Local Tory parties have lost almost a quarter of rank-and-file members since their leader took over ...

Dr Tim Bale, the author of the forthcoming book The Conservative Party: From Thatcher to Cameron, said the Tories were suffering from a general decline in the traditional status of political parties as mass movements ...

Peter Facey, of the constitutional pressure group Unlock Democracy, said the Tories had abandoned their traditional reliance on the contributions of hundreds of thousands of individuals.

"In terms of fundraising, they have taken the New Labour route, with dinners and '1,000 clubs', getting more people to give quite large sums of money. The idea of people paying to be party members in large numbers is over – partly because many of the older members have died off – and the Tories realise that."

All local political parties in Britain are required to provide the Electoral Commission with their annual reports and accounts every year. Some 229 local Conservative Associations presented membership figures for both 2005 and 2008. An analysis of the returns shows the associations lost more than 40,000 paying supporters during Mr Cameron's first three years in charge ...

Independent  06 September 2009

There will be no electoral reform, no elected Lords and no great revival of local government.

The time for really big changes has passed and will only come to the fore if there is a hung parliament after the election.

David Cameron shows the same ambivalence to constitutional reform as Blair did in opposition, theoretically positive until you take a close look at the small print. He is even more openly opposed to electoral reform; 1997 was the time to act.

Now, some ministers despair privately, is not the time for very much at all.

Some suggest that if Labour can narrow the Tories' lead to 10 per cent by the autumn it would be much the best bet to call an election and end this period of paralysing despondency.

New Labour was scared of change when it was thirty points ahead in the polls.

No wonder under such gloomy circumstances a burst of complex, risky, energy-draining but necessary constitutional reform is kicked once more into the long grass.

The Independent 21 July 2009

House of Lords 'to be dragged into 21st century'

Labour bill to reform Lords aimed at wrongfooting David Cameron

Gordon Brown is set to announce plans to examine a new system of voting MPs to the House of Commons.

Ministers have discussed an alternative vote system to choose MPs to replace the first past the post method, BBC political editor Nick Robinson said ...

BBC political editor Nick Robinson said the prime minister's statement will not endorse a change of voting system nor any particular system but it will call for a debate on whether the electoral system should be changed and which new system could be adopted.

It will not set out a timetable for any change ...

ALTERNATIVE VOTE SYSTEM
Votes rank candidates in order of preference
If any candidate reaches 50% on first choice votes, he or she wins
If no-one does, the candidate with fewest votes is disqualified
Second choice of voters who chose the discarded candidate allocated to remaining candidates
Process repeated until a candidate tips 50%

BBC NEWS 10 June 2009

Gordon Brown to ask parties if they back voting reform

Gordon Brown urged to push through electoral reform

MPs will have to agree to a legally binding code of conduct as part of a plan to "clean-up" Parliament, Gordon Brown has told the BBC.

The prime minister said he also wants a clean-up of all public institutions - such as the NHS and the BBC - in the wake of the MPs' expenses allegations.

He told the Andrew Marr show the abuses uncovered by the Daily Telegraph had offended his "Presbyterian conscience" ...

The new code of conduct would be written into the Constitutional Renewal Bill, due to be brought before Parliament later this year.

It is thought likely to include minimum service commitments to constituents, with those who break it facing possible fine or even ejection from their seats.

By-election call

Mr Brown did not rule out "recall" elections for MPs who misbehave and said he was also setting up a committee to look at wider constitutional reforms, such as a bill of rights, a written constitution and House of Lords reform.

He did not rule out electoral reform but said it was important to retain the link between MPs and their constituencies ...

Darling pressure

Meanwhile, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg is calling for Chancellor Alistair Darling to be sacked over his expenses claims.

Mr Darling was accused by the Daily Telegraph of "flipping" the location of his second home four times in four years, allowing him to claim thousands of pounds.

The Chancellor is also said to have claimed public money for paying accountants to complete his tax return ...

BBC NEWS 31 May 2009

Cameron backs MP 'sacking' powers

Lib Dems in 'sack Darling' row

There is a radical wave of political energy across all parties and amongst the voters – a wave that is demanding that from this political disaster there emerges a new way of doing politics in this country.

The question now is not if there should be constitutional reform but what reforms and how will they be decided on.

Historically the mechanism for deciding on the great questions of constitutional change have been constitutional conventions ...

But it may be that we are past this now.

Unlock Democracy will argue on Monday that rather than politicians sorting out the mess that politicians have made, the people should be called in.

The citizens' convention, randomly chosen people, discussing the options, agreeing on the issues and binding Parliament to carry out their wishes is the mechanism we need to sort out this mess.

Grassroots democracy to sweep away the old politics and bring in the new – a new voting system, a new way of running the house of commons, a new relationship between voter and MP which pushes in the direction of delegate and away from the notion of representative.

