House of Review - A synthesis option for Lords reform
House of Lords reform is stuck between a few different futures - with a range of groups who can either veto, or strongly slow down, any particular opt…
Democracy/Voting
Different ways of equalising constituencies
With the next cycle of the boundary review argument kicking off, I have made a set of maps visualising if constituencies are currently over and under …
Political animals
Image Credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/OOJAUol19oo We live in a world of animal suit politics. Elections are attended not just by chickens, but bad…
Being generous to petititons
Photo by Issy Bailey on Unsplash There’s a petition with a million signatures calling for the last season of Game of Thrones to be thrown out and re-m…
Measuring the politics of Eurovision with data
Photo by Jakob Braun on Unsplash Morning Experiment: Can I find a good way of testing the ‘politicalness’ of Eurovision voting before lunch? To keep i…
Voter ID and administration
Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash A few years ago I moved into an area just before the local elections, registered to vote before the deadline, bu…
Votes for children
I went to a #useyourvote event last night that was all about talking to young people about how they felt about political engagement - and that got me …
Gerrymandering in the Public Interest?
IPPR suggested an interesting idea last year (p7) - in the absence of real electoral reform can we do something about safe seats? What if we gave the …
Process and risk of boundary reforms
(image via wikipedia) There’s been quick understanding that boundary reform will be a priority of a Conservative government but something that seems t…
Democratic games
Photo by Conor Samuel on Unsplash It’s 1991. In a conference theatre in Las Vegas everyone has been handed paddles. One side of the paddle is black an…
PCC elections: Some loose thoughts on authorisation in elections
Photo by Arnaud Jaegers on Unsplash PCC turnout turned out to be a historic low and this is raising some questions about the legitimacy of elections w…
The Strange Maths of Mandates
Photo by Vincent van Zalinge on Unsplash In the Lords report on the Lords Reform Bill there's some interesting discussion of if a referendum is requir…