The Financial Times reports that Gordon Brown is proposing electoral reform:
Gordon Brown will on Wednesday suggest scrapping Westminster’s traditional “first past the post” voting system as part of a package of reforms to the democratic system, which he hopes will give new momentum to his crippled administration.
However, the Hansard Audit of Political Engagement found that the constitutional issue that most people were dissatisfied with was the issue of Scottish MPs – like Gordon Brown – voting on matters that are none of their damn business.
If your screen width prevents you from viewing the above image you can see it here.
The man with no mandate from his party, no mandate as a prime minister, and no mandate from England will not allow England a say on how we would like to be governed, despite supporting and campaigning for Scotland’s right to do just that. He is a bigoted anti-English hypocrite.
Stuart Weir: Brown and the AV stitch up
LabourHome: To save England from Tory domination we must reform the voting system
Janet Daley: Gordon Brown tries to rig the voting system
The Mole: Why Gordon Brown wants vote reform:
There is a deep fear in Labour ranks that recent voting trends, aided by Scottish and Welsh devolution, could see Labour out of power for decades at best or even, in the worst case scenario, wiped out as a significant force for the foreseeable future.
The party has only ever won two elections without relying on Scottish and Welsh votes, in 1945 and 1997. And now, as the recent local and Euro elections showed, that ‘natural’ support can no longer be taken for granted. Labour even lost in Wales for the first time in almost a century.
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All this talk about constitutional reform is a reaction to the dismal performance of Labour. For the Prime Minister constitutional reform is limited to
June 10th, 2009 at 7:09 ama few changes in the House of Commons. Real constitutional reform must embrace the House of Lords and House of Commons. But the man who was a prime mover in devolution for Scotland will ignore the demands for Englsih devolution involving 85% of the people of the UK.
New Labour, although claiming to have begun reform of the House of Lords by removing unelected peers of the realm, have filled it with unelected placemen instead such as Sugar etc. These people have no mandate to revise and scrutinise legislation, which affects all aspects of English domestic legislation-such legislation for Scotland and Northern Ireland does not come before the House of Lords. So nothing has been reformed, changed or made more democratic.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:38 am“Real constitutional reform must embrace the House of Lords and House of Commons”. True, but that alone is merely parliamentary reform. Thoroughgoing constitutional reform should involve a written constitution that sets out new principles governing the relationship between the parliaments [plural - including an English one], the executives and the judiciaries [there are three in the UK at the moment]; between the parliaments and the people; and between the different nations of the UK and the central UK government.
Of course, no chance of that coming from either Brown or Cameron unless they are forced to go down that road through the fear of electoral extinction. In other words, we’ve got to continue not voting for them, regardless of which electoral system is used.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:49 amWe now have seven unelected cronies in Government (out of 33)
Baroness Royall
Lord Malloch-Brown
Lord Drayson
Baroness Scotland
Lord Mandleson
Alan Sugar
Glenys Kinnock
Are these people any less accountable to the people of England than Scottish MPs. Nope.
Alistair Darling
Gordon Brown
Douglas Alexander
Jim Murphy
and Peter Hain
Makes 12 out of 33 completely unnaccountable to England, and put in positions of power by Gordon Brown who himself loathes England with such passion that he cannot even say the word.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:22 pmToque. Mugabe Brown was at it again today on PMQs.
When talking about electoral reform he stated that there were different systems in the UK.
He said, there is one for N.Ireland one for Scotland one for Wales one for the EU and one for….wait for it….Westminster Parliament.
It is lucky we still have a TV set, it very nearly went through the window in a barrage of expletives, Mrs LBB wasn’t amused!
How much longer do the English have to put up with his blatant racism.
He will use any expression he can to avoid saying the hated word.
June 10th, 2009 at 3:40 pmTechnically, Alistair Darling and Douglas Alexander don’t need to be accountable to the people of England only, as their portfolios relate to reserved matters. However, a more general and perhaps more serious point is the way the presence in the cabinet of some ministers with exclusively English and others with UK-wide responsibilities, and the preponderance of unelected ministers, undermine the cabinet principle of collective responsibility. A person whose ministerial duties relate to England only cannot truly be said to partake of the cabinet’s collective responsibility towards the whole of the UK in the same way as a minister with genuinely UK-wide duties. I think this must create a sense of inferiority and insecurity on the part of the ministers in question, based on the fact that they’re not actually equal to their colleagues that genuinely have a UK-wide remit; and this must create a degree of deference, an unwillingness to rock the boat, and a feeling that your position is dependent on the patronage of the PM and his inner circle: the UK ministers bossing it over the England-only ones who don’t have the same freedom and ‘right’ to act independently and according to their consciences because they don’t in fact share the accountability to the whole of the UK that their ’senior’ colleagues do. It’s like senior and more junior executives sitting round the boardroom of a company: obviously, it’s the ones with genuine company-wide responsibilities that are going to hold sway.
