Who says Conservatives are against change....

[Каие]

David Cameron, fully en route to becoming the next Prime Minister, announced today the British Conservative Party will aim to have a massive constitutional overhaul in the UK by cutting the number of MPs by 10%, by 65 MPs.

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6078282.ece

DAVID CAMERON is drawing up proposals to reduce the number of MPs at Westminster by between 60 and 65, amid intense public anger over the abuse of parliamentary expenses.
The Tory leader’s plan, which is expected to be a manifesto pledge, would involve an overhaul of constituency boundaries and require the scrapping of a long-standing rule that constituencies should not cross county borders.

The Conservatives say it would save taxpayers more than £12m a year and could make the electoral system fairer by reducing serious discrepancies in the number of voters for each seat.

If the Tories win the next election, they are expected to legislate for the changes in their first parliament, enabling the Boundary Commission, an independent body, to begin its work to redefine seats.

Cameron said this weekend: “All week I’ve been receiving letters from people saying the same thing: how can MPs claim they’re helping people through the recession when so many of them seem to be feathering their own nests?

“They are right to be angry. We need to sort this out immediately. But restoring trust in politics goes beyond expenses and allowances. At a time when families and businesses are being forced to cut back, politicians should be asking how they can help bring down the cost of politics across the board - it is taxpayers’ money after all.”

The Tories have accused the government of delays over tackling expenses and believe only radical reform of parliament will appease voters. Cameron has asked his party strategists to step up work on proposals to cut the number of MPs.

He labelled the current system - under which constituencies such as the Isle of Wight have tens of thousands more voters than others such as Orkney and Shetland - “neither fair nor efficient”.

“We should start by looking at the way MPs are elected. At the moment, some seats have many more electors than others . . . it means there are more MPs than there need to be,” he said. “I believe every vote should carry the same weight, which means levelling up the size of constituencies. That would help reduce the number of MPs, save money, and give people confidence that their vote really mattered.” Although Cameron would not confirm that the move will become a manifesto pledge, he is committed to the policy. Aides have signalled it will be a first-term priority if the Tories win power.

There are 646 MPs, and boundaries are regularly reviewed and redrawn. The current system gives Labour an inbuilt advantage, meaning the Conservatives need a double-digit swing to win an overall majority.

The Conservatives will hope they can reduce this bias by redrawing the map. However, this will be resisted by Labour, and the electoral analyst Professor Michael Thrasher said: “Most of the bias favouring Labour is nothing to do with boundaries. It is to do with the way Labour’s vote is distributed, and to do with turnout.”

Cameron, who argues that reform of MPs’ expenses needs a deal between the leaders of the three main parties, has pressed for a meeting with Gordon Brown “to settle the issue once and for all”.

And here is an argument in favour of it in the Telegraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/5...arliament.html

The status and reputation of MPs have never been lower. The public have seen them treat the House of Commons as a huge piggy bank to fund porn, second homes and otherwise unemployable relatives. The most sickening aspect of all these fiddles is their bleats: "I have done nothing wrong – it's the system that's at fault." Oh no, it is their moral judgment that is at fault.

This has directed attention from another glaring fault in our parliamentary system, and that is: what do MPs actually do for their money? The parliamentary week now consists of arriving on Monday and leaving on Wednesday evening. On Thursdays and Fridays the House is a desert – MPs are back in their first or second homes or on some organised visit to Honolulu. The question must be asked: do we need 646 MPs to bear this demanding workload? The answer must be "No".

Compared to other countries, the UK is massively over-represented. We, with a population of 60 million people, have 646 MPs; Germany, with a population of 82 million, has 600; Japan, with a population of 127 million – twice the size of ours – has only 470; Russia, with
144 million, has 450; and America, with 293 million, has 430 Congressmen.

Up to 1707 we had 513 MPs, but the Act of Union added 45 MPs from Scotland, which was an over-representation. In 1800, when William Pitt abolished the Irish Parliament in Dublin and created the Union of Britain with Ireland, 100 Irish MPs were added – a gross over-representation. In 1912, when Ireland was partitioned, the number of MPs from Eire dropped and Northern Ireland was given 12 MPs. The numbers have since grown steadily.
Two years ago I took through the House of Lords a Bill to cut the size of the House of Commons by 10 per cent. (Several of my colleagues asked, why only 10 per cent?) It is now official Conservative policy. I hope that David Cameron's first Bill, when he becomes prime minister, will be to reduce the House of Commons from 646 to 581.

My Bill also equalised the size of the electorate for constituencies throughout the United Kingdom, which is only fair, but it makes a significant change. The current average electorate size of a constituency is 68,736, but there is a great variation between the different parts of the UK. The English average is 70,231; Scotland is next at 65,444; Northern Ireland's average is 64,078; and in Wales it is 55,920. Wales, therefore, is significantly over-represented in the House of Commons – there are 14,300 more electors in an English seat than in a Welsh seat.

