The Benefits of a Scandal

Oh, it's all miserable isn't it? Some MPs have been naughty, the rest are unjustly hated, the Speaker's going, the papers have won... oh, and the economy's reliably awful. But, dear reader, fear not! Whatever your opinion on the cause of the problems, whether you agree or disagree with my left-field ideas about actually being "nice to people", we can all take some degree of solace from the proposed solutions.

Alan Johnson wants fair votes! David Cameron wants an end to the Royal Prerogative! Nick Clegg wants every change he can think of! And yes, Gordon Brown wants a revolver.

Even though the public fury leaves a sour taste in my mouth, proposals on this scale represent (pretty much verbatim) my political wish-list. Throw in Cornish devolution and more tax relief for small breweries, and you're almost there. As a constitutional geek, I have long held the belief that reform of the voting system in particular is not just desirable, but necessary in a "democracy". This should be where the grand struggle between my Old Tory heart and my Young Liberal brain begins, but it fizzles out into a consensus.... it's just crackers (and, well, almost underhand) to have a system whereby the number of votes cast doesn't closely correlate with the number of seats won.

Perhaps if we had some power to actually elect our representatives, the current sense of disconnectedness wouldn't be as acute. My Young Liberal brain tells me this should be the case, but my Old Tory heart knows that it won't be. There must also be a Tory portion of my brain too, because apathy seems pretty entrenched in Scotland and Wales, where they have PR. Thankfully for both of my political identities (the sneering Hay Festival Ponce and the goading Edwardian Port-Swiller) this can be reduced to my usual maxim: people are stupid. People in England are stupid to not realise how jolly lucky they are to have this chance to change things, and people in both Scotland and Wales are stupid for not realising how much more power they have and how much contentment this should bring.

Oh well, best not fret over it. If people will be stupid, leave them to it, eh?