The General Election

As far as I'm concerned, the General election produced mixed emotions. The Tories won with an acceptable majority, keeping out Labour and its extra taxes on the rich which would be required to fund their promises. I've nothing particular for or against the rich, but if they are to spend their money rather than keep it in a bank vault, it must result in additional employment and jobs either directly as staff or indirectly on purchases. But apart from the so-called mansion tax, the other proposed Labour taxes would end up falling on the ordinary worker. A tax on banks would mean that the banks would seek to make more profit elsewhere, which could mean even lower interest rates (hitting pensioners in particular) or even the end of free banking, as has been mooted from time to time. A landlord tax would do much the same; landlords would either find some way of increasing the rent for any new tenant, or sell-up and pull out of the market. Either way, it is unlikely to be the landlord who would lose out. A tax on non-doms looks attractive, but Labour overlooks the fact that they could equally live in another country, Ireland having made it clear that they would be very welcome. But the big thing, as far as I'm concerned is that both Ed Balls and Vince Cable are out and that the LibDems won't be part of a coalition.

The big disappointment is that UKIP didn't get more seats. The fact that Nigel Farage didn't win in Thanet, I would suggest is due to the effort that the Tories put into the election with almost every Minister visiting the constituency, plus the activities of various left wing organisations who were not standing for election and thus could effectively run riot with false claims about UKIP.

However to my mind, the biggest scandal is our electoral system, which allows a party, which overall collected more votes in the coutry than both the SNP and the LibDems combined, to get only have one MP, whilst Queen Nicola claims the right to tell us all what to do.

It one thing comes out of this election, it should be some electoral reform which ensures the parliamentary representation more closely matches the actual votes cast. One assumes that Cameron will push through the Boundary Commission's report, which the LibDems failed to support in the last parliament, so ending the anomaly of a vote in many cities being worth two in the country. But more than that. Now that Scotland has its own Parliament, and Wales has its own Assembly, there is surely no longer a case for having a disproportionately large number of MPs from these regions. We should be aiming for the situation in a modern democracy like Australia or New Zealand where all constituencies by law must have an electorate within 5% of any other. New Zealand is proposing to do even better and get the figure within 3%.
Other reform must be to ensure that Scottish/Welsh MPs do not have any say on English matters where such matters have been devolved to Scotland/Wales. It is iniquitous that Scotish MPs can come to Westminster and support tuition fess at universities and charges for NHS prescriptions, whilst their fellow members in The Scottish Parliament vote to make them both free in Scotland.

To a cynic like me, Cameron's biggest problem with having an overall majority is that he will have to keep his promises. No longer will he be able to blame the LibDems for preventing him doing something that he had promised!

As for the SNP, I'm sure they will make a lot of noise and hope to be able to tell Cameron what to do. He could simply point out that Labour have more MPs than the SNP which illustrates the relative importance of the SNP in the Union as a whole. As Queen Nicola won't be at Westminster, I would hope that Cameron would have no problem dealing with Alex Salmond who expect to the the leader of the SNP in the Commons.

We could have an interesting time ahead.

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.