The average size of an electorate for all of the United Kingdom should be 76,000 electors for each constituency. Voters would be worth the same wherever they lived. By reducing the number of MPs by 10 per cent and increasing constituencies to 76,000, England would have 486 MPs, losing 43; Wales would have 29, losing 11; Scotland would have 51, less by eight; and Northern Ireland would have 15, less by three. It has always been said that we should overcompensate for Wales and Scotland to allow for very large rural constituencies. But by international standards our constituencies are small: one MP in Western Australia has a constituency which is the size of the whole of Western Europe.

The average cost of a Member of Parliament has been estimated at £500,000, which covers virtually everything. Cutting the Commons by 65 MPs would ostensibly save £32 million, but some of the fixed overhead costs could not be reduced so the savings would be closer to £20 million. This is a saving worth having, and would not diminish democratic accountability. The cost of democracy in Britain, which includes the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and all the business of elections, has doubled in the lifetime of this Government. It amounts to £1.3 billion, a huge sum of money. It is a good price to pay for democracy, but we must make quite sure we get good value for it.

The reduction of MPs and the standardisation of the electoral quota for each constituency would remove the inbuilt favourable bias to Labour in our electoral system. At the moment there is not a level playing field. In the elections of 1997 and 2001, Labour had a lead of nine and 11 per cent in the respective share of votes cast, but this led to a 32 and 38 per cent advantage in the number of seats. In the election of 2005, this Labour bias increased: for 36 per cent of the votes cast it got 56 per cent of the seats.

Because of its concentration in small city seats and its over-representation in Wales, Labour will start the election next year well ahead of the Conservatives: David Cameron will need a lead of somewhere between six and nine per cent to have an overall majority. This cannot be justified. The election of 2014-15 should be the first when all the parties begin at the same starting line. A pledge to bring in this Bill immediately after the next election would be not only right, but very popular.

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IN all I agree with the policy. I hope it will be in the manifesto.

The discrepancies between voters per constituency do exist and so does the pro-Labour bias in the current weighting of the constituencies.

If the Conservatives get a +10% of votes they only get some 40-50 majority in the House, and if Labour gets a +10 vote majority they get well over 150 majority. This of course is on average which you can test here.

[Hookah Smoking Caterpiller]

Tories in favour of reducing democracy in there favour, yes, what a wounderful change.

[2-D Ron]

Tories in favour of reducing democracy in there favour, yes, what a wounderful change.

Kill all tories.

+Rep!

[Каие]

How did you get ''reducing democracy'' from what was written in the OP? The point is that a welsh and Scottish vote is worth more than an English one. There is a discrepancy in the number of electors in each constituency, and there is an uneven bias against the Lib Dems, against the Conservatives in the current make up.

[Treize]

How did you get ''reducing democracy'' from what was written in the OP? The point is that a welsh and Scottish vote is worth more than an English one. There is a discrepancy in the number of electors in each constituency, and there is an uneven bias against the Lib Dems, against the Conservatives in the current make up.

I think that's because it are basically 3 sepertate countries in an union made by aristocrats!

So the voting should be spilt in 3 equal parts. (or 4 but maybe you could add N-Ireland to wales for the voting).

[Каие]

I think that's because it are basically 3 sepertate countries in an union made by aristocrats!

So the voting should be spilt in 3 equal parts. (or 4 but maybe you could add N-Ireland to wales for the voting).

ell no, because there is twice as many people in London than in Scotland alone. 12 million in London, 6million in Scotland. 1 million in Wales. 1 million in NI. The rest in England. We need to spread the vote on number of people.

Conservatives are too slow in their need for change.. They always have been.

Care to give some examples?

I have some, but am willing to see if you have some.

[Treize]

ell no, because there is twice as many people in London than in Scotland alone. 12 million in London, 6million in Scotland. 1 million in Wales. 1 million in NI. The rest in England. We need to spread the vote on number of people.

As it is an union of states, every state should be represented equally IMO.
Well... Wales is hardly a state, never was...

The EU doesn't get it for example

[LoZz]

ell no, because there is twice as many people in London than in Scotland alone. 12 million in London, 6million in Scotland. 1 million in Wales. 1 million in NI. The rest in England. We need to spread the vote on number of people.

there are 3 million people in wales, not 1 milllion and scotland has 5 million not 6.

As it is an union of states, every state should be represented equally IMO.
Well... Wales is hardly a state, never was...

