Articles and Insights

Accessible commentary and insights from the Electoral Reform Society on the issues shaping our democracy.

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How to give the London Assembly the clout it needs

This week is European Local Democracy Week 2016, and to mark it, we’ve been running a series of articles on how to make the London Assembly more democratic. Today, Martin Hoscik, Editor of MayorWatch, gives his view on...

Posted 14 Oct 2016

London city hall

Time to beef up the London Assembly?

It’s fair to say that the London Assembly doesn’t get a great deal of attention – despite having a strong claim to being the hub of devolved politics in England. So for European Local Democracy Week we thought...

Posted 14 Oct 2016

PR across the pond: the push for fair votes in the US

This week is European Local Democracy Week 2016, and to mark it, we’re running a series of discussion articles on how to make the London Assembly more democratic. Yesterday we published our first piece in the series,...

Posted 11 Oct 2016

Statue of Liberty

A better voting system for the London Assembly

This week is European Local Democracy Week 2016, and to mark it, we’re running a series of articles on how to make the London Assembly more democratic. For the first article in the ‘Building a Better...

Posted 10 Oct 2016

London city hall

A Mayor for the Bucharest of Us

Bucharest, Romania’s largest city and capital, has had a rocky four years since the 2012 local elections. The city is governed by a city-wide mayor and general council, and divided into six pizza-slice shaped sectors...

Posted 07 Jun 2016

Which Women Win? The 2015 English local elections

This is a guest post by James Winterbotham, University of Exeter James Winterbotham is an undergraduate student of social sciences and data analysis at the University of Exeter. As part of a team working with...

Posted 08 Mar 2016

Localism and devolution – ERS at Labour conference

“Devolution is a hot topic,” said Jane Dudman, Guardian Public Leaders editor, who chaired the first of three ERS fringe events at Labour Party Conference 2015. The topic was: “can Labour reclaim devolution and localism?”...

Posted 13 Oct 2015

Revealed: the cost of one-party councils

If you’re reading this, you probably already know that First Past the Post hurts our democracy. But it might be hurting our pockets, too. Councils dominated by single parties could be wasting as much as...

Posted 02 Oct 2015