A bold new campaign has been launched to secure a referendum on our membership of the European Union. Can it succeed?
i) The chairman of the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform, Graham Allen MP (Lab), Committee eloquently summed up the concerns with the absence of proper scrutiny:
My Select
Yesterday's Second Reading of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies bill should have been a historic moment in many ways, but it was marred by serious and widely-shared concerns with the whole process, not least the absence of pre-legislative scrutiny.
Ahead of second reading of the AV referendum bill, Douglas Carswell MP has announced on his blog that he is planning to submit an amendment to offer voters a proportional option.
There was an angry reception for Tony Blair at a book signing in Dublin today. In the kind of scenes the ex-Prime Minister is likely to encounter throughout his book tour, angry anti-war protesters pelted Blair with eggs and shoes.
There is a very astute article in the New Statesman by Green party leader, Caroline Lucas, attacking the Labour party for its ingrained tribalism and calling on the leadership candidates to demonstrate their pluralist credentials.
The first London-wide meeting of activists to fight for a "Yes" vote in the AV referendum took place yesterday evening in a crowded room in Bloomsbury.
Andrew Sparrow is posting more extracts from The Journey on the Guardian blog as he unearths them. There are some quite extraordinary passages.
This is an alternative, and some would say more honest, rendition of Blair's journey performed by artist Julia Brosnan.
Most of the time the Daily Mail gets it very wrong, but like a broken clock that's right twice a day there are times when they are spot
For most people the fact a particular voting system delivers an unpopular and unrepresentative politics would be an argument against it: for neoliberals it is an argument in favour.
With the mood amongst sections of the Labour party turning hostile towards electoral reform, and the appointment of the combative Taxpayers' Alliance chief to lead the "No" camp, some people are already forecasting a defeat for AV in the referendum. This would be a mistake as a grassroots movement
