Cesspit of Indolence

To Westminster, for a Parliamentary debate in Portcullis House on Electoral Reform. If the organisation of the meeting was any indicator, the Electoral Reform Commission will struggle to achieve the critical mass of support for this vital constitutional change.

They had forgotten to organise a chair, there was no literature, nor nameplates let alone any refreshment. They couldn't even work the lights. The exceedingly lofty Daniel Kawczynski (Con. Shrewsbury) kicked off with Brian Donohoe (Lab. Central Ayrshire) for the First-Past-the-Post lobby. Despite half the Cabinet supporting some degree of modernisation to our thoroughly out-dated system, the reformers didn't manage to come up with one MP to speak in support- only a councillor from Glasgow, Stephen Curran and ex-Bethnal Green MP Oona King.

It was a familiar walk through the old issues. I asked Daniel K, if he could not see the democratic principle in PR, then he must at least be aware of how the system he was defending, had punished his own party. In 2005 General Election, the Tories 'won' England by a narrow 75,000 votes but Labour won 92 more seats. His reply, that under PR the Lib-Dems "would always be in power," hardly sufficed.

Then from the back sprang Douglas Carswell (above), MP for Harwich. As a Tory with good reason to anticipate imminent electoral victory, I expected him to support the status quo. But our Doug launched into a tirade about the entire electoral system from top to bottom. He called Parliament a "cesspit of indolence," which was, "monumentally useless at instigating any significant changes to itself." He argued the system which promoted only 10% turnover of seats in any election left MPs to "answer only to the whips and not the people."

Carswell, was clearly imbued with a sense of electoral radicalism, following his speech to the Commons that afternoon promoting his 10-minute rule bill on Recall and Primaries. He is, along with Daniel Hannan, a strong intellectual influence on the right wing of the party, in other words someone who I would rarely agree with politically. But Electoral Reform reaches across all political lines, its supporters have one shared political belief which should trump all others; Parliament should be based on a fair system of democratic representation.