The same, if not more so, can be said of the unelected ministers, who are not accountable to any voters at all but just owe their position to the direct, explicit patronage of the PM. Gordon’s clearly a man who likes yes men (with emphasis on ‘men’) around him; and the ministers actually elected by and accountable to English voters are definitely last in the pecking order.
June 10th, 2009 at 3:43 pmTechnically, Alistair Darling and Douglas Alexander don’t need to be accountable to the people of England only, as their portfolios relate to reserved matters
Even if the Cabinet had ‘English days for English matters’ this would be stretching the truth somewhat. The Government governs England on the basis of collective responsibility, they are as one. And as one they owe their power to the PLP and the House of Commons (which serves as an electoral college) and which is in turn partly composed of, and compromised by, democratically unnaccounatble non-English MPs.
June 10th, 2009 at 3:58 pmAgreed: the cabinet is unaccountable in its exercise of collective responsibility for England. I was just looking at it the other way: differential responsibilities (some Union-wide and some England-only) undermining collective responsibility for UK-wide matters in practice (if not as a principle), because not all of the cabinet does in fact have day-to-day responsibilities across the Union. Except, of course, they make out that they do – collectively, if not individually. But if you accept that the cabinet’s primary duty is to act as one body in the interests of the UK – and to be accountable to the people of the UK as a whole – then it follows that England is being governed in the interests of the UK, not those of its own people.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:59 pmLBB:
“How much longer do the English have to put up with his blatant racism?”
We do not have to put up with it! We can do something about it. I can’t help but think that there are a lot of English people who are thinking of doing something about it. I don’t care a monkeys about what the authorities state either, i.e. nobody cares, the English are slow to act, etc, etc blah, blah. I think millions of English people care. I think people are just waiting to see what happens. It seems as though Brown scum is going to make sure that there’s a reaction. It seems as though that is what they’ve wanted all along.
June 12th, 2009 at 2:23 amI hate to be boring but talk about constitutional reform only gets airtime as a long standing Government starts to haemorrage support to the Opposition and to minor, fringe parties.
Its not that I oppose an English Parliament. I support the right of English people to vote on and approve affairs that affect England and are paid for with English taxes.
But realistically, the votes show widespread apathy and ignorance for serious constitutional reform.
You’ve got a long way to go.
June 14th, 2009 at 3:15 amThat is terrible talking about a good man like Gordon Brown has done for you lot you unappreciated selfish people. When the tories get back in you can kiss goodbye to everything that Labour gave you. Don’t say I never warned you lot. David Cameron is a fraud and you will soon find out you lot made a big mistake of voting tory because Gordon Brown is Scottish. Brown is as British as you lot and don’t forget it.
June 14th, 2009 at 2:01 pmI’ve met Gordon Broon, opposed him in tribunals in the early 1980’s when he was a new MP and in my humble opinion the man is a ‘tosser’.
Billy I’m guessing that your a labour man, aboot time you opened your eyes and had a guid look at what labour have been doing this last wee while, the PM is merely a figurehead . Labour used to represent the working man but don’t do so any more, they lost their way years ago.
Another small point the Scottish folk tend towards socialism, the English don’t .. so we have labour ( old school socialists ) who have changed their spots to chase southern English votes and values and in the course of time have made a complete mess of it.
In the meantime Broon is neither fish nor fowl, he may sound Scottish but he isn’t any more, he’s become British and chases power and has forgotten about people.
Im not a tory – I cant vote for them ( it’s against my religion ), I wont vote labour ‘cos they are useless, Lib dems have a problems with elbows and arses, UKIP are just gormless, BNP are abhorrent, EDP’s are BNP lite, I live in Suffolk so no SNP here ( I may have to stand for a laugh ), I could vote Green but I’d have to slap myself. I think I’ll vote for the party that has 100mph limits on the motorways, and abolishes elf and softies .
June 14th, 2009 at 6:23 pm