democracy - CPF report - Next Week
May 9th Gerry Adams - European Parliament, More MEPS?
May 2nd Why is it? - Europe
April 24th The Referendum - Party Hacks
April 17th The State of British Politics - Party Membership - Can A Third placed candidate win under AV?
April 10th Watch This, Hung Parliaments - Letter from COPOV member - Party membership
April 3rd Fiji, Australia, Papua New Guinea and us - Getting involved - Financial Interest
May 22nd Why the referendum on the Alternative Vote was lost - Joseph Rowntree Trust - Europe, did you know? - European Aid
May 16th House of Lords Reform - Our Fight for Democracy - CPF report - Next Week
May 9th Gerry Adams - European Parliament, More MEPS?
May 2nd Why is it? - Europe
April 24th The Referendum - Party Hacks
April 17th The State of British Politics - Party Membership - Can A Third placed candidate win under AV?
April 10th Watch This, Hung Parliaments - Letter from COPOV member - Party membership
April 3rd Fiji, Australia, Papua New Guinea and us - Getting involved - Financial Interest
Parliamentary
Candidates List
A new list of Conservative Parliamentary
Candidates has been drawn up. I would be interested in any views members may
have on this. In view of the changes from the Boundaries Commission review
the selection of candidates is going to become a hot potato. Isn't it time
that we re-instated the sovereignty of constituencies in the selection of
parliamentary candidates?
Lord Turnbull publishes devastating critique of the Coalition's climate change policies
By Tim Montgomerie
Follow Tim on Twitter.
Scepticism about climate change takes at least four forms:
Britain should NOT act unilaterally: "Our Climate Change Act imposes legal duties, regardless of what ever else other countries do, or do not do. The UK, producing only 2-3 percent of world CO2 emissions, can have only a minimal effect on the global warming outcome. If we push too hard on decarbonisation by raising the price of carbon through a range of instruments we will suffer double jeopardy. Energy-using industries will migrate and, if the climate pessimists are right, we will still have to pay to adapt, e.g. by raising our flood defences."
Are we right to try and stop global warming or should scarce resources be invested in adaption? "Policy has been based on a preponderantly warmist view of the world. Many such as the Institution of Civil Engineers think that too little attention has been paid to adaptation, i.e. being more resilient whichever way the sum of natural forces and CO2 takes us, up or down."
Expensive wind power enjoys favoured status in EU energy policy: "The logical economist’s approach is to rank policy responses according to the cost per tonne of CO2 abated and then work through the merit order, starting with the most effective. Or, what amounts to the same thing, set a price on carbon and then let the various technologies – gas, coal with CCS, nuclear, wind, tidal, energy efficiency etc, fight it out for market share. But the EU Renewables Obligation is the denial of this logic. One particular set of technologies, and especially wind, has been given a guaranteed market share and a guaranteed indexed price, regardless of how competitive it is. The current pursuit of wind power is folly. Its cost per kWh substantially exceeds that of other low carbon sources such as nuclear when account is taken of intermittency and the cost of extending the grid far from where consumers are located."
The Liberal Democrats' objections to nuclear power are inconsistent: "The Secretary of State at Department of Energy and Climate Change has called nuclear a tried, tested and failed technology. It may be that in the UK historically it has not been as successful as it might have been but it has for 50 years provided around 20 percent of our electricity reliably, competitively and safely. Just 20 miles from our coast France has produced over 2/3rds of its electricity from nuclear and regards this as a great success... There is something profoundly illogical in Nick Clegg’s demand that nuclear power can only go ahead in the UK if it receives no public subsidy whatsoever, while at the same time promoting huge subsidies for renewables."
Current subsidies for solar power generation involve a transfer of power from the poor to the rich: "The feed-in tariff mechanism is fast becoming a scandal. Those lucky enough to own buildings large enough on which to install solar panels, or enough land for a wind farm, have been receiving 30-40p per kwh, for electricity, which is retailed at only 11p. The loss is paid for by a levy on businesses and households. It is astonishing that the Liberals who attach such importance to fairness turn a blind eye to this transfer from poor to rich, running to £billions a year. If you live in a council tower block in Lambeth you don’t have much opportunity to get your nose into this trough. The good news is that, at last, the government is beginning to cut back on subsidies to large solar operators, following the trend set in Germany and Spain."
The shale revolution: "There is a major new development which fits the description of a disruptive technology, that is the introduction of new drilling techniques which make it possible to extract gas from shale[4]. This has dramatically widened the geographic availability of gas, has produced a massive upgrading of gas reserves and is decoupling gas prices from oil. There is no peak in hydrocarbons. Gas has the advantage that it produces less than half the CO2 that coal produces. So we face a happy prospect that we can replace a lot of coal burning with gas, reduce energy prices, and make a big reduction in CO2 emissions, albeit not the complete decarbonisation sought by some, achieving in effect a dash for gas at the global level."
The Green Jobs Con: "My view is simple. If a technology can justify itself without massive subsidy we should build up our research and our skills. But if a technology exists only by virtue of subsidy we only impoverish ourselves by trying to build jobs on such shaky foundations."
Follow Tim on Twitter.
Scepticism about climate change takes at least four forms:
- Some sceptics don't believe that the climate is changing.
- Others believe that climate is changing but it isn't 'man-made'.
- Some believe that climate change is happening but they don't believe government action can make a difference.
- Some believe that government might be able to make a difference but it's too expensive or risky to try.
Britain should NOT act unilaterally: "Our Climate Change Act imposes legal duties, regardless of what ever else other countries do, or do not do. The UK, producing only 2-3 percent of world CO2 emissions, can have only a minimal effect on the global warming outcome. If we push too hard on decarbonisation by raising the price of carbon through a range of instruments we will suffer double jeopardy. Energy-using industries will migrate and, if the climate pessimists are right, we will still have to pay to adapt, e.g. by raising our flood defences."
Are we right to try and stop global warming or should scarce resources be invested in adaption? "Policy has been based on a preponderantly warmist view of the world. Many such as the Institution of Civil Engineers think that too little attention has been paid to adaptation, i.e. being more resilient whichever way the sum of natural forces and CO2 takes us, up or down."
Expensive wind power enjoys favoured status in EU energy policy: "The logical economist’s approach is to rank policy responses according to the cost per tonne of CO2 abated and then work through the merit order, starting with the most effective. Or, what amounts to the same thing, set a price on carbon and then let the various technologies – gas, coal with CCS, nuclear, wind, tidal, energy efficiency etc, fight it out for market share. But the EU Renewables Obligation is the denial of this logic. One particular set of technologies, and especially wind, has been given a guaranteed market share and a guaranteed indexed price, regardless of how competitive it is. The current pursuit of wind power is folly. Its cost per kWh substantially exceeds that of other low carbon sources such as nuclear when account is taken of intermittency and the cost of extending the grid far from where consumers are located."
The Liberal Democrats' objections to nuclear power are inconsistent: "The Secretary of State at Department of Energy and Climate Change has called nuclear a tried, tested and failed technology. It may be that in the UK historically it has not been as successful as it might have been but it has for 50 years provided around 20 percent of our electricity reliably, competitively and safely. Just 20 miles from our coast France has produced over 2/3rds of its electricity from nuclear and regards this as a great success... There is something profoundly illogical in Nick Clegg’s demand that nuclear power can only go ahead in the UK if it receives no public subsidy whatsoever, while at the same time promoting huge subsidies for renewables."
Current subsidies for solar power generation involve a transfer of power from the poor to the rich: "The feed-in tariff mechanism is fast becoming a scandal. Those lucky enough to own buildings large enough on which to install solar panels, or enough land for a wind farm, have been receiving 30-40p per kwh, for electricity, which is retailed at only 11p. The loss is paid for by a levy on businesses and households. It is astonishing that the Liberals who attach such importance to fairness turn a blind eye to this transfer from poor to rich, running to £billions a year. If you live in a council tower block in Lambeth you don’t have much opportunity to get your nose into this trough. The good news is that, at last, the government is beginning to cut back on subsidies to large solar operators, following the trend set in Germany and Spain."
The shale revolution: "There is a major new development which fits the description of a disruptive technology, that is the introduction of new drilling techniques which make it possible to extract gas from shale[4]. This has dramatically widened the geographic availability of gas, has produced a massive upgrading of gas reserves and is decoupling gas prices from oil. There is no peak in hydrocarbons. Gas has the advantage that it produces less than half the CO2 that coal produces. So we face a happy prospect that we can replace a lot of coal burning with gas, reduce energy prices, and make a big reduction in CO2 emissions, albeit not the complete decarbonisation sought by some, achieving in effect a dash for gas at the global level."
The Green Jobs Con: "My view is simple. If a technology can justify itself without massive subsidy we should build up our research and our skills. But if a technology exists only by virtue of subsidy we only impoverish ourselves by trying to build jobs on such shaky foundations."
Posted by Jason O on May 24, 2011 in Irish Politics, Not quite serious. |
Sometimes it’s a single issue, or at least, that’s what she
tells herself. More often than not it’s a gradual build-up of disappointment and
tiredness that triggers it. She decides not to go to the next cumann meeting,
and stays in and gets a pizza and watches Midsomer Murders instead. And guess
what: She doesn’t miss the cumann meeting. She doesn’t go to the next one
either, or the one after. When she gets a phonecall to help with a leaflet drop
she’s busy.Then she stops zooming in on headlines with the party’s name in it. Soon it happens: An opinion poll comes out, and she doesn’t care how the party is doing. She surprises even herself with her lack of interest.
Sitting out the election feels weird, as she’ll have received phone calls from party officers who have finally noticed that she’s not turning up, and she’ll feel embarrassed, and will almost promise to turn up at the next meeting, but resists, and says “she’ll see what she can do”. They both know that means she’s gone. The party official will wonder why the sane people always leave whilst the mouth-breathers and the one-issue obsessives “how will the banking crisis affect the ramps on the bottom of Lea Road, which is a major issue in the area?” never do.
She misses the energy of the election, but not hugely, seeing it for the first time the way non-political people see it, as important, but not the most important thing in her life. On the door, she is polite to the canvassers, having been that soldier, and resists the urge to demonstrate that she actually knows more about their policies than they do.
She still watches the election count all day on the telly, and enjoys it, but other things fill her life. Family, work, and whilst she still maintains an interest in politics it tends to be at a higher level, with more interest in other countries or history. She finds herself shutting out day-to-day politics, developing an interest in running or cycling or painting or learning the piano. And here’s the scary thing: She doesn’t regret her time spent in politics, because she met some great people. But as she finishes her first painting, or finishes her first novel, or passes her first piano exam, she can’t help thinking that she could’ve put her time to much more rewarding use.
Why the
referendum on the Alternative Vote was lost.
A Personal View
By
John E. Strafford – Chairman, Conservative
Yes Campaign.
On 5th January 2011 I met with John Starkey –
Campaign Director of Yes to Fairer Votes and I agreed to be Chairman of
the Conservative Yes Campaign. The three main points which arose from
this meeting were that:
- The Yes campaign was to be a people’s campaign driven by the people and not by politicians.
