There is circumstantial evidence that suggests MPs from a safe seat or long standing MPs are those most likely to have made unreasonable allowance claims. Unreasonable claims were also made by relative newcomers. Somebody who has more talent with statistics than me may be able to demonstrate a correlation with something. Remember that claims were made under a system in which MPs did not expect them to be published, which may have had a greater effect on honesty/dishonesty than job security.

Indeed, I’m not even convinced that job insecurity keeps people honest. Employees at a warehouse owned by a company that is failing are more likely to take souvenirs home than those who fear losing a secure job. The same rule applies to MPs, and an MP who knows s/he will lose the seat in a few years time (under FPTP or STV) may decide to make hay while the sun shines.

Chris Dillow at Stumbling and Mumbling has often argued that we need to pay politicians and judges a reasonable wage to keep them honest. Definition of a “reasonable wage” for MPs is open for debate, but we can assume that MP salaries aren’t going to increase in the immediate future. Selection committees are going to need to assure themselves that candidates honestly believe that they can live on £65K plus honest expenses. And we are all going to have to look out for MPs who need to fuel a lifestyle that outstrips their honest earnings. Both considerations are independent of the voting system.

Actually it probably will. STV means there is a lower number of safe seats. And one of the things that has come out of this current scandal is that the safer the seat, the more likely the MP has fiddled his/her expenses.

You’ll regret that if Judge Cal comes to power.

I’m chaning my name to Aaron A. Aardvark!

But as I understand it, the plan is to print different ballot papers, which cycle which name is at the top, to eliminate this effect.

That question answers itself.

But if Brown does the right thing for the wrong reason, I’m not complaining. At the very least it’ll redeem Labour’s 1997 manifesto promise — only 12 years late.

It is all very well to talk of reforming the political system – and some of these ideas (more power to select cttes, a power to recall MPs who have become v.unpopular/infamous) are very good. But for them to work at their best, they need an active and involved citizenry.

Looking at a list of Irish politicians – Ireland being one of the few countries with STV – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irish_politicians, it does seem that a disproportionate number of them seem to have names begining A-G and very few H-Z (despite the no of people with surnames starting O’ that must live in Ireland).

I think – and it is sad to say it – that too many voters aren’t living up to their duties of citizenship and aren’t politically interested or politically involved enough to make meaningful choices between a range of candidates from the same party in their locality.

“I don’t think, though, that the average voter would bother to take the time to be well-informed about which individual candidates from their favoured party would be better.”

I believe that’s what campaigning is all about…?
Bit of healthy public competition between a party’s prospective representatives sounds pretty good.

Seriously, though, for info on STV, I can only suggest you try the Electoral Reform Society link above.

(And for anyone who wants to argue campaigning doesn’t make a difference, or raise voter awareness, etc – go ask Willie Rennie, MP about how well it worked for him here in Dunfermline.)

If we are to have PR, I think an open-list would be better – as it would give the option to people who did have a clearly favoured individual to vote for him to be at the top of the list but would also enable those who favoured a party but didn’t know anything about an individual party to vote for the party without having to specifiy who should come top of thier list.

Wish we had STV here in Scotland, rather than the FPTP/top-up list mish-mash…but at least it’s better than Westminster.

Even drunk students can run STV elections…

MPs have been caught out claiming for expenses in order to supplement their salaries. MPs have been exposed because their expenses claims have been published (accurately or not) in a national newspaper. The expenses claims should and could have been published anywhere; citizens have the right to know.

Now that we do know, citizens are outraged and seek removal of offenders. And MPs won’t do it in the future because we’ll know about it. We don’t even need to change the allowances scheme much — it is a fair system for those who live far from Westminster, and thanks to the crooks, we know all of the ways that it can be abused.

Political parties can remove offenders — and I mean local parties who are no longer beholden to federal parties. If you think that your MP is a crook, the normal candidate selection rules no longer apply. Just as MPs need to be reminded that they are servants of the voters, federal parties need to understand that they are servants of party members.

Recall processes for MPs are appealing because they give the impression that voters are in control. But voters are not in control; local parties will pick another crook or robot, accidentally or incidentally. The only people who know the honesty of a candidate are close friends and family, and even they can be mistaken. No voting system can deliver an MP with personal integrity.

Reform the electoral system because it is the democratic thing to do. Reform parliamentary procedure because it will create better laws. Don’t kid yourself that either will deliver more honest MPs.

Excellent stuff. Whilst the campaign to elect Barack Obama managed to register voters who could only claim a park bench as their residence, here in the UK you’ll need a mobile phone to vote.

And an “open database of their support”?

As the UK learned at the last set of EU elections, technology and gimmicks are not the solutions to electoral non-participation. The more complex technology becomes, the greater the opportunity for abuse. If you want a straight voting system, it is difficult to create something more open than paper and pencil at your local community hall in a process observed by candidates and participants. Everything is conducted in public except for how you vote.

Have a PR/STV system to decide who sits in the legislature to create the propective policies, but let us vote on them directly.

Thought not.

Yes sir baas. Good way to invite debate. And what was it about “…and other similar articles” that you didn’t understand?

You can vote for anyone and you can change your vote at 24 hours notice. The legislative voting power of an MP is decided by how many votes they have been invested with from all over the country. They would act rather like delegates. If we had this in place now, half the house of commons would have lost their seat over the last 3 weeks by having their votes taken away, rather than waiting for an election to come round. It wouldn’t have needed a complicated recall procedure either.

Great post, why on earth aren’t either STV or AV discussed more when this kind of thing crops up? The media is obsessed with PR versus FPTP. There are other options, people!

Funny, I thought that’s exactly what happens any time PR is discussed – there’s scarcely time to agree the principle (or at least mobilise overwhelming support for it) before everyone starts breaking out their favourite systems and their slide rules…but then maybe I read the wrong papers/blogs…