Political reform mustn’t be left to politicians

The House of Commons is not, technically, the ‘mother of all parliaments’. This phrase was coined in 1865 by the radical MP John Bright, who was referring to England. She was, he said, the ancient country of parliaments: men had held these august gatherings for 600 uninterrupted years, even before the Conquest. So of course, he argued, the vote should be extended to the urban working class: anything that took greater account of English opinion would necessarily enrich our political system.

In this spirit, The Spectator has been asking readers over the past six weeks to make proposals for constitutional reform. It is, we have argued, too important an issue to leave to Gordon Brown or to any committee the Prime Minister might be tempted to convene. In 2009, we have technology at our fingertips which would have delighted Bright a century and a half ago: the ability to consult hundreds of individuals submitting ideas and then to subject their proposals to a mass survey of public opinion conducted by PoliticsHome.

In aggregate, the results amount to an agenda for change that may not please any of the parties. They disclose a series of public priorities that are rather distinct from those one encounters within the Westminster village, where the various parliamentary reforms under discussion tend to reflect thinly disguised party political strategies. The Tory plan for cutting the number of MPs, for example, would trigger a boundary review, expected to yield David Cameron as many as 40 seats. Likewise, proportional representation would yoke together Labour and the Liberal Democrats, effectively institutionalising a formidable centre-left bloc.

Hundreds of proposals were sent to The Spectator by post, email and via our CoffeeHouse blog. We selected the 30 most popular themes, and put them to a smaller group of 430 readers who gave their opinions via email.