- Detailed research by ICM had shown that in an opinion poll the Alternative Vote had a 60% to 40% lead over First Past The Post. The majority in favour was highest amongst young people, diminishing with age until at the age of 65 the majority switched to First Past The Post. 40% of Conservative voters were in favour of the Alternative Vote.
- The campaign was to be an all party campaign.
The key elements which flowed from this information were that:
- Conservative votes were a critical element in the campaign particularly as the Labour Party was split.
- Conservative Party members were barren ground as the average age of a party member was 68.
- Voters over 65 were more likely to vote so it was essential to get out the young people to vote. Social media would be critical in this.
No budget was agreed for the Conservative Yes
Campaign, but it was anticipated that funds would be available from
Conservative Action for Electoral Reform and donations. A person was
appointed as the link between the Conservative Yes Campaign and Yes To
Fairer Votes. We lost this link half way during the campaign.
It became apparent early in the campaign that the Liberal Democrats were taking the lead, particularly due to their connections with the Joseph Rowntree Trust, which was to be a major funder of the Yes to Fairer Votes campaign. The other major funder was the Electoral Reform Society. At this stage it seemed as though the referendum would be won and the Liberal Democrats wanted to get the political advantage which would arise from winning.
The objects of the Conservative Yes Campaign
were:
- To provide a focal point for the Conservatives who supported Yes.
- To identify supporters, and channel their names to Yes To Fairer Votes.
- To be spokesmen for the Conservatives.
- To speak at local and national events.
- To disseminate information and rebut the Conservative No campaign.
In pursuing these objectives we set up a web site and
Twitter account and printed Conservative Yes literature for use at
meetings and on street stalls.
On 18th February David Cameron made a speech
opposing the Alternative Vote. Conservative Yes wanted to issue a
rebuttal, but the Yes To Fairer Votes Communications Director objected
and said that if we went ahead with a press release we were on our own. We went
ahead with a watered down release but media enquiries were not passed on to us
by Yes To Fairer Votes. It became clear to me at this point that Yes
To Fairer Votes did not really want Conservative involvement. Whether this
was because of an unwritten agreement between Nick Clegg and David Cameron that
the campaign should be low key I do not know, but it was fatal for the
Conservative Yes campaign. Cameron, under pressure from his backbenchers
was able to consolidate Conservative support for the NO campaign. Conservative
MPs, MEPs and members of the House of Lords backed off from the Yes
Campaign when they saw that there was no Conservative voice being heard.
On 19th February the Guardian published a two
page article on the referendum which was an interview between me and Margaret
Beckett. Yes To Fairer Votes were not enamoured because the interview was
not arranged through them.
A setback for the Yes Campaign came with the
refusal by Conservative Central Office to allow a fringe meeting at the
Conservative Spring Forum and the Freedom Association who had offered to have a
debate eventually gave in to pressure so no debate could be held at their fringe
meeting. Nevertheless we had two speakers in favour of Yes at the Tory Reform
Group meeting. We also distributed some 1,000 leaflets at the Spring Forum. The
Conservative Yes Campaign realised that we were having an impact on the
No campaign when I was subjected to a vicious smear campaign the same weekend as
the Spring Forum.
Throughout February, March and April the Conservative
Yes Campaign put up speakers for lots of meetings on the referendum.
Sometimes these were debates with the No campaign but on other occasions they
were on a Yes platform. We had speakers at Conservative Association meetings,
university meetings, and public meetings and also at meetings organised by
independent bodies. The No campaign put up some of their top speakers against us
including Mathew Elliott, Stephen Parkinson and Charlotte Vere. Yes to Fairer
Votes took no interest. Some of the meetings were videoed and extracts shown
on You Tube, where they got just under two thousand views. What became very
clear at these meetings was that the younger the audience the more favourable
they were to the Yes campaign. Conservative meetings were difficult probably due
to the age of the ordinary Party member, and pressure was put on Conservative
Associations not to have debates with us. On one occasion a debate was cancelled
just two days before it was due to take place. We won the debate organised by
Oxford East Conservative Association – perhaps a good augury for the referendum
as Oxford voted Yes in the referendum.
A major defect of the Yes campaign was to allow it to
become party political:
- Ed Milliband wouldn’t share a platform with Nick Clegge
- UKIP were excluded until the final phase of the campaign.
- The Green Party only had a minor role.
The second major defect was to allow the politicians to
take a major role contrary to the original intentions that the campaign would be
a people’s campaign. That original message was lost.
The third major defect was the way in which celebrities
were used. Eddie Izzard goes down well with young people so he should have been
used on Twitter, Facebook and You Tube. I am afraid that Conservatives see him
as a transvestite comedian and were unlikely to accept advice from him. He
should have been kept out of the mainstream media. Yes To Fairer Votes
were mesmerised by the fact that he had 2,500,000 Twitter followers. Richard
Wilson is great for Labour supporters but anathema to Conservatives. At no time
was advice sought nor did any discussion of these issues take place.
The Conservative Yes Campaign was not invited to
any launches, rallies or even invited to sit on the platform at any Yes to
Fairer Votes meetings. Only at the last rally did Andrew Boff, a
Conservative London Assembly member, appear on the platform. Effectively the
Conservatives were air brushed out of the Yes to Fairer Votes Campaign.
If you want to run a successful all party campaign on electoral reform you
cannot exclude the biggest party of all, particularly when the second biggest
party is split down the middle.
In the next five years there is likely to be another
referendum of one sort or another on electoral reform. To be successful
reformers need to do the following:
- Someone has to be in overall charge.
- There must be a Management Team with clear lines of responsibility.
- A Council should be set up on which all the different organisations including the political parties are represented. This Council will be responsible for co-ordinating the different groups. The Management team should report to it and it should meet at least once per month during the campaign. Budgets and income and expenditure should be agreed with the Management Team.
- If you are to run a people’s campaign you need to demonstrate that ordinary people are supporting you. There should have been at least two mass rallies of supporters during the campaign fronted by ordinary people, not politicians.
Finally I would like to thank all those that helped the
Conservative Yes Campaign. With virtually no resources and little if any
support the bit we did do was well done. Peter Facey and Mathew Oliver of Unlock
Democracy were particularly helpful.
Join the discussion
on:
The Joseph Rowntree
Trust
Good article. COPOV gets a mention
Europe - Did You
Know?
Attendance at the European Parliament by the UK's MEPs is
the lowest of any country. What are they doing?
24% of the UK's MEPs are in the biggest three groups in
the European Parliament compared to 72% of all MEPs. Does this mean we have
little influence?
European
Aid
From http://www.openeurope.org.uk/
In 2009, the EU distributed 35%
of its ENP funding directly to governments in the form of so-called budget
support. The European Commission claims that it only
gives this kind of support to governments that meet “strict”
criteria on good governance and administration. However, the now toppled – and
clearly corrupt –
regimes in Egypt and Tunisia received a combined total of €169
million in budget support in 2009, representing 77% and 80% of their overall
funding commitments
from the EU respectively.
The Commission needs to explain how the Egyptian and Tunisian
regimes were able to pass its democracy and anti-corruption tests for direct aid
funding, while
people living under them took to the streets in protest over these
regimes’ autocratic rule. Indeed, the recent upheavals in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya
and Syria
have shown that the EU’s prioritisation of stability over
democracy has been illjudged and too simplistic; arguably, the EU has ended up
promoting neither.
Next Battle - House of Lords
Reform
From The Independent on Sunday
This week Mr Clegg will present a draft Bill to
Parliament on replacing the House of Lords. However, in the wake of his defeat
in the referendum on the voting system, the Lib Dem leader is anxious to avoid
seeming obsessed with constitutional matters at a time of deep spending cuts.
Instead, two Tory ministers – Mark Harper and Lord Strathclyde – will take to
the airwaves to sell the policy.
There is still behind-the-scenes wrangling over what the
new upper house will be called, with Clegg allies favouring the retention of the
House of Lords over a US-inspired "Senate".
In meetings with peers to persuade them to support their
own abolition, Mr Clegg has made it clear that he is prepared to use the
Parliament Act to force the Bill through the Lords. Any intervention by Mr
Osborne is likely to carry significant weight and will mark a surprise
about-turn after Lib Dems publicly criticised his role in the referendum
campaign.
Lib Dem party managers are also preparing to turn the
issue into a major test of Ed Miliband's leadership of the Labour Party. An
internal briefing for staff at the Lib Dem HQ suggests that Mr Miliband is seen
as weak and unable to unite his party in favour of reform. "He doesn't pass the
'blink test' – he just doesn't look, in the instant in which people make the
judgement, like a potential PM."
Our Fight for
Democracy
Latest review from Reformer
- magazine of the Tory Reform Group
CPF
report
In the submission to Mark Harper on constitutional reform
COPOV got a mention:
"However, a representative summary of the AV responses can be found
in the Submission from the Campaign for Conservative Democracy :-"1. A chance for more honest, positive politics
2. MPs need your support
3. A fair system."
Next week
What happened to the Conservative Yes Campaign?
Gerry
Adams
So, who should call the writ for a West Belfast election?
Gerry Adams resigned his seat in the House of Commons, although he never took
the oath, in order to become a member of the Irish Parliament. Traditionally,
the Party that has lost a seat moves the writ for a by-election although this is
not always the case. Is it not time that the writ was moved for West
Belfast?
European Parliament - see
below
MEPs proposal to create 25 additional MEPs could cost an extra
£50m per year. The
European Parliament’s Constitutional Committee has proposed creating an extra
pan-European constituency which would create posts for 25 additional MEPs, in
order to ‘cultivate an EU identity’ and boost voter turnout at European
elections. The move could cost an additional £50m per year, £6m of which would
have to be covered by British taxpayers. (Telegraph, 2
May)
Why is
it?
Why is it bad that 90% of
mechanical engineering graduates are male but not alright if 90% of psychology
graduates are female?
Europe
On 19th April the "Constitutional Affairs" Committee of the
European Parliament approved an initiative report by Andrew Duff (ALDE, UK),
with regard to a proposed modification of the bill passed on 20th September 1976
concerning the election of MEPs by direct universal suffrage. The report
suggests the creation of 25 new MEPs elected from transnational lists in order
to increase citizen interest in the European elections. Voters would have two
voting slips to put in the ballot box; one to elect an MEP from a national list
of his country and another to choose a candidate from a pan-European list. The
parliamentary commission also suggests bringing the European election date
forward from June to May. The European Parliament will be voting on this report
in June.
Does this mean the end of the closed
party list system?
The
Referendum
I am totally sick at the way
the referendum campaign is being conducted. Lies and personal attacks have
become the norm. This is the old style politics which has brought parliament
into disrepute. In these last days of the campaign can we not hope that the
arguments will be raised to a higher level?
Party
Hacks?
Of 71 Conservative and Liberal Democrat Peers
appointed since last May 64 of them have never voted against the government.
Isn't it time this charade of democracy was done away with. It is time we had
a democratic House of Lords. After May 5th this is the next item on the
democracy agenda.
The State of British
Politics.
The Hansard Society has just
published its 8th Audit of Political Engagement. The following extract tells
you a lot about the state of British politics.
"Despite very mixed views
about the advantages and disadvantages of the Alternative Vote (AV) system, most
who took part in our research discussion groups said that, if they vote, they
will likely support a change in the system. This was not because of particular
dissatisfaction with First Past The Post. Rather, their dissatisfaction with
the current system of politics, with MPs, Parliament and government was such
that almost any change was preferable to the status
quo."
