As I’ve previously discussed, a campaign called POWER2010 has been deciding a manifesto for the next election, by consulting widely with people. After over 100,000 people voted in their poll, they’ve decided on their five priorities:

• Introduce a proportional voting system
• Scrap ID cards and roll back the Database State
• Replace the House of Lords with an elected chamber
• Allow only English MPs to vote on English laws
• Draw up a written constitution

Now, most of these things are Liberal Democrat policy already, so I was happy to sign the POWER Pledge. This is what I said when I did it:

As a Liberal Democrat council candidate, I support most of the POWER Pledge, particularly the introduction of Proportional Representation and an elected second chamber. As a longstanding NO2ID activist, I have spent many years campaigning against the dangers of the Database State.

I am not entirely convinced by the pledge on the West Lothian question; to have two sets of people called MPs with different voting rights seems confusing. I would rather see a wider consideration of the constitutional requirements of a nationally-devolved United Kingdom, perhaps as part of a written constitution.

My only concern for the written constitution is that it should be descriptive rather than proscriptive, so people’s rights don’t get missed out due to tricks of wording.

Obviously most of these matters are for MPs rather than councillors to decide, though councillors can have an effect as well, such as the Lib Dems who run Liverpool Council voting that the Labour Government can’t use council resources to promote the ID card scheme. The Lib Dems here in Manchester have repeatedly tried to secure this guarantee for people in Manchester, but Labour have voted them down every time. It’s clear who cares about people’s freedom, and also saving people from enormous wastes of money!

I encourage everybody to sign the POWER2010 Pledge; they’re not the only important issues for the next election, but they’re a big part of making sure that this economic mess we’re in doesn’t happen again, by giving people more of a say and making sure voting is fairer.

POWER2010 is a new campaign aimed at grassroots democratic reform - putting more power in the hands of people, and giving us more say over what goes on in Westminster. They have a list of proposed reforms, of which five will be chosen on 22nd February to form the POWER2010 Manifesto, on which the group will campaign during the election. Most of their proposals seem sensible, and many are already Liberal Democrat policy for democratic reform. I’ve voted in favour of the following reforms:

• Scrap ID cards and roll back the database state - the compulsory £10,000,000,000 National Identity Database is an enormous invasion of privacy and waste of money. If you’ve done nothing wrong, you still have to fear Government incompetence like the 25 million innocent people whose personal details were lost in the post by HMRC. This is already Lib Dem policy, and the Lib Dems support the non-partisan single-issue No2ID campaign. I’m involved with Manchester No2ID.
• Introduce a proportional voting system - because most people’s votes don’t count, and half the seats in Parliament haven’t changed hands since 1970. Proportional voting means fewer safe seats, which means less corruption as MPs are forced to actually work on behalf of their constituents to get re-elected. This is already Lib Dem policy.
• Stronger local government - many decisions about the places we live are best taken by local councils in consultation with local people. Even on the rare occasions that local councils have the power to affect a local decision, Westminster is still holding the purse strings. Giving councils more budget to enact local change will get local people more involved in the communities around them and bridge the gap between people and politicians. This is already Lib Dem policy.
• Votes at 16 - a sixteen year old is old enough to leave home and live independently, old enough to join the armed forces and face lethal combat, and old enough to pay tax. But they’re not old enough to have a say about the homes they live in, the wars they fight or the taxes they pay? Many sixteen year olds are interested in politics and the world around them, but unable to have a say at the ballot box. This makes people resent politics and that resentment can last for the rest of their life. This is already Lib Dem policy.
• Compulsory politics lessons in school - I never studied politics at school, because at that age I just didn’t see the point. I feel that I lost out as a result - it took many years for me to learn how I could do my part to improve the world around me. I think that such lessons shouldn’t just cover the traditional Westminster process though, they should include community activism and local government as well.

There were several other reforms I supported, including right to recall, strengthen select committees, transparent lobbying, Parliamentary timetable reform, reducing statutory instruments and stopping revolving-door politics - much of which, again, is already Lib Dem policy. However, because the voting system used by POWER2010 gives equal weight to all your votes, I want to concentrate my voting power on the reforms which I think will provide the most benefit.

As well as voting for reforms, I’ve put my name down to keep in touch with and get involved with the campaign. I’m not sure how much I’ll be allowed to do as the Lib Dem local election candidate for Fallowfield, but I think that POWER2010 looks like a great idea and one which I want to support.

I think this also makes it clear that the Liberal Democrats have sensible policies to make politics cleaner and fairer. When Qassim Afzal is elected MP for Manchester Gorton I look forward to him do his part in cleaning up Westminster, rather than failing to improve the corrupt status quo like his predecessor.

Which POWER2010 reforms do you support, and why? What do you think of my choices?