The Great Debate UK

From rotten parliament to reform parliament?

- Tony Samphier is a campaigns consultant and organiser of the election policy comparison web initiative DEMREF 2010. The opinions expressed are his won.-

The start of the general election campaign has, thankfully, seen the party leaders fighting over the political reform territory, particularly Gordon Brown and David Cameron, with the Liberal Democrats, traditionally full of reform ideas, slightly overshadowed.

This should be no surprise. The party leaders have clearly sensed the public mood following the scandal over politicians’ expenses and more recent revelations over party funding, overseas jaunts and “cash for influence”.

“Plague on all your houses”, vast sections of the voting public are thinking, with some justification. Brown and Cameron, and Nick Clegg when he gets a look in, are competing to prove to us that their party is less diseased than the other.

What does surprise is the substance of the proposals. Here Labour has stolen the show a little with calls for changing the voting system and creating a fully elected second legislative chamber (or at least a referendum on them).

Brown also embraced fixed term-parliaments – at least showing that he has learned a lesson from the disastrous “election that never was” in 2007.

But let’s not get too carried away. Labour has promised these things in previous manifestos, only to disappoint when reaching power.