Party
Membership
A new campaign is to be launched to get more members into the
Conservative Party. Targets are to be set for each constituency. They are
as follow:
- For those with Conservative MPs, the target for Membership is 5% of the local Conservative vote at the 2010 General Election.
- For those without Conservative MPs, the target is 3% of the local Conservative vote at the 2010 General Election.
Can a third placed candidate win under AV?
In theory yes, in practice no. No candidate has ever been elected from
third place in an Australian election conducted under the AV rules proposed for
the United Kingdom.
It has never happened in New South Wales, nor in Queensland since AV was re-introduced in 1992. I will stand corrected if someone can find a Queensland example under the supplementary vote rules used between 1892 and 1940, but as far as I know, my claim stands.
No candidate has ever won from third place in Australia under AV rules.
So why is my view at odds with the opinion piece written by Lord Ashcroft at Conservative Home last week? (See article here)
The answer is that Lord Ashcroft's example was not AV. His example was the full preferential system used at Australian Federal elections.
This is an important point. There is already more
than enough confusion in the AV debate without educated people adding to the
confusion by not understanding the differences between electoral
systems.It has never happened in New South Wales, nor in Queensland since AV was re-introduced in 1992. I will stand corrected if someone can find a Queensland example under the supplementary vote rules used between 1892 and 1940, but as far as I know, my claim stands.
No candidate has ever won from third place in Australia under AV rules.
So why is my view at odds with the opinion piece written by Lord Ashcroft at Conservative Home last week? (See article here)
The answer is that Lord Ashcroft's example was not AV. His example was the full preferential system used at Australian Federal elections.
Watch
this
Letter from a COPOV
member
Dear Sir/MadamThe alternative vote system has so often been misrepresented, that I feel a few words may help clarify and not come amiss. The official instructions are good, but a real example with real numbers may help to see it clearly. For simplicity’s sake, I'm using an example I gave my 13 year old grandson.
“My dear grandson,
You asked me to explain the
alternative vote system and compare it to what we have at the moment. Fairland
had exactly 100 voters on its role. It also had exactly five parties, let’s
call them A, B, C, D and E. The country was faced with three issues. Party A
wanted to keep the coal mines and use coal as the only source of energy. Party
B wanted to keep and protect the coal industry, the nuclear industry and spend
as much as they could afford on renewable energy. Party C only wanted to
protect the coal industry and expand renewable energy. Party D only wants
renewable energy and the nuclear industry. Party E only wanted to protect the
nuclear and coal.
The election result was
predictable. All 13 coal Miners voted for A, 15 voted for B, 20 voted for C, 25
for D and 27 for E. A was therefore eliminated, and the second preference on
these ballot papers all supported B. Now candidate C had the lowest vote and
was therefore eliminated and its second preference on these ballot papers all
supported B. This meant B had 48 votes, D 25 and E 27 votes. Now candidate D
had the lowest vote and was therefore eliminated and of the second preference on
these ballot papers only 5 supported B; the rest (20) supported E.
This led to B being elected with 53
people supporting him and only 47 supporting the runner up. Everybody is happy
as all their votes counted. There is no horse trading or casting vote or
tossing of coins. B had worked hard listened to the people, reacted to the
legitimate concerns of most people and progress beckoned.
In neighbouring Statusquoland, there
are also five parties covering the same three issues and in the election,
attaining the same results. However there only the one, with most votes, counts
and so E with his 27 votes is elected.
I am so pleased to hear that you take
such an interest in the subject, if you keep that up you will one day be leading
your own party. So work hard and play hard, listen carefully to what people
tell you and I hope one day to be voting for you. There will be
many issues, and rarely will anyone agree with everything any one party
proposes.
Your ever loving
Grandpa”.
I leave the reader to make up his/her
own mind as to which system is the fairer. There is no evidence to show that
any one who chose B was swayed by fringe parties. It is not obscure or
unpopular, and in all the debates "AV yes" usually won. If cost were a factor,
elections would be the first to be cut. We have all had a taste of
proportional Voting in the EU elections and now our EuroMPs are virtually
unknown.
The “No” campaign is taking the
public for fools. Their arguments appear either false or puerile. Using scare
tactics is not a sensible way of holding a debate. If AV is good
enough for electing the Prime minister, then it is surely good enough for us to
elect our representatives.
Yours
sincerely David Moffat.
Party Membership
Party co-chairman Lord Feldman (pictured above) has this week written to all Conservative MPs and Conservative associations, setting them ambitious membership targets:
"David Cameron has made developing our
Membership base a priority for the Party, and in order to deliver on this
priority, we are setting targets for every Association in the
country.
Feldman says that increasing the membership now will be "the bedrock of our campaigning success in future elections" and that all associations will shortly have access to a new "membership toolkit" both online and in booklet form to assist them in this drive over the coming months.
- For those with Conservative MPs, the target for Membership is 5% of the local Conservative vote at the 2010 General Election.
- For those without Conservative MPs, the target is 3% of the local Conservative vote at the 2010 General Election."
He also highlights that the party is improving communication with members through a new Members First newsletter to be sent via email every two months and is giving them "a stronger voice" on policy development through the re-launched Conservative Policy Forum.
Will they ever learn? It is no good setting targets, without tackling the fundamental problem. Why should anyone become a Party member? They have no say in anything other than the election of the Leader. Even then their choice is restricted to two candidates.
Fiji, Australia, Papua New
Guinea and us
Watch
this!
Getting
involved
Last week the Hansard Society held a meeting for young people
on how to get involved in politics. The unanswered question was "Why get
involved if you cannot change anything?" Our two main political parties are
undemocratic oligarchies. A member has no say either in determining who shall
run the Party or in the policies of the Party.
Take part in a demonstration and you will be ignored.
Governments regard demonstrations as a nuisance rather than an expression of
opinion. No hope there then.
Vote in a General Election. OK if you live in the 10% of
constituencies which are marginal and you are one of the 10% floating voters
within that constituency, i.e. if you are one of the lucky 1% that's
OK.
So what is the point of getting involved? There is only one
good reason - to campaign for a fair democracy. Until we get that you are
wasting your time.
Financial
Interests
This week Lord Pearson asked that those members of the House
of Lords that receive a pension from the European Union should declare their
interest. Apparently the European Union can cancel the pension if the
recipient brings the European Union into disrepute! Lord Pearson's request was
turned down. Why?
Letter to Richard Benyon MP
March 20th An evening of AV in the Dorset countryside - The Cost of AV - Conservatives in Northern Ireland
March 13th Party Structure - COPOV web site under attack - Joint Candidates - Visit the Conservative Yes web site March 27th
March 20th An evening of AV in the Dorset countryside - The Cost of AV - Conservatives in Northern Ireland
March 13th Party Structure - COPOV web site under attack - Joint Candidates - Visit the Conservative Yes web site March 27th
Letter to Richard Benyon
MP
From a member of
COPOV
Dear Richard,
I really enjoyed your speech last
night and congratulate you on becoming a good speaker, interesting, funny and
enjoyable. I spent some time looking at the “Say no” pamphlet, which quite
honestly left me pretty cold.
If you take a situation where there
are three parties say red, white and blue. In an election both the red and blue
win exactly 40 per cent of the votes and there is a tie. Under the current
system the winner would do so by the toss of a coin. Under AV the other 20%
would have the second preference chosen. So If 15 per cent of them had as
second choice red, then red would have won the election having secured 55% of
the total.
I know this is a somewhat extreme
example but it does illustrate that AB is both fairer and more desirable. Most
of the pamphlet's arguments are far from accurate and some are quite honestly
deceitful. I feel in the circumstances, that we should not be going to the
electorate and saying that their votes are not important. In this case the
voters for red were not being unfairly treated, the first vote and the second
vote had equal weight when it came to choosing between the one candidate and the
other.
Asking your supporters not to have
this choice, is tantamount to saying it’s all right if only 33 per cent of the
electorate actually want you. Surely this cannot be a healthy state of affairs.
The whole purpose of having an election is to find out what the majority of
the electorate actually do want. It is quite easy to think of ways which could
make elections cheaper if that’s the object of the exercise.
For starters, fixed parliaments of
five or even six years would save quite a lot of money. Bye-election results
could be made more significant if the candidate were to be elected for a full
term. This would mean that bye-elections get taken seriously as you are then
stuck with your MP for at least the next five or six years. It is also fairer
on the MP, as who would want to be an MP when you could be out of a Job in 6
months time.
Good popular MP’s like you, have
nothing to fear from AV. It will cast doubt on the weak and encourage the good
hardworking MP. You only have to look around yourself in parliament to
sometimes wonder how on earth they managed to persuade anybody to vote for
them. Moreover each and every election would be spurring parliament on to try
harder doing the will of the people. Is that not what democracy is all about?
I trust you will accept what I say
in the spirit in which I write, as being constructive even when I disagree.
Yours sincerely,
David.
March 20th
An evening of AV in the Dorset Countryside…
Posted on March 20, 2011 by robstick
Whilst on the Yes to Fairer Votes street stall, in Yeovil yesterday, I was invited to attend a "Pizza and Politics Debate" evening at Yetminster last night, which I did.
The debate, organized by Mrs Josephine Jones (a musician, Local Preacher
in the Sherborne & Yeovil Methodist Circuit, and Parish Councillor for
Yetminster & Ryme Intrinseca) in conjunction with Fair
Votes for Dorset, was to help local folk to understand the
argument for the Alternative Vote and find out what the Referendum for Fair
Votes in May is all about.
The speakers were: Graham Watson (MEP for the South West
and Gibraltar), John Strafford (Chair of the Conservative Campaign for
Democracy), David James (Electoral Reform Society and Lib Dem on AV), Richard
Nicholls (CPRE and West Dorset Labour Party), and Paul McIntosh (North Dorset
Green Party). There was also representation from Fair Votes for Dorset and
literature available.
Around 30 people, including the speakers, attended the
event.
All representatives were in favour of reform, but gave us
their take on why reform is needed from their point of view.
David James gave us an overview (or warm-up as he put it)
on the difference between FPTP and AV. He explained that although the question
that will be asked on 5th May might
sound simple i.e "Do you want the Unite 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?", but that in fact if you did not know
how these systems worked it would be difficult to answer. He went on to give us
examples using West Dorset, Norwich South and Oxford (East and West) as
examples.
Paul McKintosh gave us the Green’s viewpoint and
explained that as a Green choices are natural, for instance whether goods are
local, farmers’ have been paid realistically for their produce etc. So why
should making a choice between candidates be any harder to rank rather than just
putting an ‘X’?
Richard Nicholls told us that Labour had put AV forward in
their manifesto at the last General Election and that having grown up in London
and been a TUC member for many years he was very much for the progress of
democracy and making electing a government more democratic through the ballot
box.
