Thoughts from an active pensioner who is now somewhat past his Biblical "Use-by date"

"Why just be difficult, when with a little more effort you can be bloody impossible?"



Monday 10 May 2010

Electoral Reform

It seems, if one can believe the political commentators, that the main area of disagreement between the Tories and the LibDems is over electoral reform.
I cannot understand why the Tories seem to be so opposed to any change as the present system whereby they require almost twice as many votes as Labour to secure a parliamentary majority is clearly unfair. And indeed, the general situation whereby Scottish and Welsh voters have proportionately more MPs than English voters, in spite of having their own Assemblies, is to me a travesty.and totally unjustified.
Whether we should move to a proportional voting system is, to me, a separate issue and requires careful consideration of the various options available and the Conservatives are right is proposing that this is a matter for a committee.
But I can see no earthly reason why the Tories and LibDems should not agree on immediate reform to
  1. Equalise the sizes of all English constituencies to within say 5% of each other,
  2. Either increase the sizes of Scottish and Welsh constituencies to say twice the size of those in England to reflect the power of their assemblies or have the same size constituencies as England but no voting rights at Westminster in respect of those English issues where they have devolved powers.
As a UKIP supporter, I must clearly support the LibDems in their quest for reform, but I remain unconvinced about some of the proposed alternatives.
To me,  essential requirements are a specific constituency MP, and the selection of candidates by the local parties and not from party lists as with the EU elections.

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