British Commonwealth

These foreign-born voters are precisely that: everyone born outside the United Kingdom, including Cliff Richard, Peter Hitchens and me. Although he does not vote, the Duke of Edinburgh would also fit the bill.

And there are two constituencies, out of 650, with bare majorities of such voters, most of whom would in any case be British passport-holders? What is all the fuss about there, then? It is well within living memory that at least 10 times that number had electorates at least 50 per cent of which held Irish nationality.

Anglosphere enthusiasts might care to consider that American citizens have never been eligible to vote in this country, and that British citizens are not so eligible in the Irish Republic (where, unless I am very much mistaken, they never have been), in Canada, in Australia or in New Zealand. Nor, indeed, in the United States. The former Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark may now be a Knight of the Order of Australia. But he could not vote if he moved there.

There are countries in the Commonwealth that were never in the British Empire, but their membership suits their regional interests today. The nationality requirement for voting by permanent residents ought to be abolished, provided that you would have to be a British citizen in order to be a parliamentary candidate in Great Britain, or a British or Irish citizen in order to be a parliamentary candidate in Northern Ireland. Why would anyone not in that position even want to be such a candidate?

Likewise, if the voting age is to come down to 16, and that does now look inevitable, then, without prejudice to the position of anyone who was already sitting, the minimum age both for MPs and for jurors ought to go up to 30. There ought also to be a ban on any annual personal or corporate donation to a political party above the level of the trade union political levy, currently around three pounds.

All in the first Queen's Speech, this year.

Ed Miliband, over to you.