Douglas Carswell's Blog

Can't recall the promise to renew democracy

Amazing what a few months in office can do.

Last summer the Coalition agreement promised "early legislation to introduce a power of recall, allowing voters to force a by-election where an MP is found to have engaged in serious wrongdoing and having had a petition calling for a by-election signed by 10% of his or her constituents."

Today Nick Clegg seemed to suggest that recall was on the back burner, with a "filter" in the form of Westminster grandees, to prevent vexatious attempts to oust MPs.  That despite the mountain of evidence that voters almost always reject unwarranted attempts to undo their democratic choice.  Remember the re-run Winchester election in 1997? 

Also in the Coalition agreement was the promise to have "200 all-postal primaries over this Parliament, targeted at seats which have not changed hands for many years."

That, too, has been quietly dropped.  Absurdly on the grounds of cost - despite the fact that the original proposal for open primaries required zero extra public spending in the first place.

How curious that some parts of the Coalition agreement should be so flexible while other bits of it seem to be set in stone.

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