Talking sense on Lords reform: why the PSA’s new briefing fills a crucial gap

On 19 May 2010, just weeks after the General Election, the new Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, promised that the incoming coalition government would preside over ‘a wholesale, big bang approach to political reform’, amounting to ‘the biggest shake up of our democracy since 1832’. It scarcely needs pointing out that, following the decisive ‘no’ vote in the AV referendum, the bang very quickly became a whimper, and that the DPM no longer seeks to invoke comparisons with the Great Reform Act of 1832

There is still a very long way to go before votes at 16 at general elections becomes a reality

The negotiations between the Scottish and UK governments over the terms of the Scottish independence referendum have resulted in a deal widely trumpeted as allowing 16 year olds to vote when the ballot takes place, probably in Autumn 2014. Unsurprisingly, this move has re-awakened the wider debate about lowering the voting age, with some arguing that it almost inevitably paves the way for votes at 16 in all UK elections. Indeed, when the issue was debated on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, Natascha Engel MP, an enthusiastic supporter of lowering the voting age, was effectively accused of supporting the proposal to vary the franchise for the Scottish independence referendum as a means of lowering the voting age by stealth

Postal voting and electoral fraud

Malpractice accusations are now almost part of the UK’s election calendar. Every Spring, in the week or so before local elections, and just after the dispatch of postal ballot to voters, media reports of electoral fraud allegations begin to trickle in. Invariably, the vast majority of cases are reported to police forces in the metropolitan areas of England. Many of them concern incidents where party representatives have become involved in the handling of postal ballots

Do referendums ever resolve constitutional debates?

The result of the AV referendum has been widely argued, most obviously by opponents of change, to have ‘settled the issue’ of electoral reform. With a few notable exceptions, includingChris Huhne, prominent supporters of a ‘Yes’ vote have done relatively little to challenge this argument. The consensus appears to be that the issue of electoral reform will not be returned to again ‘for at least a generation’

Time to tackle the growth of the ‘payroll vote’

The number of Members of Parliament who take the ‘Government whip’ has continued to grow. This trend is exacerbated by a larger number of members of the House of Lords who have become Ministers, who escape the kind of scrutiny which we associate with the House of Commons. Stewart Wilks-Heeg argues that is time to do something about it

What’s happening to our democracy?

Our fourth Audit of UK democracy, due for publication later this year, deploys International IDEA’s ‘State of Democracy’ assessment framework and is built around 77 separate ‘search questions’. As we consider the huge evidence base which our Audit is generating, however, one ‘overarching’ question which is not part of the framework becomes increasingly dominant in our minds. Is democracy in the UK changing for the better or for the worse

Select committee report shows way forward on voter registration

The Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee’s 10threport of session, Individual Electoral Registration and Electoral Administration, has generated widespread media coverage. It is safe to say that a select committee report on electoral registration has never been awaited, and greeted, with such interest. Stuart Wilks-Heeg looks at the reasons why

Who governs Merseyside? The significance of Heseltine’s new report

Anyone who took part in our ‘Who governs Merseyside?‘ event at the Bluecoat on 6 October will surely attest that the quality of the debate was exceptionally high. The ‘expert panel’ more than lived up to its billing, despite the fact that two of its members were unable to attend on the night. Yet, we barely needed an expert panel, such was the quality of the contributions from the audience. Stewart Wilks-Heeg looks at what was said

Voter ID at British polling stations – learning the right lessons from Northern Ireland

Asking voters to produce a form of identification before voting will be piloted in five English council areas this May. The move represents part of the government’s response to a series of recent recommendations for measures to safeguard the electoral process from fraud. While the pilots will provide important opportunities for policy-learning, Stuart Wilks-Heeg argues that much can already be gleaned from the experience of Northern Ireland, where voter ID was first introduced in 1985

Media coverage in Germany and the UK shows why both countries have radically different views over who should be the next Commission President

The so called ‘Spitzenkandidaten’ process, in which European-level political parties proposed formal candidates for President of the European Commission prior to the European Parliament elections, has been strongly opposed by David Cameron and the British government. This opposition has led to intense disagreement between the UK and other EU states, notably Germany, over whether Jean-Claude Juncker, the candidate for the European People’s Party, should be selected as the next Commission President. Simon Hix and Stuart Wilks-Heeg assess differences in the media coverage of the Commission candidates in the UK and Germany. They illustrate that the candidates received substantially less coverage in the UK press, which may offer one reason for why both countries appear to have completely different understandings of how European Parliament elections should work