While everyone seems to be in a mad rush to forward things that are in urgent need of overhaul and improvement, I sugges we need to address the terrible libel and copyright laws that this coutry is struggling under.

I think, especially after reading the latest eye, that we’re in desperate need of a freedom of speech bill, and while we’re at it, we could overhaul the copyright and patent systems, to get rid of the life plus a million years, which is merrily strangling new media.

Nothing about promoting joined-up government. A trickle of reports reaching me show growing evidence that we have done nothing about it (despite successive Commons Committee Reports highlighting delays and inadequate outcomes) and that at Ministerial level the problem isn’t accepted as being serious, so the LDs should get on to it.

After the hot air Cameron’s two-page spread (literally, an exercise in nothingness), I must say Clegg’s proposal seem a bit more factual and to the point.

And he’s absolutely right when he says (of Cameron – and Brown, I add), “verbal cover for maintaining the status quo”.

The irony is that the country seems nevertheless ready to elect a guy who’s just robotically mumbling the word “change”, self-styling himself as “new” and “modern”, while he’s leading a party, the Tories, involved head-to-toe in the expenses scandal! In fact he wasn’t immune himself, for gods sake!

Oh for crying out loud. In three weeks no-one is going to care about parliamentary expenses; I’ll vote for the first party which suggests reforming something which actually matters, like health rather than fiddling around with the rules of Westminster. Have MPs forgotten that they actually have a country to run, not just rules to follow and change and take very very seriously?

4. Electoral and constitutional reform matters as it keeps our MPs *relevant*

Also I’m glad more Labour types are coming out in support, I just have to ask where the hell they’ve been hiding with these views for the last 10 years?

Interesting though that Clegg has stated AV+ as what he’d go to a referendum on? Obviously STV is in the Lib Dem blood, but is he seeing sense in a) recognising that AV+ was the last recommendation of the last proper review (even if those like me believe a new review would come up differently) and b) that Labour wouldn’t agree to a referendum including STV?

Hmmm

@Neuroskeptic – It does matter because how Westminster works effects how everywhere else works. Yes, it’s a problem we lost the car door, but given that the engine’s smoking it’s not at all unreasonable to give some priority to dealing with that.

Strained metaphors aside, my point is that some reforms increase our ability to make better future reforms and just because system reform is a bit meta it doesn’t mean it isn’t very important to do and do right. Anything that reminds people that Cameron is Clegg-lite on reform is fine with me.

Although having said that, AV+? Urgh. I like to think of that as something we compromise to in the worst case, not something we put out front and centre as a good idea.

Clegg’s proposals are interesing and well worth supporting, but I wonder if he’s able to say these things as current polling suggests that the LibDems will still be no part of govenment come the next election. Plus, 100 days to pass so many reforms appears to me to be too rapid a pace to pass good-quality legislation.

However, this could be the basis for a wider popular campaign that may be better to pressure a future government into serious reform – a 21st century Chartism, if you will. Is there the will for this to happen? I’m sure there would be support for such proposals across the political spectrum, but will such disparate elements effectively work together?

“Plus, 100 days to pass so many reforms appears to me to be too rapid a pace to pass good-quality legislation.”

It’s plenty of time if half of them that would usually be used to do nothing but go on an extended holiday was used to actually work through these problems.

“but I wonder if he’s able to say these things as current polling suggests that the LibDems will still be no part of govenment come the next election.”

What a backwards argument. If you’re saying something ONLY because you can’t become part of government you’re saying something that the public like to hear but don’t want. Clegg is saying what needs to be said, and what the public also are getting behind. He’s able to say these things because on this issue, and a handful of others recently, the Lib Dems have been leading the political pack on how to approach new challenges and old problems.

So, Clegg wants to turn parliament into a sort of political version of the big brother household?

Will there be cameras and will the public get to vote (presumably on a PR basis) which underperforming MP gets evicted each week?

Has electoral reform ever been so sexy?

Has there ever been a better time to be a Lib Dem?

1. Akhel. Good point about libel laws which are greatly reducing free speech. We need patent laws to protect small companies.

We need to attract people with a broader range of life experience into politics. We need there are people who can actually discuss issues based upon personal experience . If we are to develop new energy sources it would be good to have MPs who are engineers who could discuss the problems . In the 17,18, 19 and 20 centuries there were often MPs who had considerable experience – Newton,Wren, Admiral Cochrane (one of Nelson’s finest subordinates) and many of the great engineers were MPs . If we still elect the same sort of person we have today in the H of C , then it does not matter which system we have , it will not be much use. Only Vince Cable ,in 2003 predicted the debt problem. No other MP was aware of the danger and spoke up because only he had the experience and wisdom to see what was going to happen.

The lack of resources provided for Iraq and Afghanistan are mainly due to the MPs lack of experience in combat and rebuilding countries .

