Let's Party

I was going to post the whole of Peter Hitchens’s superlative one-piece column. Read it.

But I have had one thought of my own as a result of reading it. It looks as if we are going to get at least some sort of elective element in the second chamber. There is no reason why the parties in the second chamber need necessarily be the same as those in the House of Commons. Indeed, there is every reason why they should not be.

Assuming that a wholly elected chamber is not on the cards, the relevant legislation should provide for the creation of two new parties, to contest only what I assume would be called Senate elections. One might be called the National Party, the other the Democratic Party. Anyone would be free to register, without charge, as a member of either, though no one would be compelled to. Anyone so registered could contest that party’s primary, and could vote in it.

The Senators themselves would be elected by the English ceremonial counties, the Scottish lieutenancy areas, the Welsh preserved counties and the Northern Irish counties, a total of 99 areas. Each of us would vote for one candidate, and the three highest scorers (again, I am assuming that a wholly elected chamber is not on the cards) would be elected. Ordinarily, one would expect those to be the National Party candidate, the Democratic Party candidate, and A N Other.

The character of each of the National Party and the Democratic Party, or indeed of any other Senate party (parties contesting other elections might usefully be banned by law from contesting those to the Senate) would depend entirely on who registered as a National, or as a Democrat, or whatever, and then exercised their rights as primary voters. And Senate parties would be forbidden to receive funding other than by resolution of membership organisations, thereby requiring them to have links to wider civil society.