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How should 'political England' be recognised?
Lewis Baston, 26 January 2012 In the newly published IPPR pamphlet The Dog That Finally Barked: England as an Emerging Political Community, Richard Wyn Jones and Guy Lodge demonstrate, to anyon...
The Feltham and Heston by-election: more of the same
Lewis Baston, 16 December 2011 The Feltham and Heston by-election was not what one would call a classic. The result was not surprising, the location was an unglamorous patch of west London next...
Select committee report shows way forward on voter registration
Stuart Wilks-Heeg, 4 November 2011 The Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee’s 10threport of session, Individual Electoral Registration and Electoral Administration, has genera...
Who governs Merseyside? The significance of Heseltine's new report
Stuart Wilks-Heeg, 20 October 2011 Anyone who took part in our 'Who governs Merseyside?' event at the Bluecoat on 6 October will surely attest that the quality of the debate was exceptionally h...
Who governs? An analysis of 1,101 governing roles on Merseyside
Dave Ellis, 12 October 2011 Last week, Democratic Audit published new research into the governance of Merseyside, compiled by Alex Nurse, Stuart Wilks-Heeg and myself. The research was undertak...
What say will voters have in redrawing of the electoral map?
Lewis Baston, 6 September 2011 The government’s contentious legislation to reduce the number of MPs and introduce a new system for drawing parliamentary boundaries was passed in February 2011...
What is the UK constitution made of? Exposing the 'hidden wiring'
Andrew Blick, 2 September 2011 Late last year, the Cabinet Office published in draft form a document called the Cabinet Manual. Subtitled 'A guide to laws, conventions, and rules on...
Party funding reform: Canadian experience suggests a negotiated settlement is essential
Stephen Crone, 30 August 2011 Despite sweeping reform by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act in 2000, the UK system of party funding regulation remains bedeviled by periodic sc...
Britain is - still - less violent and lawless than it was 15 years ago
Andrew Blick, 22 August 2011 The civil disturbances which recently took place across England are important from the point of view of the Audit, partly because it is vital to a democracy that th...
Police, politics and the media - the risks of elected police commissioners
Andrew Blick, 3 August 2011 Recently I blogged on this site on the subject of elected police commissioners, being introduced by the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, which is now pa...
Fixing the Revolving Door
Guest author: Liz David-Barrett, Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation, 29 July 2011 There are many good reasons for government and business to talk to one another, to understand ho...
News International and corporate power in Britain's democracy: just the tip of the 'unelected oligarchies' iceberg
David Beetham, 26 July 2011 The News International scandal has rightly caused public outrage and led to a sea-change in relations between UK politicians and media moguls. Yet Murdoch’s ...
Reforming the constitution: process matters
Andrew Blick, 19 July 2011 Policies impacting significantly on the UK constitution were central to the programme underpinning the formation of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition in May...
Police reform: why democracy is not just about elections
Andrew Blick, 15 July 2011 Amongst the many pieces of legislation with important democratic implications the present government has introduced, the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill,...
Special advisers and the 'phone-hacking' scandal
Andrew Blick, 11 July 2011 One of the many issues involving the functioning of UK democracy raised by the phone hacking/police corruption scandal is that of the role of the special adviser in W...