On Mon, 3 Aug 2009 22:21:08 +0100, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:
Whether the Commission is government, Speaker's or Royal, it's likely to
come to go through much the same process - hearings that just allow the
voting system anoraks and ideologically committed to spout off whilst the
public show no interest, analysis of various other systems in use and a set
of criteria that rules out most of the alternatives before it's started.
Until you can get agreement on the basic principles of what takes priority,
it will just go round and round in circles.


That was certainly true of the Jenkins Commission. But the mistake
was surely for the (New Labour) government to be allowed to commission
it then handicap it with over-specific terms of reference. Jenkins
had no option but to please Blair, whereas a Royal Commission would
have been independent and would have set its own agenda.

Also, the fact that Blair had commissioned Jenkins meant that he could
safely ignore the Commission's conclusions and recommendations. Blair
would have found it much more difficult to ignore the recommendations
of a Royal Commission.

The Jenkins Commission was a sop to the LibDems whom Blair had courted
with the promise of electoral reform if they supported a Labour
government after the 1997 election - Labour might not have secured a
large majority and the LibDems would have been crucial to getting
legislation through Parliament.

In the event, Blair got his majority and discarded the LibDems like a
used tissue. He still set up the Jenkins Commission as promised, but
there was never any chance of electoral reform coming out of it
because Blair no longer needed the support of any other party.

Anyone who believes that New Labour's current musing about electoral
reform is in any way genuine should consider what happened to the
conclusions and recommendations of the Jenkins Commission.