Pressure is growing for a ‘virtual Parliament’ to hold politicians to accountWith Parliament now on a pause for four weeks, serious questions are being asked about how life-changing decisions will be scrutinised at this time of crisis. In March, Parliament voted through a raft of emergency...Posted 02 Apr 2020
How other parliaments are handling the coronavirus outbreakThe scale of the coronavirus challenge is almost unprecedented in modern Britain. It also presents enormous new challenges for how democracy operates amid a pandemic. This week, the Cabinet met for the first time without...Posted 01 Apr 2020
Let’s postpone bizarre peer by-elections for goodEven in today’s climate, hereditary peer by-elections are among the more absurd aspects of British politics. Following the retirement of the Earl of Selborne from the House of Lords after almost 50 years in office,...Posted 01 Apr 2020
Another chance to scrap an absurd Parliamentary quirkA Bill to phase out one of Parliament’s more absurd procedures is making some progress, after being talked out of time by Lords last year. Lord Grocott’s Hereditary Peers (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill underwent its...Posted 17 Mar 2020
Little evidence to suggest that electoral pacts had ‘material impact on the result’Last week I wrote about tactical voting at the 2019 General Election, after the ERS revealed that almost a third of voters did not feel they were able to vote for the party they actually...Posted 11 Mar 2020
Unpicking the ‘People’s Parliament’: Here’s how many votes went ignored in your regionLast week we revealed how many votes went ignored in December’s general election: 22.6m ballots did not count towards electing an MP. But behind the headline figures are people’s voices across the country being systematically...Posted 09 Mar 2020
When millions feel unable to vote for their favourite candidate, something is seriously wrongThree months after the election, yet more evidence of Westminster’s dysfunction is coming to light. Tactical voting is going up Previously unreleased YouGov data for the ERS has revealed that almost a third of voters...Posted 06 Mar 2020
Ignored and unrepresented: Report reveals how Westminster’s electoral system continues to fail votersSomething is deeply wrong when over 70% of votes count for nothing. That’s what Westminster’s voting system did in December’s election, according to a damning new analysis from the ERS. Of 32 million votes cast,...Posted 02 Mar 2020
Oh Lord… Defender of hereditary peers is made minister for political reformLast week’s government reshuffle saw some strange moves. Boris Johnson appointed a former speechwriter to John Major, Lord True, as a minister overseeing constitutional reform. A strange move because Lord True is one of just...Posted 19 Feb 2020
Spiralling size and cost of the Lords shows it’s time for an overhaulThe House of Lords has again come under scrutiny this week as the Times reports that peers will see their daily pay rise by 3.1% to £323 per day if they attend from April. This development comes...Posted 13 Feb 2020