Blueprint to Give Power to the People--UK (revive "dying democracy")

[Gloria]

1//The Independent, UK Published: 27 February 2006
From the new World Media Watch up now at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
Tomorrow at Buzzflash.com


http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article348005.ece



BLUEPRINT TO GIVE POWER TO THE PEOPLE

By Andrew Grice, Political Editor



A plan to revive Britain's dying democracy is launched today by an inquiry which warns that the parties are "killing" politics.

The independent Power commission calls for sweeping changes to prevent a dangerous gulf between politicians and the people becoming even wider. Its ideas include allowing the public to initiate legislation and a shift of power back from the Government to Parliament, following criticism that Tony Blair has neutered it.

The report will make uncomfortable reading for the Prime Minister, whose critics accuse him of eroding trust in politicians by going to war in Iraq on a false prospectus. But it could provide some of the key planks of a drive to re-engage people in politics already planned by Gordon Brown, his most likely successor.

The commission, chaired by the QC and Labour peer Helena Kennedy, calls for an end to the first-past-the post voting system - the goal of The Independent's Campaign for Democracy launched last May after Labour won a majority of 67 with only 35 per cent of the votes cast and the support of just 22 per cent of the electorate. The campaign has won the support of almost 40,000 people.

Power to the People, the commission's 311-page report, demands a new electoral system "to ensure that all votes count by having some influence on the final outcome of an election." Although it does not propose a specific method, it suggests its goals could be met by the single transferable vote system in which voters mark candidates in order of preference.

However, the inquiry concludes that electoral reform is only "one part of a wider 'jigsaw' of change required to re-engage the British people with their political system".

Other proposals include lowering the voting age to 16; a £10,000 limit on individual donations to parties; decentralising power from central to local government; curbs on the powers of party whips; more powers for select committees to hold ministers to account and tighter rules on media ownership.

It bluntly warns politicians they must learn from the success of single-issue pressure groups which shows that people have disengaged from parties rather than political issues.

Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws said: "Politics and government are increasingly in the hands of privileged elites as if democracy has run out of steam. Too often citizens are being evicted from decision-making - rarely asked to get involved and rarely listened to. As a result, they see no point in voting, joining a party or engaging with formal politics.

"Parliament has had many of its teeth removed and government is conducted from Downing Street."

Mr Brown, who will speak at the report's launch today and at a follow-up London conference on 25 March, believes it is a "vital contribution" to the debate on how to empower the British people and intends to drive forward the agenda within government in the run-up to the next election.

The Chancellor believes problems such as low voter turnout, youth disengagement, falling party membership and the long-term decline of trust in politicians owe more to the political system than civic culture.

Mr Brown wants Labour's reforms to be based on devolving power from the centre - greater local autonomy over spending, granting people more power over local services and encouraging new forms of involvement such as neighbourhood agreements on service delivery.

He believes that constitutional reform must be a central issue for Labour's manifesto - including Lords reform, restricting the power of the executive, and doing more to promote trust in politics and the public realm.

On the eve of the report, the Government moved to head off one of its 30 recommendations - that 70 per cent of the members of the House of Lords should be elected. Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the Lord Chancellor, announced that talks would be held with other parties in the hope of reaching a consensus on the powers and composition of the second chamber. "Lords reform is unfinished business," he said. The move is a U-turn for Mr Blair, who has previously opposed a "hybrid" second chamber which is partly elected and partly appointed.

A plan to revive Britain's dying democracy is launched today by an inquiry which warns that the parties are "killing" politics.



The independent Power commission calls for sweeping changes to prevent a dangerous gulf between politicians and the people becoming even wider. Its ideas include allowing the public to initiate legislation and a shift of power back from the Government to Parliament, following criticism that Tony Blair has neutered it.



The report will make uncomfortable reading for the Prime Minister, whose critics accuse him of eroding trust in politicians by going to war in Iraq on a false prospectus. But it could provide some of the key planks of a drive to re-engage people in politics already planned by Gordon Brown, his most likely successor.


(SNIP)

Power to the People, the commission's 311-page report, demands a new electoral system "to ensure that all votes count by having some influence on the final outcome of an election." Although it does not propose a specific method, it suggests its goals could be met by the single transferable vote system in which voters mark candidates in order of preference.



However, the inquiry concludes that electoral reform is only "one part of a wider 'jigsaw' of change required to re-engage the British people with their political system".

MORE

[Mythsaje]

1. Sounds like a few things

we could use on this side of the pond as well.

