Reform Parliament and the Libel Laws

[matgb]

• Bloggerheads (UK) - UK Libel Law, the Demon Almost-Precedent and the Bastard Duke of Brunswick
  Tim kicks off the libel law campaign. Linked for reference as much as anything else, need to get back to it.
  (tags: libel law reform)
• Nick Clegg: Democracy? What a great idea... - UK Politics, UK - The Independent
  Haven't actually been able to read most of this, my brain isn't working. But it looks to make some sense, so saving to get back to—feel free to tell me what you see wrong in the meantime.
  (tags: democracy Parliament politics)

Comments

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Re: Clegg. Mostly sensible, but a few points:

"The old left/right divide has faded away. "
This actually plays into the hands of the people he's criticising. Far better (and truer) to say something like "there is a right-wing consensus in mainstream politics that denies voters the real choice they once had". Of course, that wouldn't fit with the positioning as a 'centrist' party, but I don't like that either.

"where individual voters can choose to have a small public donation of, say, £3 given to the political party of their choice at election time."
What would be the point of this? Individual voters can already give £3 to any political party, any time they want...

"In my view, that statement should not, as the Government proposes, make rights contingent on duties. It should make power contingent on accountability."
Thank God someone's saying this, and I mourn the fact that it even *needs* saying.

"That must be reversed, so that the bulk of local spending is raised locally"
BAD idea. Poor areas can't afford as much as rich areas, so this would perpetuate and increase inequality.

Clicked post accidentally... continues

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

"A fully elected House of Lords, of course."

Of course

"A cut in the number of MPs by a third."

Another bad idea -more MPs=the possibility of greater representation.

" All legislation to include sunset clauses so that unnecessary laws do not persist."

Definitely a good idea, though hard to implement properly.

Re: Clicked post accidentally... continues

[matgb]

more MPs=the possibility of greater representation.

Longstanding party policy—linked to proper devolution so that you've got councillors and AMs as well, and also linked to introducing STV for elections, so we all get more MPs anyway, they're more representative of the nation, but there are less of them in totality.

Less white-men-in-suits, but more representative. But you'd transplant some of the displced MPs to whatever replaces the existing Regional Assemblies.

[matgb]

there is a right-wing consensus in mainstream politics

Disagree that it's "right wing". It's further to the right of either of us, but it's centrist rather than right—the current consensus is centrist, corporatist and vaguely authoritarian.

wouldn't fit with the positioning as a 'centrist' party

I don't see the positioning as 'centrist'—the positioning is Liberal, which is neither left nor right on the 20C scale but opposed to the current corporatist consensus (which is why Cameron's posturing works as all he has to be is more liberal than the Govt, he doesn't have to be a liberal as us).

What would be the point of this? Individual voters can already give £3

It's a direct lift from the Power Commission report—I've got the full report in a book, they were giving htem away free, but it's on site, the Exec Summary is worth a read, from which:

20.  State  funding  to  support  local  activity  by  political  parties  to  be  introduced  based  on  the 
allocation of individual voter vouchers. This would mean that at a general election a voter will be 
able  to  tick  a  box  allocating  a £3  donation  per  year  from  public  funds  to  a party of  his or  her 
choice  to  be  used  by  that  party  for  local  activity.  It  would  be  open  to  the  voter  to make  the 
donation to a party other than the one they have just voted for.

Not sure I'm sold on it completely, but note it's public funds (ie taxation) not donations, but under control of voters, and it can help smaller parties build up a local base, etc. It's a much better idea than the state funding solution proposed by the Big Two anyway.

Poor areas can't afford as much as rich areas, so this would perpetuate and increase inequality.

Bulk of, not all of—he's very much aware of the problems in the US where this is the case. Note it's "the bulk of" not "all of"—it used to be that LAs took all business rates take, now it's centrally allocated, for example. Personally I'd bring in LVT and then have central grants for redistributive purposes, it's daft to raise most of an LAs budget nationally.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I thought Nick Clegg's article was very interesting - and well written. I even thought I might join the LibDems! Or maybe not...