Stuart Wilks-Heeg's blog

Proponents of constitutional reform will be cheered further by the headline results from the latest opinion poll. The findings provide a number of interesting insights to inform OurKingdom's discussion on Real Change and possible strategies for democratic reform post-expenses. As with other recent surveys, YouGov's poll for the Fabian Society, released today, has been reported as offering further evidence of the public's desire for change. The results also suggest that among voters in Scotland, the part of the UK which has experienced the most far-reaching constitutional change as a result of devolution in the late 1990s, there is a particularly strong appetite for reform of the Westminster system.

Based on an on-line survey of 2000 adults from 1-3 July 2009, the polling produced four key findings which reformers will want to highlight. First, only 46 per cent of UK voters say they are satisfied with ‘the way democracy works in the UK' (if this sounds surprisingly high, it is worth noting that satisfaction levels with UK democracy were 30 percentage points higher that this in the late 1990s). Second, a majority of those polled do appear to feel that the current crisis represents a significant opportunity for reform: 54 per cent agreed with the statement that ‘this is a once-in-a-generation chance for a major overhaul to improve our democracy'.

Third, the poll suggests a similar majority in favour of citizens, rather than politicians, being at the vanguard of reform: 52 per cent say they would prefer reform proposals emerge from a citizens' convention, compared to just 19 per cent in favour of leaving the task to MPs. Fourth, there are some strong indicators of the types of reforms which the public would be most likely to favour, with at least half of the respondents prioritising both fixed parliamentary terms and a more proportional voting system from among a menu of reform options.

The Local Government Association (LGA) has published a remarkable pamphlet to coincide with its annual conference, taking place in Harrogate this week. The glossy, professionally-designed eleven page document is what we've come to expect from local government these days. It is the text which is surprising. The pamphlet is written with a passion, immediacy and radicalism unheard of in local government circles since the days of Red Ken's GLC, David Blunkett's Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Derek ‘Deggsy' Hatton's Militant resistance in Liverpool. Even the title of the pamphlet - ‘Who's in Charge? A Manifesto for a New Politics' - is reminiscent of the language associated with the radical localism of the New Urban Left in the early 1980s. Much of the text could have been borrowed, with minor modifications, from David Blunkett and Keith Jackson's (1987) book: ‘Democracy in Crisis: The Town Halls Respond'.

As such, established local government commentators will recognise that there is nothing particularly new in the demands made in the LGA's manifesto. It advocates rolling back the unelected Quango state; radical decentralisation to bring decision-making down to the lowest possible level; making local NHS bodies accountable to the electorate; a genuine power of general competence for local government, and real fiscal autonomy, including returning to councils the power to set local business rates.

A poll commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust and reported in today’s Guardian and by Stuart Weir indicates that 75 per cent of those questioned believe either that the UK’s system of government could be ‘improved a great deal’ or that it could be improved ‘quite a lot’. A mere 3 per cent suggest that the system works well and could not be improved at all. The poll also suggests a clear majority – over 60 per cent - would be in favour of a more proportional electoral system.

The question asking survey respondents to assess the current system for governing Britain has been asked in an identical form in 15 surveys since 1973 and on a regular basis since 1991.  The ‘net’ score of -50 per cent in 2009 for faith in the system (calculated as the percentage largely in favour of leaving the system alone minus the percentage suggesting significant reforms are required) is the second lowest ever recorded (narrowly beaten only by the score of -53 per cent in 1995). The 42 per cent proportion responding that the system needs a great deal of improvement is the highest ever.

The results for 2009 are hardly surprising, other than for the fact that there are 3 per cent who somehow continue to believe that the system ‘works extremely well and could not be improved’. Likewise, nobody doubts that support for major constitutional and electoral reforms has received an enormous boost from the revelations surrounding MPs expenses. But everyone knows that these are exceptional times politically. To what extent do poll results like this reflect a deep-seated desire for system reforms?

As a recent Democratic Audit report underlined, European elections are interpreted mostly for the messages they send to national governments, not as mandates for the future direction of the EU. The insistence of democratic theorists that this is a deeply unsatisfactory state of affairs will not cause voters to lose any sleep, however many MEPs turn out to have been punished for the misdemeanours of MPs. But the contradictions run deeper still when MPs seek to interpret the messages they have been sent via elections to a different parliament, using a different electoral system. Perhaps most of all, though, we need to remind ourselves that, for every elector who has spoken, there are two who have not. And, in 2009, it may well have been the silent voters who mattered most.

To be fair, it is difficult to make out the silence of 29 million unused ballot papers amid all the political noise. Imagine them stacked up, each one printed with a unique number which would have linked them to a single voter on the electoral register - voters who never arrived at the polling station.  Then there is the silence emanating from the eligible, but unregistered, voters. We don't even know how many of them there are - possibly another 3 million, perhaps more. Even the psephologist with the well trained ear will struggle to hear them, but they are unmistakably there. The silence of these abstentions should be deafening.

Events in British politics over the past few weeks have moved so fast and so unpredictably, observers might wonder if any political certainties remain at all. At some point in this brief chapter in the history of British democracy, Harold Wilson's infamous ‘a week is a long time in politics' morphed into Marx and Engels's prophetic ‘all that is solid melts into air'.

Perhaps it's time to remind ourselves that some things really do stay the same. Here are two absolute certainties. First, if there proves to be a high level of voter interest in Thursday's European elections in the UK, it will not be down to the British electorate's enthusiasm for EU democracy. Second, the results of the European elections in the UK will have a greater bearing on UK politics and policy than they will on EU politics and policy. The only unusual thing, this time around, is this second certainty has been fully proven before voting has even taken place.

On Thursday we may well see a record turnout for European elections in the UK. A turnout of 45% or more, as one survey suggests, would be a sea change from past elections. In the first five sets of European elections, held from 1979-1999, turnout in the UK hovered around the low 30s and was firmly at the bottom of the EU league table. If turnout is up, we will all know why. Nobody needs reminding that this is the first opportunity which all UK voters will get to express their views about MPs' expenses at the ballot box. Yet, if it is to be Members of the European Parliament taking the rap for the misdemeanours of Members of the House of Commons, it will hardly be a victory for democracy.

Back on 9 May 2009, the MPs' expenses scandal still had a comedy touch to it. We were just learning about millionairess Barbara Follett's £25,000 claim for security services, considering Phil Woolas's denial that he had claimed for women's clothing and sanitary products, and wondering quite what Vera Baird was thinking when she tried to claim for a Christmas tree. The stories about the moat dredging, the allowances for a home which was neither in London nor in the MP's constituency, and payments for mortgages already paid off in full were all still to come. Resignations from government post, suspensions from party whips were expected, and already called for, but there would first be a full 5 days of denial, rebuttal, bluff, apology and repayment. But events have moved fast. The old cliché, ‘a week is a long time in politics' has never rung truer.

While further, possibly more damaging, revelations can be expected, debate is rightly turning to consider the wider issue of what has become of representative democracy in the United Kingdom. Voters are justifiably angry, but long-term observers of British parliamentary democracy can scarcely be surprised by the revelations. It is symptomatic of a deeper malaise, we will have all chorused over the past week, hoping, praying, that another opportunity to push for crucial reforms is not lost in the gossip, the outrage and the eventual tediousness of the same story dominating the news agenda for weeks on end.