Citizen's Convention (Accountability And Ethics) Bill

If Gordon Brown was serious about reform he would allow time for this bill to be debated.

"A Citizens’ Convention would a deliberative assembly consisting of at least 100 ordinary men and women selected from the electoral roll, just as juries are selected in the courts. The selection would be ‘semi-random’ as attempts would be made to ensure that the Convention represents all sections of society and all areas of the UK.

The role of the Citizens’ Convention would be to make a series of recommendations to Parliament for improving UK politics. In particular, we would want it to look at:

* The payments and expenses of MPs and members of the House of Lords.
* The electoral system or systems in the UK including the composition of the House of Lords.
* Greater powers for citizens to hold MPs and members of the House of Lords to account including the circumstances and method by which citizens can petition for the recall MPs and members of the House of Lords.
* The conduct of business in Parliament including the powers of the House of Commons; and of individual members of Parliament.
* The funding of political parties including the issue of caps on donations.

It could explore other areas of reform if it decided to.

Like a jury trial, the Citizens’ Convention would hear evidence from a variety of interested people, ranging from political parties, academics and interest groups. We would also want to see it going around the country hearing evidence from the public directly. This public involvement is important. The Convention itself would decide who to take evidence from".

But he won't. Pigs will fly before Gordon Brown is serious about anything other than saving his own skin. He may be good at bullying and scheming in the Labour party bureaucracy, but he is rubbish at running the country. We are doomed to the Tories taking us backwards - fiddling with the boundaries of a decrepit system to elect more Tory MPs on an ever smaller minority of the vote. Groan!