John Strafford gave us an interesting history
lesson of how AV has been passed, and passed over by Parliament many times over
the last century, facts of which can be found in his book "A Fight for Democracy" and why actually the
Conservative Party should back AV. He looked at how different age-groups split
on for/against AV and that pensioners on the whole were FOR AV and that as the
average age of Conservative Members was 68… He also explained that Party Leaders
are all elected by a form of AV and even that Boris Johnson was elected to
represent the Conservative Party for Mayor of London by AV. FPTP was devised and
works for two-party politics but the Whigs and Tories have long gone.
Graham Watson gave us his point of view as an
MEP. He felt it was strange that there was something he could agree with UKIP
on, but that was the only thing he could agree with UKIP on. Being an MEP, he
was elected by Proportional Representation. He addressed the usual No to AV
arguments about cost, hung Parliaments, that AV would be difficult to count
without a machine and other Countries that use AV.
There were then questions from the floor.
A mock election was held, using local film titles, to
illustrate how AV worked and the counting system used.
In all it was a very interesting evening and one that I
felt gave the people it was aimed at a good overview but also good reasons to
say YES to AV.
(Please note that the points highlighted above from each
speaker are not from transcripts and only represent a portion of what each of
them said)
The Cost of
AV
These are actual costs, calculated by Warwick District Council for the
two constituencies at last year's General Election.
The variable costs of the count, excluding fixed room hire costs,
amounted to £24,472.50, or, say £12,250 per
constituency.
Campaigners have quoted a maximum additional cost for AV counting of
30%, with a national average of at most 20%.
This would equate to £3,675 (30% max) or £2,450 (20%) per seat. These
two seats are reasonably average seats but costs may vary a little across the
country of course.
If challenged on the cost of AV and the £250m figure quoted by the NO
campaign, we might feel inclined to quote a figure of £2-3000 more per seat
every five years (or £1.5m); against an annual running cost for our democratic
institutions of £1.6bn.
It would cost roughly 4p extra per voter every five years - or the cost
of a quarter of a Twix Bar
Conservatives in Northern Ireland
Monday, March 14. 2011
Conservative politics, by James O'Fee
Last week I attended the AGM of the North Down Conservative Association,
an organisation of which I was a former member.
On July 5th 2010 the Association chose Ian Parsley as its candidate for the 2011 NI Assembly elections - see Candidates, Tuesday, July 6. 2010. Yet in November of that year Cllr Parsley resigned from the Association giving no clear single reason for his departure - see Parsley resigns, Monday, November 22. 2010. At last week's meeting I began to understand more of what had led to Ian's resignation.
In North Down Conservatives choose Parsley, Friday, October 23. 2009, I wrote -
In the Chairman's review of the year, circulated before the meeting, I read -
'Since July 2010 the Association has been on something of a rollercoaster. After electing a candidate to represent us in the Assembly elections (soon to be held) a letter appeared which informed us that Northern Ireland Conservativs would not be opposing the UUP in elections. The letter also implied that we would not be allowed to contest even council seats for which we had selected five representatives. This development was greeted with incredulity as the UCUNF link was well and truly finished. It also had a very detrimental effect on our Assembly hopeful [i.e. Ian Parsley] ... he resigned from the party.'
At the meeting the Chairman reflected on the unfairness of all this on Ian Parsley. He was a favoured son within the Alliance Party and have looked forward to a secure political future within that party. Instead he was attracted by the vision held out before us by new Conservative Leader, David Cameron. So that he came a solid Cameonian Conservative (there are naturally other types of Conservative). Only to be dumped by the Party to which he had given so much.
In December 2010 the Chairman of the Party in Northern Ireland, Irwin Armstrong, resigned over the matter. In February he withdrew his resignation and Baroness Warsi issued a statement declaring her "full support" for the Party in Northern Ireland - see Conservatives in Northern Ireland - convulsion over? - Thursday, February 3. 2011.
It appears that a Co-Chairman of the Party will visit the Province this month for a "fund-raising dinner". We, as Party members, are encouraged to attend. Fund-raising for what? A political party is not, or should not be, a profit-making body.
In 1989 we didn't wait for money to show before deciding to contest elections. In all areas of life I have found that, if you're doing something that is right, the money will follow.
The Chairman told us that this time last year, the UUP had 18 Members of the Legislative Assembly at Stormont. Elliott held out the prospect of winning 24 seats in the forthcoming May 2011 elections. Since then the UUP have lost one MLA when Alan resigned over the Sylvia Hermon question. It now seems more likely that the UUP will lose seats in the May elections, falling perhaps to 12 seats. The reason for this is that, under the St Andrews Agreement negotiated by the DUP, the largest party is entitled to appoint the First Minister, without any vote taking place in the Assembly, the normal practice in the Assemblies of Scotland and Wales, at Westminster and in all other legislative bodies that I know of. The threat is that Sinn Féin could overtake the DUP as the largest single Party, and this could benefit the DUP to the disadvantage of the UUP.
On July 5th 2010 the Association chose Ian Parsley as its candidate for the 2011 NI Assembly elections - see Candidates, Tuesday, July 6. 2010. Yet in November of that year Cllr Parsley resigned from the Association giving no clear single reason for his departure - see Parsley resigns, Monday, November 22. 2010. At last week's meeting I began to understand more of what had led to Ian's resignation.
In North Down Conservatives choose Parsley, Friday, October 23. 2009, I wrote -
Cllr Ian Parsley
In the Chairman's review of the year, circulated before the meeting, I read -
'Since July 2010 the Association has been on something of a rollercoaster. After electing a candidate to represent us in the Assembly elections (soon to be held) a letter appeared which informed us that Northern Ireland Conservativs would not be opposing the UUP in elections. The letter also implied that we would not be allowed to contest even council seats for which we had selected five representatives. This development was greeted with incredulity as the UCUNF link was well and truly finished. It also had a very detrimental effect on our Assembly hopeful [i.e. Ian Parsley] ... he resigned from the party.'
At the meeting the Chairman reflected on the unfairness of all this on Ian Parsley. He was a favoured son within the Alliance Party and have looked forward to a secure political future within that party. Instead he was attracted by the vision held out before us by new Conservative Leader, David Cameron. So that he came a solid Cameonian Conservative (there are naturally other types of Conservative). Only to be dumped by the Party to which he had given so much.
Elliott
In December 2010 the Chairman of the Party in Northern Ireland, Irwin Armstrong, resigned over the matter. In February he withdrew his resignation and Baroness Warsi issued a statement declaring her "full support" for the Party in Northern Ireland - see Conservatives in Northern Ireland - convulsion over? - Thursday, February 3. 2011.
Warsi
It appears that a Co-Chairman of the Party will visit the Province this month for a "fund-raising dinner". We, as Party members, are encouraged to attend. Fund-raising for what? A political party is not, or should not be, a profit-making body.
In 1989 we didn't wait for money to show before deciding to contest elections. In all areas of life I have found that, if you're doing something that is right, the money will follow.
The Chairman told us that this time last year, the UUP had 18 Members of the Legislative Assembly at Stormont. Elliott held out the prospect of winning 24 seats in the forthcoming May 2011 elections. Since then the UUP have lost one MLA when Alan resigned over the Sylvia Hermon question. It now seems more likely that the UUP will lose seats in the May elections, falling perhaps to 12 seats. The reason for this is that, under the St Andrews Agreement negotiated by the DUP, the largest party is entitled to appoint the First Minister, without any vote taking place in the Assembly, the normal practice in the Assemblies of Scotland and Wales, at Westminster and in all other legislative bodies that I know of. The threat is that Sinn Féin could overtake the DUP as the largest single Party, and this could benefit the DUP to the disadvantage of the UUP.
Party
Structure
At the Spring Forum I asked
Andrew Feldman, the Party Chairman, "Why doesn't the Conservative Party have an
AGM like other organisations?" His response baffled me. He explained that
Central Office is the office of the Leader of the Party. The Party consists of
three elements - the voluntary Party, the Parliamentary Party and the
professional organisation. so it was not possible. Afterwards, I explained to
him that the Hague reforms were designed to eliminate this structure. We were
supposed to be One Party. He didn't want to know. What a tragedy
that the Party Chairman knows nothing of the history of the Party, but who gave
him this wrong information?
COPOV web site under
attack
When you lose the argument go for the personality!
Joint
Candidates?
The Daily Mail reports of a rule change that some will see as making it
easier for candidates to stand as joint Lib/Con candidates at the next General
Election:
"Ministers are to change the law to allow
candidates standing for two parties at the same time to put a joint emblem on
the ballot paper. It opens the door to Tory and Lib Dems agreeing local peace
pacts with one candidate representing them both – perhaps under a logo combining
the yellow Liberal Democrat bird with the Tory oak tree."
The public justification is to help Labour Co-operative candidates but
conspiracy theorists will, as the Mail has done, put a different spin on the
move.http://www.conservativeyes.org.uk/
February
27th On The Yes Campaign Trial - Has UKIP a control freak tendency? - The
old pals act!
February 20th Rt. Hon. Margaret Beckett V. John Strafford on the referendum - Support from the Archbishop - NHS and the BBC - Another cock-up!
February 13th Open Debate in the Tory Party? - Candidate Selection - The Cost of Europe
February 6th House of Lords Reform - Climate Change
February 20th Rt. Hon. Margaret Beckett V. John Strafford on the referendum - Support from the Archbishop - NHS and the BBC - Another cock-up!
February 13th Open Debate in the Tory Party? - Candidate Selection - The Cost of Europe
February 6th House of Lords Reform - Climate Change
UKIP
Is UKIP acquiring a control freak tendency?
I am delighted that UKIP are supporting the Yes campaign in the referendum, but to stop members with a contrary view from opposing UKIP's spokesmen or seeking publicity is even more Stalinist than the Conservative Party. The following is an extract from the Party's National Executive:
"The National Executive
also resolved that UKIP members who do not agree with this position are entitled
to express their personal views. However, it reiterated at its meeting on 7
February that UKIP members are expected not to actively campaign against the
party’s policy, to seek publicity for the contrary view or, in particular, to be
involved in any direct opposition to UKIP’s spokesmen and representatives in the
course of the campaign".
Tories count the cost of an old pals' act
By
Andrew Pierce
20th February 2011
Old friends: Andrew Feldman, is the first Tory party
chairman to receive a salary for the job
After all, Feldman had never stood for elected office, and he was an unknown who had nothing of the clout of his predecessors such as Cecil Parkinson and Norman Tebbit.
There was also unease among Tory MPs when Cameron rewarded his chum with a peerage last autumn.
Cameron seems to trust Feldman like no other — the two have been best friends since they met as teenagers at Brasenose College, Oxford.
But who would ever have imagined the true extent to which Feldman’s loyalty to Cameron has been rewarded? I can disclose that Feldman is the first salaried chairman in the modern Tory Party — and he is paid £120,000 a year.
Feldman hardly needs the money. He is a millionaire, and he surfaced in the political arena only after he raised money for Cameron’s leadership campaign. His family clothing company, Jayroma, also made its own £10,000 donation.
What will really rile the rank and file is that some of Feldman’s salary comes out of the money they raise for the Party.
‘I was gobsmacked when I was told of his salary,’ says one member of the Conservative Party Board. ‘I thought the peerage and the prestige of the job would be enough reward.’
Shouldn’t the Tories — who are rightly lambasting local government fatcats for their grotesquely inflated salaries — practise what they preach.
Looks like the Party is rolling in money!