The EU doesn't get it for example

yes we where. you think we where invented out of thin air? we are a country with its own language, culture and so on.


as for the conservatives, well i sense they are tapping onto the culture in the uk right now of "whats the point". people are fed up, no matter who they vote for they get the same fat corrupt s who serve there own intrest, the only difference is the colour of the tie and the language they use. but i fear they are too much apart of this culture to really make people belive they will make a difference

[Treize]

Yes we where. you think we where invented out of thin air? we are a country with its own language, culture and so on.

I know, but Wales was annexed by England before the union was made.

[2-D Ron]

ell no, because there is twice as many people in London than in Scotland alone. 12 million in London, 6million in Scotland. 1 million in Wales. 1 million in NI. The rest in England. We need to spread the vote on number of people.



Care to give some examples?

I have some, but am willing to see if you have some.

I don't want to get into detail at the moment.. But in terms, off the top of my head, the Tories didn't exactly have a clue what to do when The Coal Strikes happened back in the 80's.
They treated the strike like it was a Terrorist Op, no negotiations.

The Poll Tax, Ignoring Recessions when they happened, keeping a "let it run it's Course" Attitude as John Major spoke about in a BBC Interview Last Year.

Sure a Boom and Bust is a natural part of Economic life but this one was Globalist orientated.. A Domino Effect.
The Tories would of stuck with the latter, "Do Nothing" option and we'd still be in this Credit Crunch?

Thus they never change.

[removeduser_487563287433]

I don't want to get into detail at the moment.. But in terms, off the top of my head, the Tories didn't exactly have a clue what to do when The Coal Strikes happened back in the 80's.
They treated the strike like it was a Terrorist Op, no negotiations.

The Poll Tax, Ignoring Recessions when they happened, keeping a "let it run it's Course" Attitude as John Major spoke about in a BBC Interview Last Year.

Sure a Boom and Bust is a natural part of Economic life but this one was Globalist orientated.. A Domino Effect.
The Tories would of stuck with the latter, "Do Nothing" option and we'd still be in this Credit Crunch?

Thus they never change.

Wow, that's a lot of words wasted on something that could have easily have been copy pasted from a Labour propaganda blog.

[2-D Ron]

I don't want to get into detail at the moment.. But in terms, off the top of my head, the Tories didn't exactly have a clue what to do when The Coal Strikes happened back in the 80's.
They treated the strike like it was a Terrorist Op, no negotiations.

The Poll Tax, Ignoring Recessions when they happened, keeping a "let it run it's Course" Attitude as John Major spoke about in a BBC Interview Last Year.

Sure a Boom and Bust is a natural part of Economic life but this one was Globalist orientated.. A Domino Effect.
The Tories would of stuck with the latter, "Do Nothing" option and we'd still be in this Credit Crunch?

Thus they never change.

I still haven't seen the argument for ''reducing democracy''

Reducing the numbers of Politicians wont deal with Corruption issues, it'll 'in theory' increase Parliaments control of Laws that need to be passed.

I've also heard that Cameron also wants to 'Abolish' Council Elections thus the local voice will be snuffed out and I have really ever voted on Council Elections myself; I don't trust MP's.

My MP is Dari Taylor and I think she's a nob as well as a Stationary Thief.

[Каие]

Sigh.

[Barry Goldwater]

IMHO, conservatives are not reactionaries who act the part of a rock in a wild river, trying with all their might to resist the river's flow; rather, a conservative changes when change becomes necessary, unlike liberals who change for the sake of change.

Tories in favour of reducing democracy in there favour, yes, what a wounderful change.

Kill all tories.

lulz

[2-D Ron]

IMHO, conservatives are not reactionaries who act the part of a rock in a wild river, trying with all their might to resist the river's flow; rather, a conservative changes when change becomes necessary, unlike liberals who change for the sake of change.



lulz

Conservatives are too slow in their need for change.. They always have been.

[Barry Goldwater]

Conservatives are too slow in their need for change.. They always have been.

And liberals have always been much too quick. To those who seek rapid change, I say - 'Patience, young padawan' Remember, the tortoise always beats the hare - if not because the hare is an arrogant who takes a nap while the tortoise scurries forward, then because the hare is in such a rush that he trips over his own legs and breaks his bones.

[Dunecat]

I don't like it. Seems it would reduce democratic authority in the UK.

[Kiljan Arslan]

IMHO, conservatives are not reactionaries who act the part of a rock in a wild river, trying with all their might to resist the river's flow; rather, a conservative changes when change becomes necessary, unlike liberals who change for the sake of change.



lulz

Some connservatives are, some conservatives however become radical reactionaries. See Dobson and Mary Whitehouse and syphillis Schafley.

[Каие]

I still haven't seen the argument for ''reducing democracy''

[Каие]

@LoZzZ

ah, you're right, my mistake! Not really sure where I got that idea from.