Fixing Britain's Broken Politics

2.57.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 31st Mar 2009

FOR THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE - REDISTRIBUTING POWER

Britain's political system is broken. The way this country is run means that the Government does not have to listen to the people. One party can gain control of Parliament even if only a quarter of the people support them. The electoral system allows Labour and the Tories to take turns at governing. It is not in their interest to change it and as a result, nothing in Britain will change. The Liberal Democrats are the only party that is committed to fixing our broken politics. We will take power from the state and give it to the people. We will change parliament forever by introducing a fair, proportional voting system for Westminster, European and local elections. We will involve the people in producing a written constitution. We will reform the House of Lords and replace it with an elected second chamber. We will make Parliament easier to petition and lower the voting age.

CLEANING UP POLITICS - TAKING BIG MONEY OUT

Big money has dominated politics for far too long. Because Labour and the Tories benefit most from this, they do not want the system changed. They have both reneged on a crossparty agreement to reform the party funding system. The Liberal Democrats do not believe that individuals and organisations should be able to 'buy' influence or peerages. We are the only party committed to taking the big money out of politics. We will prevent political parties from buying elections by targeting marginal seats. We will cap individual donations to political parties and reform trade union funding. We will cap party spending at a local and a national level at all times during the electoral cycle. We will tighten up the rules on MPs expenses, make the system transparent, and properly punish abuses.

DECENTRALISATION - OPEN GOVERNMENT

Successive governments have continued to accrue power to the centre and have been allowed to operate with little effective scrutiny or accountability. As long as the Tories and Labour swap power every few years, there is no incentive to decentralise it away from central government. The Liberal Democrats are the party of local government. We are the only party committed to radically changing the system and passing powers and revenue to local councils and communities. We would devolve more power to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and give England more powers within a federal UK. We would cut the number of Ministers, cut the number of MPs by 150 and slim down Whitehall. We will increase the transparency of government by strengthening freedom of information laws and reform the Data Protection Act to better protect individual privacy.