After a rather dull and uninspiring Guardian fringe event on "fixing politics", at which the most radical constitutional idea was for more elected mayors, I didn't hold out much hope for the Conservative Action on Electoral Reform debate on democracy this afternoon. But it turned out to be a lively affair and good fun.
We were packed into a small room which CAER had clearly been given in the expectation that electoral reform doesn't really do it for Conservatives, but in the end it was standing room only.
Jonathan Isaby of Conservative Home chaired a panel which included Dan Hannan MEP, Peter Facey of Unlock Democracy, shadow justice minister Eleanor Laing and Lewis Baston, Keith Best and Ken Ritchie from the Electoral Reform Society. They were the "dragons", there to comment on the different ideas for reform that were pitched to them by Tory activists and thinkers.
First up was Philip Blond who pitched the idea of a second chamber made up of representatives of civil society associations, Burke's "little plattoons" as he described them. He argued that this would strengthen representation and guard against vested interests by empowering those groups we find meaning in in a way that moves us beyond an atomised society of individuals.
Hannan - in what may or may not have been intended as a compliment - compared this to similar "corporatist" schemes ran by Mussolini and the Portugese dictator Salazar. The preference of most on the panel, and in the room, was for direct elections by the people.
Blonde's consociational second chamber was only marginally less popular than my favourite idea of the day which was the proposal of ConHome blogger Graeme Archer for a second chamber of 100 randomly selected citizens who could delay legislation and send it back to the Commons but not initiate it themselves. Keith Best, of the ERS, in particular was against this idea and anything which contained any element of direct democracy. There was, I'm gald to say, a good deal of booing from the audience at his suggestion that we should preserve politics as a separate profession for people who can do "the hard work and the thinking for us".
Next was a novel proposal to redraw the constituency and local authority boundaries so they coincide. This, it was argued, would provide clarity for the electorate and allow councillors to hold MPs to account. The main objections, voiced by Laing amongst others, were that it would confuse national and local politics and require the re-drawing of county boundaries.
At the end of a lively and fun discussion we, the audience, voted on each of the proposals. The most popular was Douglas Carswell's idea for open primaries followed in joint second-place by John Strafford of the Campaign for Conservative Democracy's idea that all parties registered with the Electoral Commission should be required to have a democratic constitution and a straight-forward proposal by a member of Tory youth for a referendum on EU membership.
It was a great format for the session so well done to Janice Small of CAER for organising it. It was good to hear some imaginative thinking on democratic reform from the Tories in contrast to the tame and cautious ideas coming from the party's leaders.
Carswell will be introducing a Bill next month that would provide for open primaries. This could be done at little cost, he said, by "piggy backing" off existing elections. Let's see if Gordon Brown, who has toyed with the idea of open primaries, backs it. Eleanor Laing said Carswell's idea was right in principle, but as a front-bench spokesperson she wouldn't be able to sponsor the Bill.
