Getting Things In Proportion

I loathe the idea of Stalinists, Trotskyists, neo-Fascists, neo-Nazis and so forth in Parliament, just as I loathe being subject to the legislative will of such people through the (secret) EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. It has always baffled and angered me that Eurofederalism, and support for electoral systems such as throw up these people, are regarded as centrist causes. It seems to work by a sort of tautology, defining as "the centre" those who support those causes.

Nor am I any fan of the abolition of any effective representation of rural areas, by means of ludicrously over-large constituencies and wards. Nor of party lists. Nor of mountains of spoiled papers. Nor of the mind-boggling system in the Irish Republic whereby most people who lose their seats lose them to members of the same party as themselves. Nor of governments emerging from around London's very best dinner tables weeks, or even months, after elections.

But it would be good to see the Jacksonite-Eustonite Junta have to put up under its own banner instead of under that of the two (soon to be three) pretendedly distinct and rival parties that it has stolen, and be royally thrashed accordingly, because it has no popular support whatever (and, of course, believes that that is exactly as things should be). The looks on their ghastly faces would be the stuff of calendars and commemorative mugs for many years to come.

In a second chamber to which each area having a Lord Lieutenant returned five members, with each elector voting for one candidate and with the top five being declared elected, we could reasonably expect a full set of 99 Senators, and to be the only party in that position. A neocon party would, of course, get none, both because of what it stood for, and because any residency requirement in order to prevent parachuting in would make it impossible for any such candidate to stand outside London. (There would be separate provision to ensure Cross Benchers, and voices of moral and spiritual values. At a real push, the Axis might just manage a couple of the former, although I very much doubt it.)

Both for the Senate and for the House of Commons, in the course of each Parliament, each party should, in the course of each Parliament, put to a binding ballot of the whole electorate in the constituency the two putative Parliamentary Candidates to have received the most nominations from its branches (including those of affiliates). So no chance of Evil Empire entryism there. The Commons would never have approved the Iraq War if this system had been in place, because every MP, no matter how safe his or her seat, would rightly have expected a ninety per cent vote for an anti-war challenger.

At national level, each party should elect its Leader in the same manner, again in the course of each Parliament. Blair would have been gone years ago, Cameron would never have arrived (and thanks to the above, he would never have been an MP at all), and neither Clegg nor Huhne would be about to arrive.

And each party should also put the 10 policy proposals with support from the most branches to a binding ballot of the whole national electorate. We could each vote for up to two, and the seven highest scorers would be guaranteed inclusion in the subsequent General Election manifesto. Not likely to be policies dreamt up by the current Political Class, are they?