Commons Revolts

Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart point out that the current British parliament is one of, if not the most, rebellious since WWII.
In the absence of systematic electoral or constitutional reform it's good to see plurality being expressed via other channels. This seems to reflect genuine splits within the Labor party, all the way down to the branch level.

The revolts.co.uk blog, run by Cowley and some other British academics, is also a great example of making research accessible to a broader, but still focused, audience by using the web. It's a shame there's no straightforward way to link to each entry though.

Via David Aaronovitch in The Times .
Permalink, Commons Revolts, Dec 2006, adam
cam: One of the cool things about congress: is that there are groups which collect and collate how Congressional representatives have voted. I have often wished for something similar in Australia to see how the Senators and Representatives back up their grand speeches. I know it is a meaningless exercise with the Labor Party, but even so.

The party-machine is an odd one, as much as I decry partisan politics, the best check and balance Australia has had recently was a split from the Liberal Party whose slogan was pure check and balances - \"Keep the bastards honest.\" The Liberal Party didn\'t provide the party-machine for the Australian Democrats though. That came from the New Liberals, the Centre-line party and the Australian Party.

cam

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