Rt. Hon Margaret Beckett V.
John Strafford on the Referendum
Extract:
JS: There is a balance, I accept that, between the
systems. But it doesn't seem right to say that we've got a representative
parliament when an MP can win with 35% of the vote, while 65% voted against
them. In 2005, the Labour Party got 35% of the votes, and had a 66-seat
majority. In 2010 the Tories got 36% of the votes and didn't get any majority.
And twice since the war, the party that's got the most votes in the election
didn't go on to form the government …MB: I'm not quarrelling with that, but I'm just not very interested. And I don't think the British people are. The outcome is what matters. The British people know how our system works, and they know how to use it. When they want change, they make change.
To read the full article click below:
Comments
padav
19 February 2011 9:14AM
I'm just off to Manchester in about half an hour to give out leaflets
supporting the YES campaign so I can't stay long here
This section of the dialogue just about sums up the two camps:
JS: In 2005, the Labour Party got 35% of the votes, and had a 66-seat majority. In 2010 the Tories got 36% of the votes and didn't get any majority. And twice since the war, the party that's got the most votes in the election didn't go on to form the government …
MB: I'm not quarrelling with that, but I'm just not very interested. And I don't think the British people are. The outcome is what matters.
So apparently Margaret Beckett isn't interested in the votes of the
general electorate - she is only interested in the outcome!This section of the dialogue just about sums up the two camps:
JS: In 2005, the Labour Party got 35% of the votes, and had a 66-seat majority. In 2010 the Tories got 36% of the votes and didn't get any majority. And twice since the war, the party that's got the most votes in the election didn't go on to form the government …
MB: I'm not quarrelling with that, but I'm just not very interested. And I don't think the British people are. The outcome is what matters.
Not sure about others here but that attitude beggars belief - how can any political figure seeking a mandate to govern on our behalf dismiss, in such a derisory fashion, the legitimately expressed political preference of ordinary voters - read it again and weep - "The outcome is what matters"
I tell you what Mrs. Beckett - why bother at all with an election - just roll a dice or flip a coin to see who represents us in government - after all it's "the outcome that matters"
-
Lokischild
19 February 2011 8:54AMWhatever the advantages or disadvantages of AV Mr. Strafford has wiped the floor with Ms. Beckett in this exchange, she did not score on one point.
Nice to have support - check this out:
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2011/02/john-strafford-conservatives4av-and.html
NHS and the BBC
|
Another Cock-up!
The Electorate
The National Convention consists of
the following:
Chairmen of each Constituency Association (or a
Deputy)
The elected representatives on the Board of the Party / Scottish Executive / Board of the Welsh Conservative Party
Members of the Area Management Executives
Regional and Deputy Regional Chairmen
CF Representatives (42)
Conservative Womens’ Organisation (42)
Plus the 3 past Presidents of the Convention, the 2 past Chairmen of the Convention, and for one year the past Area and Regional Chairmen.
The elected representatives on the Board of the Party / Scottish Executive / Board of the Welsh Conservative Party
Members of the Area Management Executives
Regional and Deputy Regional Chairmen
CF Representatives (42)
Conservative Womens’ Organisation (42)
Plus the 3 past Presidents of the Convention, the 2 past Chairmen of the Convention, and for one year the past Area and Regional Chairmen.
Each member of the National Convention has one
vote notwithstanding that the member’s right to attend the National Convention
derives from holding more than one office or position
Ballot Paper Issues
The company contracted to distribute the
ballot papers and accompanying papers have mis-matched a number of names and
addresses. This has resulted in a significant number of members of the National
Convention receiving ballot papers incorrectly addressed to fellow members of
the National Convention.
If you have received an A4 white envelope at
your address bearing the name of a fellow National Convention member, it is
important that you understand that this envelope contains the cvs of candidates
for Vice President, which will not be re-issued.
It is important that we maintain the
integrity of this ballot. In view of the large number of inaccuracies, I am
declaring the ballot null and void.
The ballot will be re-run using different
coloured ballot papers and a fresh Declaration of Identity. Please destroy the
light blue ballot paper you have received and the light pink Declaration of
Identity. If you have already posted these to me, these will be set aside and
you will need to recast your ballot. Candidates’ cvs will not be re-issued. An
explanatory note will accompany the re-issued ballot
13th February
John Strafford calls for open debate
We understand that the NO2AV Campaign will be at the Spring Forum. The NO2AV Campaign is described as a non-partisan, all party campaign. Why can they appear but not the all party "Yes to Fairer Votes Campaign"?
The following article was published on the Conservativehome web site: http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2011/02/john-strafford-what-has-cchq-got-to-fear-from-pro-av-tories-at-spring-forum.html He calls for members to help reverse CCHQ’s decision to ban Conservative organisations supporting a Yes Vote from the Spring Forum.
Where better we thought to formally launch an organisation
titled Conservatives for AV and allow party members to properly debate a subject
as significant as changing the voting system, than at our very own spring forum?
We have a number of elected conservatives and peers already
signed up and were anticipating a healthy turnout, until being informed in no
uncertain terms by Conservative Central Office that our presence was not to be
allowed at our own forum.
Whatever happened to "I may not agree with what you say but
I will defend to the death your right to say it". In the past the
Party happily and all too readily accepted money from pro reform organisations
such as the Conservative Action for Electoral Reform, to boast party coffers and
allowed them to hold meetings. What has changed? Are CCHQ are so scared of
losing the referendum that they won’t let party members hear the other side of
the debate? Do the party hierarchy not trust us enough to make an informed
decision and prefer we receive only one side of the argument?
I am sure the No2AV campaign were not consulted about this
decision beforehand and would be appalled to think that party members were being
alienated and discriminated against in this way for the sake of their beliefs. I
call on them to publicly denounce this decision and urge CCHQ to think again.
Having followed their website and email newsletters I know they welcome the
chance to debate.
There is an important principle at stake here! Regardless of
our views on this issue, surely we all can agree that each side has the right to
have their voices heard. All we asking for is that a group of like minded
conservatives are allowed to hold a small fringe event at our own conference. I
have no problem with paying for the privilege of free speech and will even
provide free wine and nibbles... David Cameron has said that Conservatives will
have a free vote on this issue. Was this just a hollow promise?
It would appear that I find myself a member of a party that not
only won’t hear dissenting views, but positively alienates and discriminates
against those that hold them. What next – being dragged out of the conference
for heckling? I suspect many members will have similar concerns about the top
down control imposed by CCHQ. Remember the golden days when we actually had
debates in the Conference Hall? Now the fringe is to be closed down also.
Please email our Party Co-Chairmen, Sayeeda Warsi and Andrew
Feldman chairman@conservatives.com
asking them what have the Conservative Party got to be scared of and urge them
to reverse this ridiculously undemocratic policy.
Let us prove together that it is the Labour Party who are the
control freaks and that the Conservative Party is a democratic party that
listens to its members, does not discriminate and believes in free speech.
Comment on the above on the BBC
web site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12428491
Candidate
Selection
Today's Sun reports that David Cameron has asked ex-Yorkshire
cricketer Darren Gough if he would consider being the Conservative
candidate.
We now know that another candidate has been selected and we wish him every success, but why does the Party Leader get involved in these decisions?
We now know that another candidate has been selected and we wish him every success, but why does the Party Leader get involved in these decisions?
From the openeurope web site
Over 90% of EP staff want to scrap
Strasbourg seat. A
survey carried out by Zurich University found that 91% of MEPs and assistants
want Brussels to be the only seat for the European Parliament, in effect
scrapping the monthly journey to the EP’s second seat in Strasbourg . The study
found out that the ‘travelling circus’ between the EP’s two seats costs
taxpayers €180m a year with an annual carbon footprint of 19,000 tonnes. (EUobserver, 11
February Telegraph, 10
February)
Fraud in the EU’s carbon market has cost taxpayers €5bn. Fraud in the EU’s Emission Trading Scheme has cost taxpayers an estimated €5bn. "There have been warnings after warnings that regulation of the system is lackadaisical and inept […] You expect it to be properly regulated but Europe seems to run it more like a church raffle than a professional commodities market," a broker said. (Sunday Telegraph, 30 January)
Fraud in the EU’s carbon market has cost taxpayers €5bn. Fraud in the EU’s Emission Trading Scheme has cost taxpayers an estimated €5bn. "There have been warnings after warnings that regulation of the system is lackadaisical and inept […] You expect it to be properly regulated but Europe seems to run it more like a church raffle than a professional commodities market," a broker said. (Sunday Telegraph, 30 January)
6th February
House of Lords Reform
By
Simon Fawthrop
House of Lords reform is something that all the Political parties have skirted around.
The Conservative Party needs to find a way out of the dilemma it faces over House of Lords reform, and push forward a system which reforms the second chamber but retains the merits of the current House of Lords.
The advantage of the current House of Lords, even as reformed, is that it allows experts to be utilised when discussing and shaping legislation. In addition it has an element of stability (longevity) given that House of Lords Members are there for life. The disadvantages of the House of Lords include a heavy reliance on a system of patronage as a means of selecting our legislators.
Historically the hereditary Peers in the House of Lords could remain independent of the Government of the day. This was down to one simple key issue, namely: the Peers were unelected (and therefore unselected) which meant that no amount of threatening or bullying by party whips and party machinery could force a change of mind. In turn this lack of an electoral mandate, constrained the way in which peers could operate.
With the exception of some experts the same is not true of the politically appointed Life Peers that make up the bulk of today’s House of Lords. This has often resulted in accusations of cronyism and cash for honours. A situation where mud has stuck, tarnishing the reputation of the House of Lords.
There does however now seems to be a consensus around moving towards some form of elected second chamber. However the nature and composition and method of election for the second chamber are all areas under scrutiny and debate.
For the sake argument let’s go with what some of the more radical reformers have called for and name the second chamber a Senate and outline some suggestions on how a Senate can be elected and work with the current House of Commons and also deal with what happens to the current and any new Peers.
There has been much talk about efficiency and not having an oversized chamber which would be counter productive. This particular proposal would see the Senate made up of 149 seats. The seats would be split with 99 of the seats elected on a first past the post electoral system. They would be constituency based with each area representing approximately 450,000 electors. The Constituencies would be drawn up by the boundary commission in line with its usual consultation process, but to coincide where possible with Local Government boundaries, so that the Senate and Local Government elections can in the majority of cases take place on the same day to save costs and invigorate both sets of elections, particularly where there are annual council or County Council elections.
To give the Senators some degree of independence and give the element of stability, that is one of the positives of the current House of Lords, a Senator should be elected for a 9 year term, with a third of Senators elected every 3 years.
The only caveat to this is that after the first election of all 99 elected senators, there would be 33 who would have a term of 3 years and 33 who would have a term of 6 years, so as to ensure that future elections can take place at the 3 year interval for a third of the seats. The only question not answered here is that of limiting the number of elected terms for a Senator (e.g. 3 or 4 terms maximum). I’m not proposing any restriction, but others may take a different view.
In addition to the 99 directly elected Senators this model proposes 50 Senate Seats (called Term Senators). These seats are allocated immediately following every General election by political party leaders, using whatever method they wish. The downside is that these seats could be 100% dependent upon patronage, although there is a limitation compared with the current House of Lords where there is no limit on the amount of patronage.
