Voting reform gets messy

A new spectator sport kicks off on Monday - who can devise the most entertaining way of getting MPs to vote against things they are really in favour of (or in favour of things they are really against)?

I will be surprised if on Monday evening any of Cornwall's MPs fail to vote in favour of the Bill which in its present form would abolish the historic political boundary with Devon.

Now the Green Party MP Caroline Lucas tells The New Statesman magazine:

"As MPs start the second reading of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill on 6 September, I am tabling an amendment that would rewrite the referendum question to allow people to choose from a wider range of voting systems, including properly proportional options such as the additional member system (used in elections for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Greater London Assembly) and the single transferable vote (used in Northern Ireland)."

This means Lib Dem MPs, as members of the coalition, could be whipped into voting against the sort of proportional representation voting system they actually campaigned for in their election manifesto. Funny old world...