| Hearty congratulations to Troubled Diva, Mike Atkinson, who’s managed to put together ‘Shaggy Blog Stories’ in seven days in aid of Comic Relief.
The book collects amusing pieces from 100 bloggers. I’m in it but you shouldn’t let that put you off. You can read more about the book here. The book’s published via Lulu and you can buy copies at www.shaggyblogstories.co.uk. Go on. |
Following the recent vote in the House of Commons, that the House of Lords be 100% elected, Nick Barlow has proposed that they be elected by STV. He notes that one proposal is that lords be elected at the same time as the European election, with a third of the lords being elected each time, thus each lord on election would serve for a term of 15 years. Consequently, if there are to be 300 elected lords, then 100 will be elected at each election. Since the election of the lords would happen at the same time as the European election, it make sense to use the same electoral regions for both elections.
Barlow also proposes that smaller electoral regions should be allocated more representatives than they would from strict proportionality, in order to ensure “a balance of voices from throughout the UK”.
I agree with this; however, how a representative thinks and votes is far more important than what part of the country they come from. So if we want diversity, we should make diversity of views more important than diversity of regions. I therefore propose that lords be elected by a modified version of STV, as follows: Read More