As Term Senators their appointment would be limited for one term of the House of Commons at a time. These would be allocated in proportion to the elected Seats in the House of Commons. It would also be fixed, so that by-elections in the House of Commons would not affect the Term Senate composition. Only a General Election would change the composition of Term Senators.
If the seats were to be based on the current composition of the House of Commons that would be roughly 1 Term Senator for every 13 MPs elected for a political party. This is to ensure that extreme or minority parties are not over represented, but also to prevent un-necessary blocking of legislation and provide some degree of protection to an incoming government for their legislative programme. Taking the figures from the General election in 2005, Labour would have 27 Term Senate seats, Conservatives 15 seats, Liberal Democrats 5 seats and the DUP and Scottish Nationalists 1 Seat each.
There should be three basic provisions to govern the working of the Senate. These are designed to ensure the Senate works well by concentrating on the legislative programme.
1) It can not block a finance bill except with a two thirds majority, i.e. 100 votes out of the 149.
2) It can with a two thirds majority delay legislation for 3 years
3) With a simple majority it can delay legislation for one Session of Parliament.
All 149 Senators would have full voting rights in the new Senate. All would be eligible to be part of the Government (Executive) if required. By-election rules would apply to the elected Senators. However Party leaders would have the ability to recall Term Senators annually or replace them if a vacancy came about through resignation or death.
So what happens to the current members of the House of Lords? Clearly a lot of expertise is available to the current House of Lords through its current membership. One of the positive aspects of Life Peers, Law Lords, Bishops etc is the expertise they bring to the legislative table. I propose that all Peers, (including hereditary and Life), Law Lords and Bishops be allowed speaking rights without notice in the Senate but no voting rights. This still allows the element of recognition that I believe most people appreciate: and that is rewarding those who achieve great things in their life, or become an expert in their field. I would expect new Peers to continue to be created.
The role of a Senator would not be the same as that of an MP. A member of the Senate would not be funded for constituency work as their primary role would be that of scrutinising and revising the legislation before Parliament.
Like all suggestions this one is not perfect and has its flaws too. For example the party machinery will have an undue influence in the choice of candidate selection, but ultimately those candidates must go before a public vote. The Party Leaders will decide the Term Senators, however there is always the possibility that Party Members will want to have a say in who becomes a Term Senator. I can foresee wise party leaders delegating this responsibility internally to make for greater political involvement of party members.
The final question must be over the role of the Queen and whether having a fully elected Second Chamber could be perceived to undermine the Monarchy. However by preserving the right of Peers to Speak without notice, we enshrine the right of the Monarch to attend the Senate, which would allow the Queen’s Speech to not only continue but to give additional protection for the future.
This is just one model amongst many that are proposed. This particular suggestion clearly has its pluses and minuses. House of Lords reform is back on the Westminster Agenda and the Conservatives need to be prepared to seize the initiative on this subject.
Climate Change
You may not be aware of the quite disastrous course that
the Coalition is pursuing on energy and "climate". These issues are seriously
addressed at http://www.dimwatt.eu/.
January 30th Conservative Policy Forum - Alternative Vote
January 23rd Downing St Gate - House of Lords Reform - Gerry Adam's Resignation - Local Initiatives
January 16th Climate Change - Conservatives for AV - Alternative Vote - Manifesto Planning
January 9th Inefficient Post, Rudeness or Incompetence? Update - European Union - How did we end up in the Euro debt union? - Climate Change
January 2nd 2011 ***Happy New Year*** - House of Lords - Dear John Reid
January 30th Conservative Policy Forum - Alternative Vote
January 23rd Downing St Gate - House of Lords Reform - Gerry Adam's Resignation - Local Initiatives
January 16th Climate Change - Conservatives for AV - Alternative Vote - Manifesto Planning
January 9th Inefficient Post, Rudeness or Incompetence? Update - European Union - How did we end up in the Euro debt union? - Climate Change
January 2nd 2011 ***Happy New Year*** - House of Lords - Dear John Reid
Conservative Policy
Forum
The Conservative Policy Forum was
re-launched in Birmingham on Thursday of this week. It was rather like a
Conservative Pensioners Club outing. Why launch it during the day on a
Thursday? The first half hour was spent by the great and the good (Baroness
Warsi, Jeremy Middleton, Fiona Hodgson, Natalie Elphicke) congratulating each
other on how well they had done and how wonderful they were. Then we had the
re-launch.
The CPF Council is wholly
appointed, including the two representatives of the voluntary Party. All the
Regional co-ordinators are appointed. They have attempted to resurrect the old
CPC. That is good except that the old CPC National committee were elected by
and accountable to Party members. When will they learn that in a voluntary
organisation, top down re-organisation does not work.
Jeremy Middleton described the
existing CPF as like a dead parrot. Who let it die Jeremy? Why do you think
the new CPF will not suffer the same fate? The structure has not been changed.
When the supremo Oliver Letwin gets tired watch it
disappear.
The worst aspect of the re-launch
is that current issues will not be debated, because we are told that might lead
to criticism and that might lead to dissent, so the main function will be to
look ahead to 2015 and 2020 to guess what will be the big political issues
then. Some hope. We were told that the Government's programme was settled
and would not be changed and it will take until 2012 for it to be implemented so
no point in discussing current issues.
An opportunity has been lost by a
combination of arrogance and incompetence. The voluntary representatives of
the grass roots have let themselves be rolled over and have their tummies
tickled. When will they stand up and fight for ordinary members? Within two
years these volunteers will have moved on and this CPF will have gradually died.
R.I.P.
For further details abount the
relaunch see Caroline's
Diary
The Alternative
Vote
The following letter was published in The Times on Monday 24
January:The forthcoming referendum on the Alternative Vote is a critical constitutional moment for our country – the first time in British national history that voters can shape how their preferences are counted. It will provide an opportunity for everyone, regardless of their party, to make a positive change in rebuilding some of the legitimacy of Parliament and in restoring credibility to the political system in the UK. AV is not perfect – no voting system is – but it is the only reform option currently on the table that promises to modernise the way politics is conducted in the UK. We believe that there are four compelling reasons to support this change
First, AV would guarantee that most MPs enjoyed support from a majority of their local voters. Under First Past the Post more than two thirds of MPs do not have such support. This shift would greatly enhance the legitimacy and status of MPs at large, and it would make them listen much more keenly to what all their local voters want – going beyond the bounds of a single party’s supporters.
Second, AV would allow all voters to express their preferences sincerely. At present millions of voters engage in tactical voting, supporting a candidate or party whom they like less in order to avoid ‘wasting’ their vote. AV lets voters cast a sincere first preference vote for the party they rank first, however large or small it is, and then use a second or later preference to help decide the constituency outcome.
Third, by making it easier for small parties to demonstrate that they can attract support, AV will increase competition in British political life, both locally for each MP, and nationally for the biggest political parties. More vigorous and effective competition will improve the quality of representation and of the UK’s democratic process.
Fourth, AV will allow British voters to make decisions about what kind of government they want to see – a single party government that draws on very widespread support across the country, or a coalition government formed by two or more parties where there is no strong winner. Unlike PR, coalitions are not made inevitable by this change of voting system. Unlike the current system, a majority government will have to focus on gaining majority support in more than half the constituencies of the country
Professor David Held – London School of Economics
Professor Patrick Dunleavy – London School of Economics
Professor Helen Margetts – Oxford University
Etc.
Downing St
Gate
According to Chris Mullin's Diaries George Bush and Tony
Blair had a video conference each week. Shouldn't we be allowed to see them.
They may even throw light on the Iraq War. I wonder if they have been seen
by the Chilcot enquiry? Maybe they will do to Tony Blair what the Watergate
tapes did to George Bush.
House of Lords
Reform
by
John E.
Strafford
Before setting out whether
or how the House of Lords should be reformed it is necessary to define the
powers which it should have. These
powers would have to spell out what would happen if, on occasion the two
democratically elected Houses could not agree.
If there is a one party majority in the House of Commons the Salisbury convention would apply
whereby, if the governing Party in the House of Commons had the policy in its
manifesto the House of Lords would not block its implementation. On financial matters the House of Commons
would remain supreme. If there was a
minority or a coalition government and a difference between the two Houses there
would have to be negotiation.
Ultimately the House of Lords would only be able to delay legislation for
one year, with the exception of major constitutional
reform.
Government Ministers should not
sit in the second chamber so that there is a clear distinction in the roles and
powers of the two chambers.
“The absence of any proper
legitimacy has prevented the Lords doing what a second chamber should do;
providing a check on the government of the day pushing through big
constitutional changes without due concern for the rights or interests of those
affected”.
It is this lack of
legitimacy, which is the great weakness of the House of Lords. It is unacceptable in a democracy that a key
part of the legislature is not elected and unaccountable to the people. An elected House of Lords would give it
legitimacy and it would then be able to claim independence from the House of
Commons.
A directly elected House of Lords
should have the power to block constitutional reform unless that reform has been
put to the people either at a General Election or in a
referendum.
There is a case to be made that
only 80% of the House of Lords should be elected in order to keep within it some
of the undoubted expertise which some members of it have. This could be overcome if the House
co-opted non-voting individuals on to its committees to consider specific
Bills. It would be invidious to have
both appointed and elected members in the same
chamber.
The people should directly elect
100% of the House of Lords.
Once we have accepted that the House
of Lords should be an elected body the question arises as to what form the
election should take. Were the House of
Lords to be elected in exactly the same way as the House of Commons it is
inevitable that comparisons would be made and the question asked “Why should one
group of people have more power than another group when both have been elected
in the same way?” In recognition of the
different roles the two Houses should have it would seem sensible to emphasise
this by having them elected in different ways.
The two most canvassed ways for
electing the House of Lords are the Closed Party List system and the Single
Transferable Vote system of election.
The Closed Party list system is undemocratic for it deprives the voter of
the right to choose who their representative is or which representative they do
not want, because the candidates are determined by the political parties. Both our two main political parties
manipulate their candidate lists. The
Closed Party List system is a failed system which leads to voter
disillusion. We can see its effects in
the elections to the European Parliament.
In the 2009 elections to the
European Parliament twenty one countries had national lists, so in those
countries there was no concept of territorial/constituency representation. Nine
countries, including the United Kingdom had closed lists, where effectively the
voter could only vote for a party, and had no say whatsoever on the individual
he or she wished to represent them. Is
it any surprise that the turnout in every election for the European Parliament
has decreased from the previous election?
In the first election of 1979 turnout was 61.99%. By 2009 it had fallen to 43%. Significantly
the voter has recognised the undemocratic nature of the closed list. In those
countries which operate such a system, in 2009 their turnout was 38.5%, compared
to a turnout of 44.02% by those countries that do not use the closed list. (Note Belgium and Luxembourg are excluded
from this calculation as their turnouts are over 90%) The closed list reduced turnout by over
5.5%.
We can also see the effect of the
closed list within the United Kingdom.
Members of the European Parliament in Great Britain are elected using the
closed list form of proportional representation. Northern Ireland is treated differently from
the rest of the United Kingdom. It has
used the Single Transferable Vote system of proportional representation since
1979 to elect its three MEPs.