We need a system in which someone like W Churchill can still rise to the top.

Someone like Winston Churchill the Grandson of the Duke of Marlborough?

I think that could probably still be arranged.

This is good stuff from Clegg, and a great antidote to the Cameron rubbish. Career-salvaging in its quality.
What tripe that 100 days is too much of a rush. You can do a lot in 100 days – on D-Day+100 the Allies were liberating Paris.

#6 I agree it’s got to be AV+ because, for better or worse, that was the Jenkins Commission recommendation and there is no time or justification for another go at the question, just get it straight to the referendum.

The only thing I disagree with this is that all these proposals, not just PR, should be put to the people in one big referendum.

Apart from improving the quality of government in this country, PR would also have the advantage of wiping the smirk off Cameron’s face as he realises the prime ministership, that he thought was certainly his, is falling from his grasp.

@6,

Another advantage of AV+ is that unlike STV, it allows recall elections.

I noticed Nick also said he would prefer STV. Should we go for electoral reform if it’s not the most ideal system, or should we bite the bullet and accept even a move to AV+ is a move significantly in the right direction. I feel Nick has made the right call here if he intends to keep on the 100 day mantra.

And the 100 day thing is good, obviously thieved from the US, but it does mean that all the way up to the autumn the Lib Dem’s can say that they would have changed *x* by now, but the other parties didn’t want to reform as much as they said they did.

According to Wikipedia, the original “hundred days” was Napoleon’s, and ended with his Waterloo… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days_(disambiguation)

Cabalamat @6 – “Another advantage of AV+ is that unlike STV, it allows recall elections”. This doesn’t sound likely. Presumably STV can be made to allow for recall, and for by-elections more generally – what happens in Eire or in Scottish local government if one person in a mulit-member constituency dies or resigns?

@18: Presumably STV can be made to allow for recall

If you think this is possible, please explain a mechanism by which it would work.

A small-party candidate might be elected under STV with 1/6th of the vote. If in a recall election, they are required to get 50%, this will heavily penalise small parties, and nullify the whole point of STV.

@19 “Nullify the whole point of STV” is a tad strong.

Presumably in Scottish local government and for the Irish Dail when a vacancy arises in a multi-member constituency through a death or resignation, then a by-election is held under some system or other (FPTP or AV??). I don’t know what the rules are, but someone must know, the system is there up & running. Why couldn’t these rules apply to recall by-elections too?

Or are you saying that the chance to pick off small parties member by member through recall by-elections would lead to “vexatious” recall petitions by the major parties? This feels like a weakness of recall than of STV to me. The prevention of “vexatious” recalls would need to be built into any system.

It’s not clear to me that STV and recall are incompatible. You certainly haven’t proved that point yet. If you could, then I personally would rather have STV than recall.

@20: Why couldn’t these rules apply to recall by-elections too?

Becasue a grouping with 51% support in a constituency would be able to use recall elections to get 100% of the seats.

Or are you saying that the chance to pick off small parties member by member through recall by-elections would lead to “vexatious” recall petitions by the major parties?

How are you defining “vexatious”? For example, id an MP is persuing unpopular or controversial policies, would a recall election for that reason count?

What a backwards argument. If you’re saying something ONLY because you can’t become part of government you’re saying something that the public like to hear but don’t want. Clegg is saying what needs to be said, and what the public also are getting behind. He’s able to say these things because on this issue, and a handful of others recently, the Lib Dems have been leading the political pack on how to approach new challenges and old problems.

In general, I like the proposals, but I was pointing out that a party with little to no chance of power can pretty well say whatever it likes – if in power, how do we know that these proposals will be enacted? I don’t know, but I am a cynical bugger. What Clegg should do is apply these recommendations to the Liberal Democrats’ internal democratic structures (as much as is feasible) as a way of saying to the general public “what we think is good enough for you is good enough for us”. And by showing that these work, their case for electoral/democratic reform can only be stronger.

I say that 100 days sounds too short a time, because I would like to see a number of electoral reform possibilities discussed properly. Reform Acts don’t come around very often!

@21 This has been very useful. I had thought that a recall election would be for transgressions against some pre-arranged rules on probity, attendance, whatever. I hadn’t realised that it was something that could be triggered simply for doing something unpopular at any particular moment in time.

This seems to me like one of the worst of the constitutional proposals flying around at the moment. If you think MPs are spineless now, just wait to see what they are like if they think a recall election may be triggered at any time their approval rating temporarily dips below 50%.

No, better fixed term parliaments and the clear personal accountability created by STV.
So, maybe recall for rule-breaking, but not a general power. I think the public would find the by-elections created vexatious, but it might take a while and a number of daft results before the public got used to refusing to sign the recall petition thrust under their nose in the shopping centre.

Finally, how would recall work for the top up seats in an AV+ system? Wouldn’t this have the same problem as you describe for STV?