This seems to be the key to what people want. They want some sort of control over their MPs, they want a transparency in the way they work, they want to see the job of scrutiny done better and there seems to be a genuine desire to see the legislature more powerful in relation to the executive ...

Guardian 30 May 2009

Constitutional reform

Unlock Democracy

Progressonline

The last few weeks have been deeply uncomfortable for anyone who believes that politics is not a means for enriching yourself but a vehicle for us to change our society ...

Better scrutiny of parliament is key and we shouldn't forget about electing the Lords or dodge the debate about electoral reform. And the public must be involved in reshaping their democracy, perhaps through a citizen's convention that would debate and deliberate on urgent constitutional reform before the general election. Constitutional experts and politicians should be involved, but on an equal basis as other citizens.

Yet a debate on constitutional reform alone would ignore the elephant in the room – money. Without recognition that in our society and in our politics money buys power and dictates influence, any talk of "power to the people" will be meaningless ...

Given that the current political crisis is all about money, it is striking that Cameron's contribution to this debate completely ignores the corrosive nature of money in our democracy.

Money means power. It affects the extent to which you have control over your own life and whether others – either people or institutions – have control over you. For example, many people who are losing their jobs now are doing so because of the power exercised irresponsibly and unaccountably by the banking sector. I believe this is the crucial challenge we face if we want to truly open up politics.

Politics is the means by which we seek a fair distribution of power, wealth and opportunity in society. Whenever politics comes into contact with big money the effect is too often negative: we see it in the expenses scandal, in questions about the motives behind large donations to political parties, in elections where the size of your war chest counts more than the value of your ideas ...

we need to take big money out of politics. We can debate what a cap on annual donations from any individual should be, but I would suggest it should be in the hundreds of pounds – certainly not the £50,000 that David Cameron wants, which would still mean parties chasing donations from wealthy individuals.

We could also provide 100% tax relief on the smallest donations, quickly tapering out to encourage parties to seek small donations from the many rather than larger ones from the few. That way, pound for pound, parties would have more incentive to chase large numbers of small donors, rather than simply chasing donations at the level of whatever the cap was. Parties would once again require hundreds of thousands of supporters rather than hundreds of thousand-pound donors ... democracy needs money from a democratic source or it will become dominated by those who have money themselves.

By offering state funding to parties in return for them engaging the entire public through local activism and policy-making we would incentivise them to return to their roots as vehicles for bringing citizens together to change their communities ...

Guardian 29 May 2009

Message from James Purnell MP

Guardian: James Purnell

TheyWorkForYou

Purnell accused of introducing US 'workfare'

Purnell leaves red box secrets on train

Meet James Purnell: the best hope Labour has of avoiding disaster

Wikio

Craig Murray

Gordon Brown should hold a national referendum on electoral reform, Health Secretary Alan Johnson has said.

The prime minister should offer the public a "genuinely radical alternative" to the present system, he wrote in the Times.

A referendum could be held on the same day as a general election, said Mr Johnson, who has denied his reform call is part of a Labour leadership bid ...

The new system Mr Johnson favours is known as Alternative Vote Plus and was first suggested by the Independent Commission on Electoral Reform, led by Lord Jenkins, in 1998.

Under AV Plus, voters would have two ballot papers: one for their constituency representative and a second for their favoured political party.

Most seats in the Commons would be filled with locally elected MPs, but the remainder would be allocated by proportional representation according to the number of votes cast for each party.

Calling this an "elegant" option, Mr Johnson said: "This is a genuinely radical alternative that only Labour in government can facilitate." ...

BBC NEWS 25 May 2009

There is an alternative ...

Cameron sets out a series of proposals that would lead to some of the biggest changes to the way Britain has been governed in the modern era. A new Tory government would:

• Limit the power of the prime minister by giving serious consideration to introducing fixed-term parliaments, ending the right of Downing Street to control the timing of general elections.

• End the "pliant" role of parliament by giving MPs free votes during the consideration of bills at committee stage. MPs would also be handed the crucial power of deciding the timetable of bills.

• Boost the power of backbench MPs – and limit the powers of the executive – by allowing MPs to choose the chairs and members of Commons select committees.

• Open up the legislative process to outsiders by sending out text alerts on the progress of parliamentary bills and by posting proceedings on YouTube.

• Curb the power of the executive by limiting the use of the royal prerogative which allows the prime minister, in the name of the monarch, to make major decisions. Gordon Brown is making sweeping changes in this area in the constitutional renewal bill, but Cameron says he would go further.

• Publish the expenses claims of all public servants earning more than £150,000.

• Strengthen local government by giving councils the power of "competence". This would allow councils to reverse Whitehall decisions to close popular services, such as a local post office or a railway station, by giving them the power to raise money to keep them open ...

Guardian 25 May 2009

We need a massive, radical redistribution ...