Turnout in Northern Ireland has been
higher than in Great Britain in every European election since they began in
1979. In Northern Ireland voters can
choose between candidates and can be confident that their vote will not be
wasted, either because their favourite candidate was elected easily or by
backing a candidate who turned out to have little support, in which case their
second vote would count. The proof of the pudding is in the
eating:
In 2009 the turnout in Northern
Ireland was 42.8% as against a turnout for the United Kingdom as a whole of
34.7%. Traditionally turnout in
Northern Ireland in General Elections is lower than the turnout in Great
Britain. e.g. in the 2010 General Election turnout in Northern Ireland was 57.6%
whereas for the United Kingdom it was 65.1%
Single Transferable Voting uses “preferential” voting in constituencies
electing a number of members – instead of voting with an “X”, electors cast their ballot by
numbering the candidates in order of preference – 1, 2, and 3 and so on. Candidates don’t need a majority of the
votes to be elected, just a known “Quota” or share of the votes, allowing
minority viewpoints to be represented.
Because voters are able to rank all
candidates in order of preference, few votes are wasted. With STV, a voter can safely give their
first preference vote to their favourite candidate because the vote will be
transferred if that candidate cannot win.
Each constituency will almost certainly be
represented by a number of people from different parties. Voters are more likely to have
representatives they want and the overall result is likely to be broadly
proportional to the number of votes cast for each
party.
In addition, because each party puts up a
number of candidates and voters can choose between them, the voter is not stuck
with the party’s favourite. They can
choose whom they think will work hardest; or on the basis of gender or age; or
for people they agree with on particular issues. The parties therefore have an incentive to
put up a team of candidates who reflect the diversity of
society.
One alternative to STV which might be
attractive to those with a strong feeling for tradition would be to go back to
the electoral system prior to single member constituencies. For six hundred years constituencies
consisted of two, three, or even four member seats. If we were to opt for three member seats
throughout the United Kingdom this would introduce an element of proportionality
into our electoral system. Electors
would have three votes and be able to split their votes between different
parties. This would introduce an
element of competition between members of the same party as well as between the
parties. It would give voters a real
choice. It would also reduce the power
of the parties. It was in order to
strengthen the power of the parties which led to the single member
constituencies in the first place. It
is time for the pendulum to swing back the other
way.
In an environment where consumer
choice is the dominant force and people increasingly look at politics as
consumers, why not have multi-member constituencies?
Competition and choice improve
standards. Lazy members, or those who
did not represent the views of their constituents properly, would face internal
competition, and there would be fewer barriers to new talent and new ideas
coming forward. Almost certainly there
would be an increase in the number of women in Parliament. If electors could choose from different
candidates from within the same political Party Parliament would become more
representative of the people. The
system would be more proportional.
Election to the House of Lords should be
either by the Single Transferrable Vote or by Multi- member
constituencies.
There is general agreement that the
current size of the House of Lords is too large. Many members rarely, if at all turn up. It could easily be halved in size without
any loss of function.
The House of Lords should consist of
150 three member constituencies giving it a total of 450
members.
Finally, it has been suggested that members of the House of Lords
should be elected for a single twelve or fifteen year term. This would be a negation of democracy and
would make those elected unaccountable to the electorate.
Members should be elected for five year
terms.
Gerry Adams resigns from the House of CommonsHere’s the relevant legislation – House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 as amended and in force today within the United Kingdom.
By taking an office of profit under the Crown
A Member wishing to resign applies to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for one of the offices, which he or she retains until the Chancellor appoints another applicant or until the holder applies for release from it. (Every new warrant issued revokes the previous holder). It is usual to grant the offices alternately; as this enables two Members to retire at precisely the same time. Indeed, on 17 December 1985, fifteen Ulster Unionist MPs resigned on the same day.
Upon receipt of a Member’s application for the Chiltern Hundreds, a warrant of appointment is signed (in the presence of a witness) by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Since 1850, these have been registered and retained in the Treasury. On the day the warrant is signed a letter is sent to the Member, omitting the letters MP after his name, to inform him that he has been appointed to the office. Letters of notification are also sent at the same time to the offices of the Speaker and the Government and opposition whips. As soon as practical, the appointment is noted in the London Gazette. It is also the practice for the Treasury to issue a brief press notice. The disqualification of a Member because of his new office is recorded in Votes and Proceedings although there are no proceedings in the house and it is not recorded in the Official Report.
If a Stewardship is granted during a recess, the new writ for a by-election cannot be issued until the House meets again. If it is granted during the session, the party’s whip is free to move for a new writ immediately after the Chancellor of the Exchequer has signed the warrant of appointment (see also Factsheet M7 Parliamentary Elections).
It looks like the Stewardship due up next is the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.
Local
initiatives
by Dan Hannon
MEP
At present, there is a rift between the political class and the rest of
the country, between la Grande Bretagne officielle and la Grande
Bretagne profonde. Obliging MPs to debate and vote on measures that the
country as a whole deems important will help to close that gap.Purely representative democracy was a product of its time. When, in 1774, Edmund Burke lectured the Electors of Bristol about not sacrificing his judgment to their opinion, it could take more than a week to travel by coach from Bristol to London. And, even in 1774, the Electors of Bristol were unimpressed: they turfed Burke out at the next election.
Opponents of referendums sometimes argue that they empower a prejudiced, ignorant and fickle public. This, of course, is an argument against democracy itself; and, in any case, it’s not true. To take one example, those US states which make use of citizens’ initiative procedures are less likely to have reintroduced the death penalty than those which don’t, and the only direct referendum on the issue, in Ireland, resulted in abolition. Switzerland, which makes more use of referendums than any state in Europe, has evolved a commensurately involved and educated electorate. As the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has put it, “A nation does not have to be judged fit for democracy; it becomes fit through democracy”.
As for where to start, how about here?
Climate
Change
Help spread this important message:
Campaign to Repeal Climate Change Act 2008 We are an all-party and non-party campaign We want the Climate Change Act 2008 to be repealed because it is based on flawed science. Stop the Emissions Trading Scheme, because it is pointless and expensive costing the taxpayer £18.3 billion per year for the next 40 years. Carbon taxes will cause the export of British jobs to countries without carbon taxes. Stop carbon taxes, because they will increase the price of food, clothes and travel. Stop carbon taxes, because they will increase the average energy bill by £880 a year. Stop wind farms. Please ACT NOW and write to your MP and SAY REPEAL THE ACT! Change is what the climate does. We support adaptation to climate warming and cooling and not the mitigation of CO2. There is NO scientific evidence for dangerous human-caused global warming. There is NO scientific evidence that CO2 in the atmosphere causes extreme weather events. The 2008 Climate Change Act commits Britain, uniquely in the world, to cutting its CO2 emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, at a cost of up to £18.3 billion every year for the next four decades. In cash terms this amounts to £734 billion, making it far and away the most costly law ever put through Parliament. It will equate to more than £880 a year for every household in the land, as we pay for thousands more useless windmills and fast-rising carbon taxes, soaring electricity bills, and other draconian carbon reduction regulatory costs. When there is no scientific evidence for dangerous human-caused global warming. The Climate Change Act will wreck the economic recovery by causing the export of British jobs to countries without carbon taxes, cause fuel poverty for over 5 million British citizens, raise the cost of food, clothes, travel and continue to trash our landscape with wind farms. In short it will mean endless misery for no reason whatsoever. Furthermore, the Climate Change Act’s supporters, could not begin to explain how that 80 per cent target is to be attained without closing down virtually the entire British economy. The fact is our politicians have committed a catastrophic policy blunder! This is not a party political issue, Repeal the Act! is an all-party and non-party campaign, we are truly fighting in the national interest to secure Britain’s economic future. Please spread this message, invite your Facebook friends to join us and write to your MP on ‘Investigate the Met Office’ and ‘Repeal the Act’, if you have not done so already. JOIN US
ConservativesforAV
Anthony Wells at YouGov on how
AV could actually help the Conservatives.
In our recent polls the remaining Liberal Democrat supporters say they would prefer a Conservative government to a Labour one by 51% to 16%. This is not a reflection of shifting Liberal Democrat opinion, rather it is that many Labour-sympathising Liberal Democrats have deserted the party. Regardless of the reasons though, it suggests that if AV were to be introduced, the remaining Liberal Democrat voters would tend to give their second preferences to the Conservative party. AV may in fact end up helping the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives rather than Labour.
by Paul Goodman
It's clearly important that the Party has its own policy-making programme up and
running well before the next election - and that it isn't merged by stealth with
that of the Liberal Democrats. (The Downing Street Policy Unit can make policy
only for the Coalition, not the Party.)
This is why I wrote recently that Graham Brady, the 1922 Committee Chairman, should issue David Cameron an ultimatum next summer if Downing Street has, by then, made no move to form party policy for the next election.
Today, there's encouraging news to report.
Oliver Letwin has written a letter to all MPs headed: "Conservative Party policy development". Its main points are -
The letter is accompanied by a brief "Issues Document" -
a letter covering two sides of paper which -
It's clearly important that the Party has its own policy-making programme up and
running well before the next election - and that it isn't merged by stealth with
that of the Liberal Democrats. (The Downing Street Policy Unit can make policy
only for the Coalition, not the Party.)This is why I wrote recently that Graham Brady, the 1922 Committee Chairman, should issue David Cameron an ultimatum next summer if Downing Street has, by then, made no move to form party policy for the next election.
Today, there's encouraging news to report.
Oliver Letwin has written a letter to all MPs headed: "Conservative Party policy development". Its main points are -
- A Conservative Policy Forum (CPF) programme will be launched on January 27.
- Five CPF policy groups will be formed. MPs will be able to sit on these groups.
- These will mirror the five policy groups set up by the 1922 Committee (which cover the economy, home affairs, foreign affairs, the public services and the environment). "We are working with Graham Brady to ensure that these complement the work of the 1922 Committee."
- A group of MPs will form a "drafting group", "pulling together all the identified challenges into a final policy document".
- Robert Halfon will be an "MP representative on the CPF Council".
- The Party is "keen to identify an MP in each region to help coordinate and drive forward the setting up of constituency-based CPF groups".
- Looks back to the policy-making process during the last Parliament.
- Claims that "in the course of the coalition negotiations, most of our Opposition programme was maintained".
- Adds that "we found that a combination of our parties’ best ideas and attitudes produced a programme for government that was even more radical and comprehensive than our separate manifestos".
"But we can’t sit back and think our work
will be done in 2012, when our reforms will be well on the way to full
implementation. Britain will change, and with that change will come new
challenges. We need to look ahead to the future challenges that Britain will
face in 2015, 2020 and beyond. And that’s where you come in. Individually, in
groups, talking to experts, liaising with your local MP, working within the
newly-invigorated Conservative Policy Forum, we want you to think through the
challenges that Britain will face in the years to come."
It goes on -
"We want you to ask key questions such
as:
- What will be the state of Britain in 2015 and 2020?
- How will the government’s current structural reform programme change Britain – and what new challenges will emerge as a result of that change?
- What are the likely economic, social, security and environmental pressures which we will face in 2015 and 2020?
