What is being said about postal voting is true, of course. But a bigger electoral fraud is being perpetrated in London, which still contains ten times as many quango members as Borough Councillors, Assembly Members and the Mayor put together.
And the biggest electoral fraud of all is the First Past The Post electoral system.
Instead, let the country be divided into one hundred constituencies, with as near as possible to equally sized electorates, and with their boundaries straddling the United Kingdom’s internal borders wherever possible. Each constituency would elect six MPs, with each voter voting for one candidate by means of an X, and with the six highest-scoring candidates declared elected at the end. The deposit would be replaced with a requirement of nomination by five per cent of registered voters, also applicable to other elections. And the House of Commons would have a fixed term of four years.
Meanwhile, let there be a new and powerful second chamber, the Senate, taking over the existing powers of the House of Lords, and also exercising the same revising powers in relation to devolved bodies. The Senate would have an absolute veto over any Bill passed by the House of Commons (or any devolved body) without a vote, including any EU legislation passed by negative resolution of the House of Commons. And the Senate would have the power to require a referendum on any Bill already designated as constitutional for the purposes of the procedures of the House of Commons.
Each of the ninety-nine areas having a Lord Lieutenant would elect six Senators (who would have to have been registered voters there throughout the previous five years), with each voter voting for one candidate by means of an X, and with the six highest-scoring candidates declared elected at the end. The whole country would elect a further six Crossbenchers by the same means. The Senate would have a fixed term of six years, and Senators would have the same remuneration and expenses as MPs.
Let there be this.
Let each MP and each Senator should have an annual tax-free allowance transferable to the political party or other campaigning organisation of his or her choice, conditional upon matching funding by resolution of a membership organisation. The name of that organisation would appear on the ballot paper in brackets after the party or other designation. There would be a ban on all other party funding, and on all party spending per year above 2400 times that allowance.
Let there be a system of party caucuses, and also of other caucuses, such as that of Independents, or that of more than one party banded together for the purpose. Caucuses to be made up of MPs and Senators. No MP or Senator could be a member of more than one caucus simultaneously. Each caucus including one sixth or more of the House of Commons would be entitled to a number of Ministers at each level proportionate to its numerical strength (among qualifying caucuses) in the House of Commons. The caucus would elect annually its nominees for office at each level, with each member entitled to vote for up to one third of the requisite number.
Let the Prime Minister (though still formally appointed by the monarch) be elected by the caucus having the most members in the House of Commons, or, where two or more caucuses have equally the largest number of MPs, by the caucus whose members in the House of Commons received the highest number of votes at the preceding General Election. Portfolios would be allocated by the Prime Minister (always a member of the House of Commons, and limited to two terms as Prime Minister) to those thus elected. No caucus would have more than one Minister in any one Department. Any sufficiently large caucus which refused to participate would be replaced with the next largest in terms of numerical strength in the House of Commons, or votes cast in the preceding General Election, as above.
In each House separately, let every caucus elect a number of members to each Select Committee proportionate to its strength in that House. Select Committee Chairmen would be elected by secret ballot of the whole House. Select Committees to have power to propose amendments to legislation, and to introduce legislation of their own, within their respective policy areas.
And let the situation be restored whereby any Bill is lost if it runs out of time in either House at the end of a parliamentary session.
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Hear, Hear!
ReplyDeleteIt is really very painful to know that your vote never counts, and that you can never, ever represent your home turf, even though there are lots of people on it of your own political persuasion.
On and on the media go about the Ashcroft money, targetted at specific houses FFS! The marginal seats are polled and the press go bananas. But the rest of us might as well not exist.
For centuries, all county, borough and university seats were double-member. There were still some until after the War. There is absolutely nothing scared about the single-member seat.
Introducing them at all drove the Whigs out of the Commons when there were still plenty of Whigs in the country. And keeping them keeps out of the Commons almost every shade of opinion in the country.
On sixth of seats, ministerial positions, Cabinet positions, select committee places and select committee chairs for "a pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker and anti-war party of economically social democratic, morally and socially conservative British and Commonwealth patriots". Hurray!
ReplyDeleteYou say "Let..." like the beginning of an A-Level maths question.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to take your word for that.
ReplyDelete