We all know that the Alternative Vote isn’t the panacea. It’s not going to cure all the ills of our democracy. Only true proportional representation can do that. But since it’s the best we have on offer, it deserves fair consideration on its own merits. I support AV because I believe that in a democracy, [...]
No one expected Nick Clegg to bring his long (but apparently flimsily) held desire to abolish tuition fees into the coalition agreement. Even before the election, he had already distanced himself from the policy. “I want to get rid of the tuition fees system too – it’s just a question of when,” Clegg told me [...]
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 [...]
So, Power2010 has been criticised on the grounds that it won’t have the massive reach and appeal that it’s aiming for. This seems likely to be true, but how much does it matter? I don’t think that in order to revive mass popular interest in our political system it’s necessary to have a campaign which [...]
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 [...]
When Americans went to the polls last year it was not only the success of Obama that gave us a jolt. Popular perceptions of the States – long saturated with George Bush, the stolen election and frequently traded statistics about how many Americans own passports – were confronted with a different vision of American politics. [...]