In particular, beyond the coalition’s
programme for government, we want you to look at which questions we will need to
ask to be able to:
- rise to the challenge of an ageing population and other demographic changes;
- keep our nation and citizens safe amidst the new security challenges at home and overseas;
- make the most of changes in technology and innovation, and support enterprise;
- ensure we have an adequate skills base to meet the future demands of the market;
- respond to increasing pressures on our natural resources and changes to our global climate;
- meet the economic challenges and opportunities of emerging economies;
- ensure policy takes account of geographical differences in our nation;
- strengthen the family, help the vulnerable and poor in our society, and tackle the causes of poverty; and,
- support ‘big citizens’ and the ‘Big Society’?
These are just some of the areas we want
you to look into. We want you to think as widely and as deeply as
possible."
There are criticisms that can be made of the letter and questions that
arise from it, for example -
- The list of key questions is extremely thin. There's nothing substantial about constitutional issues, for example.
- The Coalition isn't more "radical and comprehensive" than the Conservative manifesto, and this claim suggests that governing with the Liberal Democrats is better than governing alone.
- It isn't clear to what degree, if at all, Conservative Cabinet members and other Ministers will be involved in this process. I gather that this will vary from Department to Department: that if the Minister in question's enthusiastic about it, he'll consult with the groups and see their papers - but that if he isn't, he won't.
- It's not evident what status the final document will have, or how it will be considered when the manifesto's written.
- How CPC members of the five groups will be selected isn't set out.
- How local CPC groups will relate to the five groups isn't established.
Inefficient Post, Rudeness
or Incompetence? - Update
In the last two months I have
written to the following senior members of the Tory Party about the state of the
Party's membership, an important subject in view of the fact that over 100,000
members have left the Party since David Cameron became Leader. I set out
below the response:
Lord Ashcroft - excellent
response, he telephoned me within a couple of days.
Don Porter - Former Chairman of
the National Convention - excellent response, arranged a meeting within a couple
of days.
Baroness Warsi - Party
Co-Chairman - standard reply from her office.
Andrew Feldman - Party
C0-Chairman - no response.
Stephen Gilbert - Prime
Minister's political secretary - no
response.
Graham Brady - Chairman of the
1922 Committee - no response - emailed acknowledgement from secretary and
apology.
Jeremy Middleton - Chairman of
the National Convention - no
response.
Fiona Hodgson - Vice President,
national Convention - no
response.
Steve Bell - Southern Region
Co-ordinator - acknowledgement with promise of response - none
received.
It is no wonder that the
Conservative Party is facing serious problems, which will only get worse as
membership declines further. Until and unless there is more democratic
accountability in the Party the future looks bleak. Sad
really!
European
Union
By Bernard JenkinLast updated at 1:00 PM on 9th January 2011
David Cameron used the promise of parliamentary
sovereignty in order to persuade a lot of Tory MPs to vote for him as party
leader in 2005, but now it is under threat
Chancellor Norman Lamont’s young and ambitious Parliamentary Private Secretary came and sat with us to try to persuade us to vote for the treaty. We refused. He looked stunned that two ambitious young MPs would throw away their ministerial careers in such a way.
Today’s Commons contains one of the largest intakes of new Conservative MPs in history. They now face the same pressures we faced then. The young man who approached me in the tea room, William Hague, is now Foreign Secretary.
If there was one thing which David Cameron used in order to persuade a lot of Tory MPs to vote for him as party leader in 2005, it was that he was serious about the issue of parliamentary sovereignty. The sovereignty of Parliament is the foundation principle of the United Kingdom’s democratic constitution.
But some of our judges openly question this. One, Lord Hope (Deputy President of the Supreme Court, no less) said that ‘parliamentary sovereignty is no longer . . . absolute’. He added that ‘step by step’ it ‘is being qualified’.
In his view, it is now the ‘rule of law enforced by the courts’ that is ‘the ultimate controlling factor on which our constitution is based’.
The sovereignty of Parliament is not merely some arcane matter of dusty constitutional curiosity. It is the very root of British democracy and affects the daily lives of every citizen. It should be the duty of MPs to protect it on behalf of our voters and for future generations.
Parliamentary sovereignty means that the last word in determining matters of public policy lies with Parliament. A threat to parliamentary sovereignty is a threat to democracy itself.
Parliament is an elected body. There is a chronic democratic deficit in the European Union, and no one elects judges in this country.
Nor should they be elected: judges are appointed to determine questions of law, not to govern us politically. This, constitutionally, is what makes Britain a democracy.
Lord Hope, Deputy President of the Supreme Court, has
said that 'parliamentary sovereignty is no longer ...
absolute'
Before the Election, David Cameron promised a Sovereignty Bill. In his speech entitled Giving Power Back To The People he said: ‘As we have no written constitution . . . we have no explicit legal guarantee that the last word on our laws stays in Britain . . . so, as well as making sure that further power cannot be handed to the EU without a referendum, we will also introduce a new law, in the form of a United Kingdom Sovereignty Bill, to make it clear that ultimate authority stays in this country, in our Parliament.’
Later, he promised ‘to strengthen the place of Parliament at the heart of our democracy’ and that he would make sure that ‘Britain’s laws can no longer be decided by unaccountable judges’.
But, instead of a Sovereignty Bill, on Tuesday, MPs will be asked to pass Clause 18 of the EU Bill. Ministers claim that this will deliver the Prime Minister’s pledge to protect our sovereignty.
It will do nothing of the sort. Parliamentary supremacy, or sovereignty, or primacy doesn’t feature in it. As currently drafted, it is so feeble it would effectively hand over control of parliamentary sovereignty to unelected judges.
To make matters worse, the Government has explained parliamentary sovereignty as a ‘common law principle’. This is just rubbish. Parliament claimed sovereignty when it cut off the head of Charles I.
The Government is playing into the hands of the judges. The common law is judge-made law. The judges are its authors and its guardians. They may change it whenever they see fit.
Professor Adam Tomkins, of Glasgow University, the legal adviser to the House of Lords Constitutional Affairs Committee, has warned that Clause 18 could actually promote judicial meddling in parliamentary sovereignty. He calls it ‘the proverbial red rag to the bull’.
This is why some of us are asking other Conservative MPs, particularly newly elected ones, to vote for crucial amendments to affirm parliamentary sovereignty. We are asking them: How much can each of us afford to renege personally on the promises made to constituents and to Conservative activists? Does integrity matter?
Before the Election, David Cameron, paraphrasing Winston Churchill, said: ‘Country before party. I say to MPs, when you get into Parliament you must vote according to your conscience and then your view of the national interest and your view of your constituents’ interests and then your party.’
Needless to say, debate on the EU Bill is being severely limited by the Government. It is no coincidence that Clause 18 is being debated on Tuesday, the day after the House resumes after the Christmas break, so there is as little time for discussion as possible and as few MPs as possible will be present.
New MPs will be threatened, cajoled, promised preferment and the rest. They will be assailed by whips, wooed by senior Ministers in the tea room, just as I was when I was a new boy, and promotion will be dangled in front of them. In this way, the Government hopes to contain the rebellion. But does there not come a point at which the Conservative Party must finally make itself felt in this Coalition?
It is tragic that a Conservative Prime Minister should be willing to place parliamentary sovereignty in such danger.
The EU Bill may have been designed to look ‘Euro-sceptic’. But close scrutiny shows that it is the opposite. It is a policy deliberately devised to promote Liberal Democrat ideology – part of the disastrous constitutional revolution which is under way.
The Liberal Democrats have never defended parliamentary sovereignty. They want to destroy it.
They seek not only a federal Europe but also a written constitution for the United Kingdom.
This would be a legal document, enforceable by the courts, destroying parliamentary sovereignty and replacing it with rule by judges.
If Mr Cameron and Mr Hague have the national interest at heart, they will not let this constitutional outrage occur.
How did we end up in the Euro debt union?
Like me, perhaps you were a little miffed to discover that non-Euro member Britain turns out to be liable for Euro zone debts. Despite keeping out of the currency union, we’ve somehow got ensnared in the Euro debt union.
How did this happen?
The key deal, making the UK liable for the Stabilisation Mechanism, was done in May last year, after the old Parliament was dissolved, but before the new one got going.
Out-going Chancellor, Alistair Darling, negotiated the deal on May 9th, during the General Election.
But there is more to it than that.
Convention means government cannot embark on new policy between Parliaments. And indeed, we know that Mr Darling consulted George Osborne before he went ahead and signed Britain up.
So, what did those Darling consulted have to say about the deal? A firm “no”, perhaps, on the basis that we had to deal with the deficit ahead of bailing out the Euro? Or did they nod along with established Treasury policy?
According to the reply I’ve just got from an FoI request, “the parties did cooperate with one another”. And “with senior civil servants” too. Although they won't tell us what approval was actually given.
Seeing how Parliament had not approved the deal, incoming ministers must have known that they could have quashed the whole Darling deal, had they sought to.
It sounds to me that they won’t let us read what incoming Coalition ministers actually said because they fear it might just look a bit embarrassing – or in Sir Humphrey-speak “the context here deserves special consideration”.
We keep being told that Britain will only face massive Euro bailout liabilities until 2013. But if ministers had been a little savvier on day one, we’d not be liable for the debt crashes about to happen in Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland in 2011 and 2012.
If I am wrong, ministers should publish details of the advice that they were given and the instructions that they gave.
Posted on 6 January 2011 by Douglas Carswell MP
2nd January 2011
***Happy New Year***
House of
Lords
The BBC Parliament Channel have
been showing the debate about the future of the House of Lords recorded at the
Royal Opera House. Lord Adonis made some interesting comments which were not
refuted by the other members of the panel. I show them below:
The least active members of
the House of Lords are the Crossbenchers, most of whom rarely speak or
vote.
The overwhelmingly majority of
active members of the Lords are the former politicians - MPs, Councillors,
political advisers.
Virtually all of the worst
legislation in recent years went through the House of Lords without them
blocking it - Poll Tax, Rail Privatisation, Child Support Agency, ID
Cards.
Interesting
Points.
Dear John Reid…
Dear John Reid,
Is the electoral system you decry as being “unfair” in today’s Telegraph
by any chance the same voting system as the one that Labour uses to election its
own party leader?
I only ask because they are both called the Alternative Vote and I haven’t noticed you complaining about Ed Miliband’s election as leader being unfair or therefore calling for your colleagues to oust him.
By the way, a little tip about Fiji, which I notice you and colleagues have become keen on quoting. It’s a military dictatorship and, you know, if you go round citing its dislike of the alternative vote as a reason to oppose it, it might just sound to someone that you are admiring the political judgement of a military dictatorship. I know Labour got a bit authoritarian under Tony Blair, but even so…
Yours etc.
I only ask because they are both called the Alternative Vote and I haven’t noticed you complaining about Ed Miliband’s election as leader being unfair or therefore calling for your colleagues to oust him.
By the way, a little tip about Fiji, which I notice you and colleagues have become keen on quoting. It’s a military dictatorship and, you know, if you go round citing its dislike of the alternative vote as a reason to oppose it, it might just sound to someone that you are admiring the political judgement of a military dictatorship. I know Labour got a bit authoritarian under Tony Blair, but even so…
Yours etc.
If anybody had told me this in 1981, I would have laughed at them