How would you reform the UK?

DarloRich said:

No multiple ownership of UK media. One man, one paper.

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I doubt many papers have a single owner these days, most of them are owned by public holding companies. For example The Sun and The Times are owned by News UK which is owned by News Corp of which Rupert Murdoch is about a 30% owner. Does that make him owner of either paper?

Would it be that a single holding company can only own one paper, or that you can only own shares in a single one?

najaB said:

I doubt many papers have a single owner these days, most of them are owned by public holding companies. For example The Sun and The Times are owned by News UK which is owned by News Corp of which Rupert Murdoch is about a 30% owner. Does that make him owner of either paper?

Would it be that a single holding company can only own one paper, or that you can only own shares in a single one?

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I don't care how it is arranged but the control of the UK media by a small number of large owning groups is detrimental to our national debate and information and should be challenged imo. It wont be of course.......................

An elected chamber to handle the home secretary's duties with a bit more foreign policy on top of it, to detoxicate elections from the usual taboo subjects that cloud over people's reasons to vote the way they do. Would give more of a say to the individual and reduce tactical voting based on largely macro issues (ironic coming from me to be fair!).

Has anyone mentioned the need for a written constitution? Currently the powers of the UK executive, legislative and judicial branches are not clearly defined and this can lead to ambiguity, uncertainty and possible conflict between the three pillars of government. The flexible nature of our uncodified constitution means that many matters could be subject to different interpretation. The EU referendum was, legally, advisory only yet an incoming Prime Minister at once pronounced it a mandate, a decision of the British people, when it was neither.

Also I would replace the layout of the HoC, which leads to a confrontational style, with members sitting in a semicircle such as you see in other Parliaments, enough seats for everyone (!), indeed a named seat for each MP, and the ability to vote at their seats without the archaic and time-consuming trooping through lobbies.

geoffk said:

The EU referendum was, legally, advisory only yet an incoming Prime Minister at once pronounced it a mandate, a decision of the British people, when it was neither.

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My question to this is, should referendums be legally binding therefore?

My thinking being, if referendums are only advisory, then when a government gets an answer it doesn't want, it can simply ignore the majority will. So why ask the people at all?

Regardless of the way one voted on the EU referendum, I have to say the antics that occured (on both sides) afterwards really left me questioning whether Britain really is a democracy after all.

The fact that the referendum result stood, eventually did convince me of the fact, but how close are we to only having the illusion and not the real thing? Closer than we think, I presume.

geoffk said:

Has anyone mentioned the need for a written constitution? Currently the powers of the UK executive, legislative and judicial branches are not clearly defined and this can lead to ambiguity, uncertainty and possible conflict between the three pillars of government. The flexible nature of our uncodified constitution means that many matters could be subject to different interpretation. The EU referendum was, legally, advisory only yet an incoming Prime Minister at once pronounced it a mandate, a decision of the British people, when it was neither.

Also I would replace the layout of the HoC, which leads to a confrontational style, with members sitting in a semicircle such as you see in other Parliaments, enough seats for everyone (!), indeed a named seat for each MP, and the ability to vote at their seats without the archaic and time-consuming trooping through lobbies.

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Agree completely. But how do we get to a written constitution (and a constitutional court) to tend it? As long as we have FPTP maintaining two parties which both know that sooner or later they'll get their turn at untrammelled power there's not the slightest pressure on present politicians to change their happy status quo with all its antiquated and antiquarian features, from the monarchy and the house of lords downwards.

The layout of the house of commons is inherently confrontational (even though it has its origins in mediaeval ecclesiastical architecture with one side responding to the other rather than always yah-booing it), but then that's how the whole British system is currently set up, from parliament through the courts down to the humblest school debating society — "truth" is upposed to emerge by being battled out, often with the side with the most noise emerging victorious. The semi-circular layout is very much more appropriate to an inquisitorial style in which truth is quietly investigated. As for those absurd voting procedures .... And yet our politicians are preparing to spend billions on restoring the Palace of Westminster in its present form because it's so important to our and to international democracy ...

DarloRich said:

I don't care how it is arranged but the control of the UK media by a small number of large owning groups is detrimental to our national debate and information and should be challenged imo. It wont be of course.......................

