Policy - Democracy

29th November 2011

Raheem Kassam

You must remember. The fanfare, the fist pumping, the feeling that ‘things can only get better’. No, this wasn’t 1997, this was 2009.

Gordon Brown had bottled a General Election and the Tories were riding the crest of a wave. Women supported them, youngsters supported them and environmental activists were thinking of ‘voting blue and going green’.

One other flagship policy from the Tories, designed to win over the direct democrats and libertarians, was that of open primaries, a system commonly used in the United States whereby the local residents, not just party members, get to choose their candidates for their constituencies, rather than having party pole-climbers parachuted in.

“Great!” We thought. We can fully support this: a system that delivers talented representatives and in some cases,whistle-blowers for bad behavior. The opposition ostensibly followed suit.

Alas now in government, the Tories seem to have put all this democracy nonsense behind them. Well, unless you’re Libyan.

24th August 2011

Constitutional Reform under the Coalition Government

Lord Norton

Writing in Crossbow Lord Norton explores the constitutional reform under the Coalition Government.

31st May 2011

Target Paper - Towards an Effective House of Lords

Andrew Taggart & Samuel Emery, with a foreword by Lord Norton

The House of Lords has often been subject to considerable criticism on a number of different grounds, and the sheer amount written on the subject of House of Lords reform illustrates that our upper house sits uneasily

20th May 2011

The Bow Group warns against an elected House of Lords

Ben Harris-Quinney

By Samuel Emery & Andrew Taggart

On Wednesday 17th May 2011 the Coalition government published proposals for a fully or mainly elected House of Lords. These proposals are the latest addition to an ever growing body of literature on Lords reform. However, these ‘reforms’ will not be reforms by any ordinary standards. If implemented, they will in essence amount to the abolition of the House of Lords as we know it, and will replace it with a very different beast altogether; our very own elected Senate.

11th April 2011

Death of the Conviction Voter: Fairness and Tactics under AV

Richard Mabey, with forewords by Bernard Jenkin MP (Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee) and Rt Hon Joan Ryan (Director, Labour No2AV)

The particular type of AV being proposed in next month's referendum is not the type used in national elections elsewhere in the world (in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and Australia) but is in fact employed only in local elections in two Australian states.

9th February 2011

Bow Group AV debate

The Bow Group event: "AV: Fairer votes or a compromise nobody wants?" took place on Tuesday February 8th at 7pm at the House of Commons. A packed Committee Room 11 witnessed a lively debate in which Katie Ghose, Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society put the case for a Yes vote in the May 5th referendum,

8th May 2007

London Under Livingstone - A Evaluation of Labour's Mayor

Christopher Mahon & Alastair Sloan

A new report from the Bow Group examines the track record of Ken Livingstone as London Mayor and uncovers rising taxes and worse public services.

22nd July 2006

The Price of Dishonour

Chris Philp

The correlation between making large donations to the Labour Party and receiving an honour is extraordinary. Statistical analysis shows that 58.54% of all donors giving more than £50,000 to the Labour Party receive an honour. This compares to just 0.035% of non-donors.