Of Primaries and Pluralism

An elected second chamber, which in principle I support, should not subvert the authority of the House of Commons.

Electoral reform, which again in principle I support, should not mean voting for parties rather than people, should not destroy direct local representation, should not give power to anti-constitutional and anti-democratic parties, and should not prevent necessary radical action on behalf of the poor or otherwise disadvantaged.

And there must be no constraint of any future government by any written Constitution, never mind one first written thirty or forty years ago on the back of a Rizla or in the margins of some Trotskyist rag.

But I repeat that I am in favour of electoral reform, and also of primaries. There is a very good chance the the former, at least, might be in place in time for a General Election in a year's time.

In the course of each Parliament, each party should submit its internally determined shortlist of two to a binding, independently administered ballot of the entire electorate in the constituency (for Prospective Parliamentary Candidate) and the country (for Leader).

But this would not be an obstacle to pluralism, with only candidates of the Blairite-Cameroon "Centre" (which is not mushy as generally assumed, but rather very, very nasty indeed) getting through, provided that the elections themselves were for multimember constituencies, with each of us voting for one candidate and the requisite number declared elected at the end.