Monday, 14 May 2012 2:42 PM

Much of the debate on Lords reform in the initial rush of excitement after last week's Queen's Speech has focused on whether the issue is a 'priority' for the government. Ever since Ed Miliband wound David Cameron up on this point last Wednesday opposition politicians have been revelling in the awkwardness of the coalition's position. Of course it is not a priority, ministers have explained. We're just going to get on with setting in train the mother of all constitutional clashes, using up masses of parliamentary time in the process, and see if we can get away with it, they are improbably claiming.

Now the flapping is dying down the process of actually getting on with the bill is beginning. This is going to be a long year, though: the Lords reform bill isn't even going to appear before parliament in the next few days, as you might have expected. Sir George Young, leader of the Commons, explained the situation in his usual elegant fashion last Thursday.

"The joint committee reported a few days ago," he said. "The government want to reflect on the recommendations in its report in order to see whether we need to amend the draft bill that was published last year. There will then be a House of Lords reform bill, and so there will be a debate on that. I anticipate that the bill will be introduced before the summer recess."

Parliament is off on May 24th for a modest three-week break, before returning for a six-week period from June 11th to July 17th. That's the likeliest window for the bill to receive its first reading, kicking off a bruising process which is likely to extend well beyond the 2012/13 session. If the Parliament Act is needed (and it will be) it will be deployed in 2013/14; any further foot-dragging, which is plausible, and it starts to get very difficult indeed.

Such procedural headaches are actually only a very small part of the nightmare that will be getting Lords reform through parliament. It is far more likely to be the victim of a death of a thousand cuts, as I've already written. Politicians wearing down the bill by attacking the contradictions and hypocrisies which attend most of its nitty-gritty details will be the real giant-killers.

The 'debate on the address' taking place in the Commons since the Queen's Speech has revealed that there are some positive arguments which we can also expect to be deployed. Defenders of the current House of Lords will be making the most of the advantages of the way the system works at present. Take Conservative MP David Amess, for example, who was quick to make clear he was "never" in favour of reform.

"In the other place, there are women and men of wonderful experience, who bring great value as a revising chamber," he argued. "I am totally opposed to having the second chamber in competition with this place."

Not all Conservatives are opposed to the change, however, and we should take care to avoid referring to the Tory party being against it en masse. Stephen Dorrell argued that there is a "proper Conservative narrative" for Lords reform in his contribution last week. He cited Lord Hailsham, Margaret Thatcher's first lord chancellor, who 50 years ago moaned about the "elective dictatorship" which runs Britain.

"I allow myself a gentle cheer," he said. "I think that Lord Hailsham, from his grave, would cheer the prospect of our seeking a structure that allows parliament to be a more effective check on the executive."

Dorrell continued: "We either believe in the case for less and better government, and more checks and balances in government —as a Conservative, I do; that governments should be subject to checks and balances and accountability is a core Conservative belief—or we do not."

The Tories are split on Lords reform - but which side will win out when the bill is introduced? Perhaps more significantly, how effectively will Tory supporters be able to block the enemies of the change when they begin their sabotage attempts? Plenty to look forward to in the coming months, that's for sure. As the coalition devises its strategy behind closed doors, the enemies of Lords reform are sitting and waiting. A big, big fight is coming up over the horizon fast.

Tuesday, 8 May 2012 9:53 AM

Those of you who took your Maths GCSE in 2003 might recall answering the following question:

'8. Mary is carrying out an investigation into the cost of food at her college canteen. She asks people in the queue for canteen food 'do you agree that canteen food is value for money?'

a: Why is her sample of people likely to be biased? (1)
b: Why is her question biased? (1)

It is question 8b, of course, which is germane to the current struggle over the terms of the Scottish independence referendum currently underway between Holyrood and Westminster. Today the Commons' Scottish affairs committee has accused the nationalists in power in Edinburgh of cooking up a similarly leading question. They quote the above question as their way of demonstrating that this is not especially complex stuff. Pollsters and academics lined up to explain that the Scottish government's question is utterly biased.

This is not rocket science. It's obvious that asking 'do you agree that Scotland should become an independent country?' is likely to get more 'yes' votes than a question which adds 'or disagree'. The UK government would probably prefer something like 'should Scotland become an independent country or should it remain part of the United Kingdom?' That, according to Martin Boon of ICM Research, is the most likely to get a large majority of 'no' votes.

In such a polarised debate - all of Westminster's main parties are wholly against Scottish independence - it's difficult to take either side's view at face value. Hence the title of the committee's report - 'do you agree this question is biased?'

 "We cannot have a contest in which separatists are both player and referee," committee chair Ian Davidson says. In this case MPs are in the right to call for the issue to be decided independently - but only because the SNP are so blatantly on the offensive. The independent Electoral Commission has already offered to carry out the work to come up with a clear and fair question.

The Scottish government are fighting this, however. The BBC quotes a spokesman for Scottish government minister Bruce Crawford as pointing out that the Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson has accepted the SNP's question is "straightforward and fair". They are also pointing out the 'do you agree' formulation was used in Labour's 1997 devolution referendum.

At present, then, the SNP is only prepared to accept "advice" from the Electoral Commission. Yet this is a critical question which could decide the future of the country. The stakes are so high neither side will be prepared to back down. So what can the British government do to get their way? I'm going to spend some time this week trying to find out. The fight for Britain's future, on this odd procedural battleground of how to phrase a question, continues.

Friday, 4 May 2012 10:25 AM

This post is taken from my rolling analysis blog of the election results as they come in - much more on the elected mayoral referenda there throughout the day.

Four referenda results in so far, and all four have voted 'no'. Calls for a post-mortem are already being made as the coalition confronts its elected mayor fiasco.

After the results in Nottingham, Manchester, Bradford and Coventry, the verdict is clear. "The campaign was a complete disaster," says Policy Exchange's deputy director David Skelton. Supporters of elected mayors are viewing the coalition's failure to provide clarity on what powers a directly elected mayor would be given as the number one reason for the bad news. But the problem seems to go further than that. "The campaign in favour has been absolutely lacklustre," Stuart Wilks-Heeg of Democratic Audit says. "Usually when people are presented with a referendum they say 'I'll leave it how it is', particularly when they don't understand the issues that well."

Skelton believes the business and trade union communities need to have a good hard look at themselves, too, to work out why we're seeing such a decisive rejection. The big problems identified so far are that the media's imagination just wasn't captured; that the campaigns weren't sufficiently high profile to make a difference; and, most worryingly, that "they didn't manage to get across the sense that this wasn't about electing just another politician". Earlier this week Policy Exchange published research showing that 81% of people don't think politicians understand the real world. As he notes about average turnout of around 32%: "The anti-politics mood is quite febrile at the moment."

Alexandra Jones, chief executive of the Centre for Cities thinktank, has been following the individual contests closely. While she is accepting that disengagement with politics is a big factor, the local factors are critical to understanding the results, too. Manchester already has a very strong leadership, so the difference having power concentrated into the person of a directly elected mayor wouldn't have made as big a difference there. Coventry is prospering at the moment, so it would not have felt the need for a chance. Nottingham was expected to reject the proposal, anyway.

The expectation is that even Birmingham, viewed as a shoe-in to vote 'yes' before polling day yesterday, will reject the proposals, leaving Jones gloomy about the prospects of getting even one more elected mayor as a result of this set of referenda. But the Institute for Government is telling me that it's still a little too early to be so downcast. Bristol and Leeds, both also viewed as likely 'yes' votes, are still to declare.

Still, Jones says, it's not looking good anywhere. "The mayoral Cabinet," she notes, "could be a very cosy affair indeed".