constitutional reform – Page 2

By Graham Allen MP, Dave Richards and Martin Smith

Brian Barry suggested that: ‘…there has been a massive rise in the incidence of sanctimony and smugness among the successful that has nothing to do with any change in the underlying reality… It has been stimulated by politicians who have realised that it is possible to win power by recruiting the most … successful forty per cent or so of the population in a crusade to roll back the gains made by their fellow citizens in the previous forty years’. Written fifty years ago, the spirit, if not the empirical accuracy of this sentiment, still holds true. The Conservative Party have returned to power with an outright, yet slim majority. The turnout, though slightly up on previous elections at 66%, saw the Conservatives secure a 36.9% share. Read another way this means that only 24.7% of those eligible to vote did so for the new governing party. The Westminster model was, of course, always designed to deliver out right winners thanks to the machinations of the first-past-the post electoral system. In 2015, it can certainly be said to have done its job. But in an increasingly anti-political age, with a growing sense of cynicism with the ways and means of the Westminster system, it might be argued that a new government with such a precarious majority would be well served by operating with a public show of humility, not hubris.

By Paul Cairney

The Scottish Parliament is an important focus for academic study, not least because most of the early work has produced broad brush strokes. There is still an important role for in-depth, case study based, research on particular bills, time periods, and periods of minority/ majority or single-party/ coalition rule. There is much work to be done to compare the Scottish Parliament with others, from the current focus on comparisons with Westminster and, at times, Nordic parliaments, to the well-established broader work on classifying legislatures. In each case, the new Scottish experience has something to add to ‘Westminster family’ discussions, comparisons based on similar size or functions, and studies of non-majority rule. There are also important but small literatures on the role of the Scottish Parliament as a hub for deliberative and participative democracies, and on microcosmic representation and its effect on parliamentary practices.