Peter Hoskin

Reform? Looks more like gerrymandering

Much ado about this 55 percent proposal – whereby that proportion of the House, rather than just over 50 percent, would be required to vote down a government – and rightly so.  But, as so often, Iain Martin says all that needs to be said.  Here’s a snippet from his must-read post:

“It is rather stretching things to try and present this piece of proposed gerrymandering as ‘Political Reform.’ It is actually designed to ensure that even a walk-out of the whole Lib Dem parliamentary group couldn’t actually bring down this government. This would weaken parliament and strengthen the hand of the executive considerably – when it is only weeks since both parties were talking of doing the opposite.”

This is one of those cases where the overwhelming beneficiaries are those parties in power – and where they would surely oppose it were they not in power.  For that reason alone, it all looks rather suspect. 

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