Saturday 8 November 2008

That No One Should Be Missed

Following on from yesterday's post about how it is frank appointment (such as the House of Lords) and very open elections (such as the American primaries) that deliver diversity, whereas the very closed and pseudo-electoral appointment system that fills most seats in the House of Commons does not, it is worth noting that the one ethnic minority member of the Scottish Parliament was at the top of the SNP list in Glasgow (so bound to get in, and thus effectively appointed), that the one ethnic minority member of the Welsh Assembly was also elected off a list (I do not know where on it he was), and that the one ethnic minority member of the Northern Ireland Assembly was elected in a very multi-member system indeed, which can be seen either as de facto appointment or as exceptionally open election, depending on how you want to look at it.

Trevor Phillips should be defending the House of Lords (to which he will doubtless be elevated soon enough) while calling for a primary system for the House of Commons. In the course of each Parliament, each party should submit a shortlist of the two candidates nominated by the most branches (including those of affiliated organisations where applicable) to a binding ballot of the whole electorate at constituency level for the Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, and at national level for the Leader.

All the ballots for Prospective Parliamentary Candidate should be held on the same day, and all the ballots for Leader should be held on the same day. Each of these ballots should be held at public expense at the request of five per cent or more of registered voters in the constituency or the country, as appropriate.

Each candidate in each of these ballots should have a tax-free campaigning allowance out of public funds, conditional upon matching funding by resolution of a membership organisation. The name of that organisation should appear on the ballot paper after that of the candidate. There should be a ban on all other campaign funding, and on all campaign spending above twice that allowance.

Furthermore, in the course of each Parliament, each party should submit to a binding ballot of the whole electorate the ten policies proposed by the most branches (including those of affiliated organisations where applicable), with voters entitled to vote for up to two, and with the highest-scoring seven guaranteed inclusion in the next General Election Manifesto.

All of these ballots should be held on the same day, and each of them should be held at public expense at the request of five per cent or more of registered voters in the country. The official campaign for each policy should have a tax-free campaign allowance, conditional upon matching funding by resolution of a membership organisation. The name of that organisation should appear on the ballot paper after that of the policy. And there should be ban on all other campaign funding, and on all campaign spending above twice that allowance.

And speaking of party lists, what happens when someone elected as an Independent list member dies? I assume that there is a by-election using First Past The Post, but I might be wrong. Anyway, there must be something. Which would account for the sudden ubiquity of Jim Sillars. His wife, Margo MacDonald, seems very unlikely to survive to the next Holyrood Elections. So the man who used his column in the Scottish edition of the Sun to urge abstention in the devolution referendum, on the grounds that the whole thing was an intra-Unionist dispute and of no interest to proper Nationalists, is clearly lining up to make himself and his candidacy the focal point of Fundamentalist Nationalist disaffection with the old, old enemy, Alex Salmond.

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