I’m still way under with work, so I’m going to yet again provide a few nice links to some other decent blogging/articles going on:
Election Result:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4535829.stm (best line: “Middle class voters who are often str…

Getting specific on PR

Judging by the reaction to previous posts here at The Sharpener, you, dear readers, cannot get enough of this electoral reform stuff. So, […]

Up to every 5 years (i.e. as at present) an election for the Commons, with 400-500 larger seats on FPTP, with the difference made up by PR on a list basis (like the London Assembly for example, which seems to have worked pretty well).

My proposal for the Lords is as follows…

Every 5 years (fixed) elect half the House of Lords. Each candidate MUST stand on an Independent ticket; if they are the member of a party they must leave the party. They stand for one term only, of 10 years. You have the 5-yearly, half-House elections to ensure that short-term trends don’t overly affect the make-up of the House. Elections would be entirely by PR on a list basis. Lords would have no tie to a particular geographical constituency.
You would also include Bishops, Rabbis, Imams, etc in the Lords, in roughly the same proportions as those religions are represented nationally, and you would also include all Law Lords as at present. There would be no hereditary peers, except for the Queen, who I understand is allowed to sit in the Lords; I would also propose including the heir to the throne.
There would be no political nominees like we have at present, I think that system is demonstrably open to abuse and a bit of a failure democratically.

Finally I would propose that the minimum age for standing as a candidate for the Lords should be high, say 40 or even 50. The compensation should be considerable, say £100k, and outside interests should be restricted. This should give us a) independence and b) experience.

MPs would have no power to remove or add Lords; only other Lords should be able to sack Lords if they misbehave / don’t turn up. There would be no bi-elections.

Just my tuppence-worth; I would be interested to read what people make of this proposal, as I’ve thought it through over some time!

By electing MPs on a FPTP system, we preserve what is probably the most significant advantage of FPTP over PR, that the individual voter feels that there is a single MP accountable to him (and vice versa) and whom he can approach with various grievances.

By electing members of the House of Lords on a regional-PR basis, the legislative function of Parliament can be achieved more proportionately.

The irreducible problem is that Parliament has two functions: representative and legislative, whereby “representative” I mean that he can represent the concerns of his constituents to Parliament. The dilemma is that FPTP has a stronger element of the former, whilst PR has an arguably “fairer” version of the latter. PR-advocates should note how few people can name their MEP (who are elected regionally by a quasi-PR system). Would it not therefore be logical to decouple the two and allow the two separate Houses to be the primary locus of the two distinct functions?

The one case where PR doesn’t squeeze small parties is where they are geographically located. Two examples – There was considerable animosity in Scotland under Thatcher for England apparently continuously enforcing Toryism on Scotland (in fact Thatcher never got above 42%) & the reverse is now appearing in England. When Abraham Lincoln was elected it was by achieving an FTPT victory in most northen states & virtually no votes in the south (I believe he got 40% overall). The dangers of division this produces are obvious.

Another problem is that, because the system is so dependent on very small swings it would be quite possible to have gone from a market driven Thatcherite majority to a “nationalise the commanding heights” Foot government (he got as few vote as Blair just got) or indeed in present circumstances a 3 way choice, all of them with absolute power & deeply unpopular. a certain amount of continuity of policy is no bad thing.

S2: on the 5% thing – yes, if we do end up with a system that needs a threshold we should have one. I doubt we’d go that route, though. And, no, Congressional districts get reapportioned all the time, and the committees that do the work are very politicised. In fact, the reapportionment has got to such a stage now that a huge chunk of House seats are basically unwinnable by one party. At the last House elections about a fifth weren’t even contested by the other.

I’ve been wanting to link to Anatole Kaletsky for ages now, on account of him being possibly the most sound-minded columnist in the country. Given that he’s an economist, however, his insight is usually restricted to more businesslike matters than…