[mom cat]

2. Do you think that we could import that for the US?

[Gloria]

3. ARGH! I just came back here and noticed that more than a few

paragraphs of the text had been posted. This happens all the time with stuff from The Independent. For some reason, even if I take only a small bit, the whole damned article gets pasted into DU. I usually see it and cut it out. Tonite, it looked OK-- but apparently it wasn't.
I came back to the post too late to edit it, sorry.

[lovuian]

4. Political system faces 'meltdown'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4753876.stm

Britain's political system is in danger of "meltdown" if major changes are not made, an independent report says.
The Power Inquiry, chaired by Baroness Helena Kennedy, says voters feel they have little influence over decisions affecting their lives.

The inquiry's Power to the People report calls for a shift in control from ministers to parliament, and from central to local government.

snip...
It cites the record low turnouts in the 2001 and 2005 general elections and falling membership of political parties as proof that "the current way of doing politics is killing politics".

"Politics and government are increasingly in the hands of privileged elites, as if democracy has run out of steam," Lady Kennedy said.

"Too often, citizens are being evicted from decision-making, rarely asked to get involved and rarely listened to."

more...
I totally understand what she is saying!!!

[Warpy]

5. Well, gee whiz, what a surprise

When it becomes a contest between groups of rich men who basically think alike and don't consider the citizens of their country worthy of consideration in any regard except as marks to be swayed by advertising, people start to get discouraged and stay home on election day.

That's been happening here in the US since the Democrats took working class economic issues off the table after Nixon's election.

We the people are unrepresented and we know it. The only question now is what we are to do about it.

[lovuian]

6. A system like that ends in authoritarian rule and then there is

real trouble... something that is on the horizon...

[Up2Late]

7. Sound very familiar

If England is in "meltdown" what does that make our system? Dead I guess.

[yurbud]

9. they don't even have to do coalitions to get a majority there, do they?

That's the one thing I like about Israel's parliament and others--you can't be a minority and run the government with just your party.

That coalition thing would be good here too.

The other problem they have is the influence of big business on Labor, much like the DLC here, and the subversion of Labor in New Zealand.

The party in NZ applied neo-liberalism domestically, which meant their was no real progressive alternative, so the left had to start a new party.

[iverglas]

10. how would that work?

A party could just say "okay, we're going to govern now ..."?

Nah. The party has to have the confidence of the House.

It can do that by having a majority of the seats -- which Blair actually has, and which Chrétien had up here in Canada -- even though it doesn't have a majority of the votes. That's what happens in a first-past-the-post, multi-party system. If the popular vote split 35-34-31 nationally and also in each constituency, the party with 35% would have every seat in the House.

Hey, it would be the same in the US if the vote split 51-48-1 in every constituency.

If a party has only the largest minority of seats, a plurality, then it can govern as long as the House doesn't deny it confidence (e.g. by voting against a budget). This is preferred over actual coalitions, since opposition parties can support the government on an ad hoc basis, and possibly get more of what they want that way.

As a Canadian third-party supporter, I'd like to see a little more proportional representation here. What I definitely do not want to see is Single Transferable Vote. I can do that now -- e.g. hold my nose and vote Liberal to defeat a Conservative, or vice versa, if my party has no hope in my riding. I don't want a chance to vote for my second choice if my first choice doesn't take it -- I want my first choice to have some representation in the House that more fairly represents the proportion of the population that voted for it, not 20% of the popular vote and 5% of the seats.

And keep in mind that everything is relative. What may look like one of those "democratic deficits" to a Brit or a Cdn in our own govts would probably look like democratic utopia to a USAmerican. ;)

[yurbud]

11. You guys have to vote based on one rep for geographic district like here?

with multiple seats in bigger districts, you could vote for third party candidates without pissing your vote away and they might get in, or if you are a minority in your community of a big party, your vote also wouldn't be swamped by the majority.

[iverglas]

12. that is indeed

one method of proportional representation -- multiple seats in larger constituencies, or regional constituencies superimposed on traditional constituencies. I'm no expert; I've just read a bit of this and that.

British Columbia's people's assembly or whatever it was called, last year, opted for the single transferrable vote. I don't get it; there's nothing proportional about that, it just gives you a chance to switch your vote to somebody else, like a run-off without the run-off. I don't wanna! (I mean, I don't live in BC, but I didn't want to see such a crappy precedent being set.) Luckily, the voters voted it down.

I kinda like a national slate superimposed on smaller constituencies, and I'd probably prefer more weight for the national slate than it gets in some places where it's used now (Australia, I think).

