After 4,500 submissions and 100,000 votes, the POWER 2010 pledge has finally been revealed.

1. Introduce a proportional voting system.

2. Scrap ID cards and roll back the database state.

3. Replace the House of Lords with an elected chamber.

4. Allow only English MPs to vote on English laws.

5. Draw up a written constitution.

I, and others writing for this site, have drawn some criticism for our broad support for the deliberative process of the POWER2010 campaign. However, for me, this moment was always going to be crunch time. Can I comfortably put my name to POWER2010’s finalised pledge as chosen by members of the British public? Well, let’s go through each in turn.

1. Introduce a proportional voting system: By far the most popular suggestion. Indeed it formed the core of my idea for POWER2010. Any democratic reform has to start with proportional representation. A two-party state is only twice as democratic as a dictatorship, after all, and if we are to see a new kind of politics in this country, it has to include new voices from across the political spectrum. There are those who would argue that proportional representation will only let the extremists in. But curtailing democracy to keep the likes of the BNP out is not the correct answer to their challenge. Rather it is part of the problem as people feel increasingly alienated from the political process when forced to choose between two parties whose policies often appear indistinguishable. Red, blue and yellow just won’t cut it anymore. I want to see a rainbow Parliament and in this, I fully support POWER2010’s aim.

2. Scrap ID cards and roll back the database state: Whilst not so much a reform of the political system, this is still, in my view, a very necessary demand. At best ID cards are a pointless expense. At worst they are part and parcel of New Labour’s systematic erosion of civil liberties and human rights. Together with DNA databases retaining the records of thousands of people never convicted of any crime, anti-terror laws, detention without trial and an explosion of CCTV, they represent an alarming trend. I am not paranoid enough to suggest that they amount to a police state, or even that in and of themselves ID cards will curtail the everyday freedoms of the British public. However, in a democratic society, it is important to resist these small steps towards the removal of basic freedoms while we can. Because once they’re all gone, it’s too late to speak out. For this objective, POWER2010 gets another tick from me.

3. Replace the House of Lords with an elected chamber: It is a startlingly anachronistic aberration that in a democratic society with a bicameral Parliament, we can have an upper house that is unaccountable to the people. The second step to mending Britain’s broken political system, I have always argued, is to have a directly elected upper house and I am behind POWER2010 all the way on this point.

4. Allow only English MPs to vote on English laws: Devolution has done wonders for the Scottish and the Welsh. However it has left the largest part of the United Kingdom without its own legislative body. Banning non-English MPs from voting on English laws, however, has always seemed to me a messy and incomplete answer to the problem. Moreover, it sends the message that the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is primarily the Parliament of England. It would be better, in my opinion, to have a separate English Parliament, or to devolve powers regionally. In any case, this issue has never been high up on my list of priorities. I was surprised by the number of votes the suggestion received, but mine certainly wasn’t among them.

5. Draw up a written constitution: Always a tricky issue if one’s not sure exactly what would be in this written constitution. Historical example, however, and in particular the American case, tends to show that written constitutions are more a means to constrain democracy rather than enable it. Often used to prevent the ‘tyranny of the majority’, written constitutions, with a few notable exceptions, reign in the power of far-reaching reform. In any case, I do not believe that the problem with British politics, and the public’s engagement with it, is our lack of a written constitution and I would be tempted to say, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Well, that’s my humble opinion on the POWER2010 pledge. And to paraphrase Meatloaf, three out of five ain’t bad. I have, therefore, decided to support the POWER2010 pledge, with a few caveats. None of these reforms will come easy, however. Unless we see a hung parliament with Labour desperate to court the Lib Dems, it may well take more than one election to see the most important democratic reforms through. And the true test of POWER2010’s effectiveness will be in its staying power after the General Election. It cannot afford to be another Make Poverty History, or a flash in the pan playing with people’s expectations. In politics as in sex, no one likes a quick finisher.

The Third Estate is brought to you today by the letters DEMOCRACY and the number 2010. In just one month the Power2010 campaign has received over 2000 ideas to reform our political system. To highlight their launch, I invited Guy Aitchison to set out the campaign’s stall in a piece that was met with mixed reactions, and some head banging from Dave Semple who has just written a detailed rebuttal of the campaign’s approach, alongside a picture of Wolfie Smith praying for the glorious day. Last week, Guy returned the favour by tagging me in his new meme to encourage bloggers to post their own suggestions for Power2010. I would have responded to it sooner had I not been writing up my interview with Nick Clegg who, amongst the usual policy platitudes, said: “One of the great things about Power2010 is that it’s asking for your ideas, from people well beyond the bubble at Westminster. I’m really looking forward to reading what people come up with after November 30th. Politicians don’t know it all, and we have to ask people directly if we’re to know what they want.” That’s how big it’s got.

Do I think Power2010 is the answer to the millions of British people who are rightly disenfranchised with a broken political system? I don’t know. But then, I didn’t really think we were going to stop the war either and I gave that my best shot too. So here goes, my grand plan come that glorious day!

When I am king, you will be first against the wall

The Lords have got to go. Almost a century has passed since the Parliament Act and we still have an unelected upper house. No serious approach to democratic reform can begin without addressing the Lords.

What do we want? Democracy! When do we want it? Erm. Now!

The crucial stumbling block for leaders trying to reconnect people with politics is the first-past-the-post method, which essentially leads to a system based on voters choosing the major party they dislike the least. When, as in the last decade, the difference between the two main parties appears to have evaporated faster than Gordon Brown’s popularity, people begin to believe that their vote won’t make a difference. That’s why they stay at home. That’s why Nick Griffin ends up on Question Time. The answer to both problems is, quite simply, to introduce proportional representation. Not only will it ensure that people can vote for who they want to run the country, rather than just voting against who they don’t want to run the country, but it will turn the House of Commons from a tricolour into a rainbow, giving people a genuine choice and reconnecting politics with ideology.

Please sir, I want some more lollipop ladies outside my school

The biggest potential drawback to proportional representation is that it might remove one of the most popular elements of British democracy: the local MP who hears the concerns of their constituents, represents them to Parliament and faces losing their seat if they fail to do so. This is where the Lords come in. I propose an upper house composed of constituency politicians directly elected by the alternative vote system to sit alongside a lower house that proportionately represents the wider passions of the people. All neatly tied up? I think so. Why am I not Prime Minister yet?

For some strange reason I can’t quite fathom, other people have different (some might even say better) ideas for democratic reform. So I’d like to tag a few of them. Some may be sympathetic to Power2010’s aims and objectives. Others may prefer to bang their heads. It’s their choice. That’s democracy.

Jim Jepps – The Daily (Maybe)

Andy Newman – Socialist Unity

Phil BC – A Very Public Sociologist

Derek Wall – Another Green World

Carl Packman – Raincoat Optimism

Left Outside