Is the government’s Online Harms Bill fit for purpose?By Akash Thiara, a Placement Student with the Electoral Reform Society from the University of Nottingham. After a long delay, the government has finally released plans to tackle ‘online harms’. The online harms bill, which...Posted 04 Jan 2021
Replace Lords with a senate of the regions to help ‘level up’Overhauling Parliament’s London-dominated second chamber would help empower the UK’s nations and regions, writes a senior director at the Electoral Reform Society. It’s been a year since Boris Johnson’s victory in the 2019 general election,...Posted 22 Dec 2020
Labour MPs call on party in Westminster to back electoral reform after Wales’ Senedd backs changeLabour MPs from across the party have called on the leadership to back reform to Westminster’s ‘broken voting system’ after the Labour-led administration in Cardiff passed legislation introducing STV for local government elections across Wales....Posted 20 Dec 2020
Top 10 must-read stories from the Electoral Reform Society in 2020The pandemic has cast its shadow over everything this year – and issues of democracy are no exception. We’ve seen the effects of a super-centralised political system, leading to clashes between the nations and regions...Posted 18 Dec 2020
What we’ve learnt about the government’s ‘Democracy Commission’By Akash Thiara, a Placement Student with the Electoral Reform Society from the University of Nottingham. It has been a year since the last general election and, the Conservative party pledged it would set up...Posted 18 Dec 2020
Shock Parliamentary survey results highlights calls for electoral reformBy Akash Thiara, a Placement Student with the Electoral Reform Society from the University of Nottingham. A survey conducted by the House of Commons’ Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee (PACAC) asked people what...Posted 15 Dec 2020
It’s time to put deliberation at the heart of Scottish politicsLast Saturday the final session of the Citizen’s Assembly of Scotland concluded. The assembly, the largest deliberative event in Scotland’s history brought together ordinary people to deliberate over the issues that will shape Scotland. As...Posted 12 Dec 2020
YouGov study reveals the stark levels of discontent with WestminsterBy Akash Thiara, a Placement Student with the Electoral Reform Society from the University of Nottingham. Last week, polling firm YouGov released a wide-ranging study on democracy and its perception amongst Britons – and it...Posted 11 Dec 2020
One year on from the General Election: What we’ve learnt about Westminster’s warped voting systemA year ago this Saturday, the polls opened on the first December election for over ninety years. At the time this felt like an unusual bookend to an unusual parliamentary term, which had culminated in...Posted 11 Dec 2020
What is the government’s proposed Democracy Commission?By Akash Thiara, a Placement Student with the Electoral Reform Society from the University of Nottingham. During last year’s general election, the government pledged that, in its first year, it would set up a ‘Constitution,...Posted 07 Dec 2020