... the notion of counter power involves seeing social movements as causing ripples well beyond their apparent focus: the green movement or the peace movement for example when in alliance with others are able potentially to exert power over the economy as well as over politics.

Both movements raise fundamental questions about the purpose of production (and this can be defined as including forms of distribution, consumption, the types of labour and skill required and the nature of funding and ownership) in huge swathes of the economy: the defence industry; the food, waste, energy and chemical industries.

Social and environmental movements have already taken the lead in developing alternative systems in these areas. Recent democratic social movements have rarely been 'single issue' movements. The demands they raise require radical changes throughout society - and come up against vested interests that will resist those changes.

The need therefore is to make organised connections with groups who have power and potentially a common interest at every point in the process. But this leads to another discussion ...

The argument is sometimes put forward that participatory democracy should be the basis for a whole political system, a replacement for parliamentary democracy.

However, this weakens the case for genuinely participatory processes, the importance of which lies in an ability simultaneously to challenge and complement existing representative arrangements ... Participatory democracy can monitor the work of the executive and state apparatus. It is able to go where politicians never do, know what politicians rarely investigate.

Its legitimacy comes from the intensity of the activity and the transparency and openness of the process. Participatory institutions generate self-confident expectations and this in turn leads to pressure - in the form of lobbying or campaigning - on the representative elected bodies, who make the final decisions.

The importance of process

Popular participation lets people, as well as officials, decide detail on how broad policy commitments are carried out.

How public policy is administered is not value neutral: process matters ...

Reforming Parliamentary Democracy

In an almost purely representative democracy such as the United Kingdom most people can contribute only by voting for an MP once every few years.

Recently there have been moves to mitigate this lack of citizens' involvement in their own affairs by introducing consultative procedures such as panels, usually of a dozen or so people from different backgrounds, asked to consider matters such as an aspect of health care.

Also, the changes involving proportional election systems, and the whole devolution process appear to be intended to improve the quality of representation of the will of constituents ...

IRR offer some ways in which tried, effective "checks and balances" can be introduced into public affairs and decision making, involving public administration and parliamentary democracy.

My proposal to introduce IRR does not of course suggest that parliament should be abolished or weakened. I suggest that on the contrary the whole system of governance would be strengthened.

These reforms would give the voters a way to have more say in their own affairs if and when enough of them want it, without having to wait till the next election in order "to throw the blighters out" (a clumsy way to express creative wishes or discontent, often too late for many problem issues).

With IRR there can be a more refined, developed and focussed discourse of the people with their representatives and delegates. Further, it has been suggested that politicians and ministers tend to respect the wishes of their constituents more, merely because the possibility of citizen intervention in parliamentary process exists ...

I & R

Direct Democracy

We are experiencing the emergence of what can be described as Post-Modern Authoritarianism (PMA). This description refers both to an empirically observable condition - the way in which the institutions of modernist parliamentary democracy are being hollowed out through the transfer of powers to a range of unaccountable agencies - and to the ideological device for advancing this silent revolution.

European political integration is a major component of this process, but PMA goes considerably beyond it. The anti-democratic virus has spread within the British body politic and this is why EU-critics can no longer continue to deal with the European question in isolation. The expansion of Brussels power is not a foreign conspiracy against Britain, rather it is one symptom of the way in which a large part of the domestic political class is abandoning liberal democracy, as Frank Furedi in his important new book, The Politics of Fear, argues.

The intensity with which the likes of Neil Kinnock, Ken Clarke and Denis MacShane not only dismissed the significance of the 'No' votes in France and Holland, but also opposed giving Europe's voters a say on the EU Constitution in the first place, is one indication of the Counter-Enlightenment now taking place ...

Democracy Movement December 2005

1. The case for social and economic rights   [1]



2. Democratic Audits of the UK   [2]



3. Parliamentary Oversight of External Policies   [3]



4. Voices of the People   [4]

The Grand Old Duke of Kirkcaldy, he marched his men up to the top of the polling station and then he marched them back down again. ...

This will prompt a reassessment of the Prime Minister that will not be to his advantage. The one thing that everyone, friend or foe, reckoned that they knew about Mr Brown was that he was brilliant at politics.

Whatever else they have thought about him, his enemies have always regarded him as awesome at the game. His allies have often described him as a grandmaster of political chess ... yet by this weekend, the Prime Minister had got himself into a terrible position on the board. Here was a grandmaster who had managed to put himself into check. ...

Andrew Rawnsley The Observer, 07 October 2007

One of the biggest powers which should be removed from prime ministers is the power to call elections when the polls look good.

Imagine, instead, a fixed four-year pattern such as exists in the U.S.

Harold Wilson returned to power in 1974, and his successor - Jim Callaghan - has to go to the polls on - say - the first Thursday in May [1978].

The proximity of an election encourages the unions to co-operate with his anti-inflation strategy. The winter of discontent never takes place, and the Thatcher years never happen, because she resigns as leader after losing the election.