Tories pledge deep change
CONSERVATIVE party leader David Cameron has promised that his party will deliver a radical redistribution of power, in an attempt to address voter disquiet over MP expenses.
“We need to look seriously at the immense power prime ministers wield through their ability to call an election whenever they want. If we want parliament to be a real engine of accountability, we need to show it’s not just the creature of the executive,” he said.
Cameron’s proposals include fixed-term Parliaments, limiting use of the royal prerogative, free votes for MPs. and the opening up of the legislative process to outsiders by posting proceedings on YouTube.
“Through decentralisation, transparency and accountability we must take power away from the political elite and hand it to the man and woman in the street,” Cameron said in a letter to a national newspaper.
Meanwhile, health secretary Alan Johnson called on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to hold a national referendum on electoral reform, saying that the public should be offered a “genuinely radical alternative” to the present system. Johnson, who is a favourite to succeed Brown, denied that his calls for reform are a part of a Labour party leadership bid.