The State Opening of Parliament today was scaled back because of Covid. Her Majesty as ever was a class-act; an old trouper at a familiar gig – her 67th performance.
When she finished she was driven home to Windsor through Barons Court. Robert was mundanely buying a baked potato for lunch at the Polish cafe. A man rushed in shouting “it’s the Queen, she’s just driven by with masses of cars and police”. I mention this because our last royal visitor was HM’s mother, Queen Elizabeth, also going to Windsor but in a hearse.
A small part of her speech mentioned legislation to introduce voter ID, something already in place in Northern Island, because the electorate there have a history of being especially weaselly. Representatives of the main parties were interviewed and they all got it wrong. If the government is genuine in wanting to reduce voter fraud, of which there is not much – fine, but there is no need to legislate. The Electoral Commission has a rolling programme of tightening up on electoral abuse. In the 2019 General Election two small changes were introduced. Unfortunately none of the twelve Presiding Officers I interviewed were aware of them. Recommendation to Electoral Commission: highlight changes to bring them to the attention of seasoned staff who tend not to read the handbook. Furthermore, postal votes are more open to fraud, although some safeguards have been introduced. If the government wants to boost democracy it is high time constituency boundaries are re-drawn – something agreed on but not legislated on. This would give the Conservatives an advantage – maybe twenty seats – so maybe why the opposition hasn’t mentioned the matter.
At the risk of boring some of you, if we want democracy we need to introduce some form of proportional representation. With the present system, if there are more than two candidates, the successful candidate will have had more than half the voters against him/her. The present system was designed for a two party system and is outdated now there are more parties.
Your point is well made but the devil is in the detail. Some 5% of first votes were not allowed (spoilt) in the London mayoral election last week because voters were confused. Indeed, 80 % of the electorate did not vote for the (Labour) winner. At the risk of being boring, we need to know if we are a two party state. I suggest not any more. Then we need to have a PR voting system that does not have party lists. Don’t get me started!
How can you buy a baked potato other than mundanely? Anything else would risk drawing unwarranted attention.