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I think looking at newspaper ownership and considering that control of the media is a bit of a stretch. As per https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/116529/news-consumption-2018.pdf the main source of news for people today is the TV and the internet, with the single biggest source being the BBC One News.

All news has some sort of bias, it's produced by people. The way to fix things is to make people aware of the biases so they can evaluate what they're being told properly.

Well I have quite a long list of options......

1. Scrap basically all Local Government in England and rebuild it from the ground up - with counties/districts that actually reflect economic realities as well as ancient lines drawn on a map centuries ago. Perhaps an outright return to the "Metropolitan County" model that prevailed before they were eliminated for deigning not to vote for Thatcher's chosen candidates.
2. Deploy and achieve universal broadband paid for by a precept on council tax, with a similar funding model adopted for the BBC - with the goal of abandoning broadcast television in favour of all streaming model.
3. Adopt a single vote AMS system with top up candidates chosen as they are in Baden-Wurttemberg, that is that a party's top up seats are awarded to a party's highest scoring losers in constituency seats.
4. Amend the Parliament Act to prevent it's use to modify either the Parliament Acts or other Constitutionally Sensitive pieces of legislation, with a list - allowing a measure of constitutional entrenching to be deployed without abandoning parliamentary sovereignty.
5. Pursue any and all opportunities for economic, political and social integration with the Commonwealth Realms
6. Place a limit on the number of peers that may be appointed to the House of Lords in any given year, and a well defined procedure for selection and division between the Government, the Opposition and devolved Administrations.
7. Nationalise electricity, railway and water and start bringing them to the standards that will be required to get us through the next century.

Think that is enough to be going on with.....

HSTEd said:

Well I have quite a long list of options......

1. Scrap basically all Local Government in England and rebuild it from the ground up - with counties/districts that actually reflect economic realities as well as ancient lines drawn on a map centuries ago. Perhaps an outright return to the "Metropolitan County" model that prevailed before they were eliminated for deigning not to vote for Thatcher's chosen candidates.
2. Deploy and achieve universal broadband paid for by a precept on council tax, with a similar funding model adopted for the BBC - with the goal of abandoning broadcast television in favour of all streaming model.
3. Adopt a single vote AMS system with top up candidates chosen as they are in Baden-Wurttemberg, that is that a party's top up seats are awarded to a party's highest scoring losers in constituency seats.
4. Amend the Parliament Act to prevent it's use to modify either the Parliament Acts or other Constitutionally Sensitive pieces of legislation, with a list - allowing a measure of constitutional entrenching to be deployed without abandoning parliamentary sovereignty.
5. Pursue any and all opportunities for economic, political and social integration with the Commonwealth Realms
6. Place a limit on the number of peers that may be appointed to the House of Lords in any given year, and a well defined procedure for selection and division between the Government, the Opposition and devolved Administrations.
7. Nationalise electricity, railway and water and start bringing them to the standards that will be required to get us through the next century.

Think that is enough to be going on with.....

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I'm not sure about 7.
I can remember when our utilities were nationalised (some via local authority, others nationally), and from memory they were outside local judicial control, so rivers were polluted, drinking water catchment areas were not protected etc. Be careful what you wish for.

The first thing I would do is educate the general public on what the government is, how it works, how taxes are raised and spent etc. We should be taught in school how the machinery of state actually works. It would help debunk some of the crank conspiracy theories, and stop people believing in the notion that the government can just "make more money", or that ministers personally get tax revenue - both fairly widespread beliefs.
Only once most people understand how the current arrangements work can we have a sensible national discussion about any changes or new arrangements we might want.

eMeS said:

I'm not sure about 7.
I can remember when our utilities were nationalised (some via local authority, others nationally), and from memory they were outside local judicial control,

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We don't really have a local judiciary though do we?

eMeS said:

so rivers were polluted, drinking water catchment areas were not protected etc. Be careful what you wish for.

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Well that was because the government had not commanded the operators to act otherwise.

My biggest gripe with nationalisation is that it leaves industries/sectors in the hands of the government and governments are often: corrupt, clueless or ineffectual. Someone once said, politicians don't create wealth, they live off the hard work of others. So I figure, the less power and smaller the politician class is the better.

I've always thought politicians should be like magistrates - unpaid volunteers!