Then you can also do things like require that in its top 10, each party have equal numbers of men and women candidates, a First Nations candidate, and that sort of thing, and eventually get some actual representation in the legislature.

Didn't mean to hijack a UK story, really I didn't!

I just think that this "democratic deficit" business is being co-opted, where I'm at, by people with things to gain from it that I don't want them to get, and I suspect there's a little of that going on in the UK too.

[yurbud]

13. like Bush did with voting here: created problem, then proposed solution

that made it worse.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. In single seat constituencies, STV is indeed 'instant runoff' voting

and so it is not 'proprtional' voting. What it does allow, however, is for several candidates with somewhat similar positions to stand, without the worry of 'splitting the vote', allowing a single candidate with highly different views to win. It would tend to favour centrist candidates, though it might also help something like the NDP in some situations - if they came second in first choice votes to the Conservatives, with the Liberals third, and most Liberals had the NDP as their second choice candidate, they might take s seat that otherwise would have gone to the Conservatives. You are, opf course, not forced to give second etc. choices.

Without reading the whole 175 page report, I can't tell if this commission is recommending mutliple seat constituenices or not. One part of the UK does use STV already - in Northern Ireland, for local, assembly and European elections, in all cases in multiple seat constituencies. They still use first-past-the-post for the UK parliamentary election.

[iverglas]

15. "instant run-off voting"

strikes me the way strategic voting already does -- yer not really voting, yer buying a lottery ticket. ;)

Basically, you're betting on how everybody else is going to vote, and staking your democratic representation on how good your nose is. Strategic voting hereabouts has become an art form not unlike picking a horse. These damned multi-party systems.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. No, I think it has something going for it

though for parliaments, multiple seat constituencies are better. But an example where it could have produced a more 'democratic' vote was the last French presidential election. Several left wing candidates split their supporters' votes so much that the far right Le Pen came second in the first round ballot, with Chirac coming first. The runoff was then between Le Pen and Chirac, with the large number of left wing voters left with no realistic choice but Chirac. STV would almost certainly have produced Chirac and Jospin, the Socialist candidate, as the last two, which represents the actual feelings of the French much better. Whether Jospin would have won, I'm not sure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_presidential_elections,_2002

You still get to give your true preference with STV, but then have a fallback position. If you express your true position with FPTP, and support a third (or worse) place party, you will often have no effect on the final result; or you vote tactically, which, as you say, is betting on how other people vote.

[iverglas]

17. yeh - multi-party vs. three-party

Once you get to actual multiple parties, it starts to sound better.

Here, it's three. Liberal Party, Conservative/right-wing party du jour, NDP in the Rest of Canada, with the Bloc québécois replacing the NDP in Quebec (although of course in a completely different position) (and I know you know all this).

I don't generally give much of a crap whether the Liberals or Conservatives win. We have two right-wing parties, one of which is warmer and fuzzier than the other, and one mildly social democratic party. If there were a live run-off between the Big Two, I'd probably go on vacation for the duration anyhow.

Our problem is we have the Brit parliamentary system, with the US political parties lite -- I mean, they're different from the US parties in significant ways, but they're still both over on the same side of the political compass, just like down there. And we've had a decades long ping-pong game between right wing lite and right wing a little liter. And no enlightenment in sight, so it would be nuts to split the left-lite any more.

Not that the hokey Greens haven't tried it. There's a reason to oppose proportional representation -- we'd end up with a couple of those bozos in the house.

(Completely different thing, for any of the southern neighbours listening in. Our Greens are demonstrably right-wing, with traceable close ties to the Conservative Party, and a known history in some constituencies of intentionally running candidates to siphon off NDP votes. In last month's election, the ex-Conrad Black daily in the nation's capital, an utterly appalling right-wing piece of fish-wrap, endorsed the Green candidate in an always up for grabs riding then held by the NDP. Now if that doesn't make it all pretty obvious ...)

Just babbling, too many hours with no sleep, time to get some.

[Voice1]

8. There is indeed a serious crisis

Over here in Britain there have been calls for years for wideranging reforms. A campaign has been running for some time here for electoral reform (because when a party can gain power with only 37% of the votes cast, and just over 20% of all elligible votes we desperately need it), a new campaign has been launched for cross party consensus on forming a British constitution (we don't have a written one as such, it's supposedly a "legislative constitution", which can be adapted at will) and at the upcoming local elections in May, Blair & Co will find out just how much we want rid of them, and want real change when they see their party losing seats all over the country.