Lord Falconer, wrong again

Having failed to derail the Alternative Vote referendum with his highly implausible legal arguments, Labour peer Lord Falconer (who served in the previous Labour government, and was one of those who put the pressure on to have the Iraq war ruled legal) is at it again. This time he is trying to argue that people should vote No to AV because it will bring down the Coalition government and hasten Ed Miliband into 10 Downing Street without having to wait for any general election.

Except that it won’t.

Lord Falconer is right in as much as the Coalition’s program of constitutional reform is an important part of why it got Liberal Democrat support. But he’s deeply wrong to think that it’s just about an AV referendum.

Here’s just one of several reasons why he’s wrong: reform of the Lords. Proposals for introducing a mostly elected upper house, by proportional representation no less, will get published in the next few weeks. The Conservatives are signed up to voting these proposals through Parliament before the next general election.

What happens if the government falls? Those proposals bite the dust, and the record of the Labour government over three full Parliaments was that elections for the Lords was frequently promised and never delivered. So far, given the record of Conservatives in voting through other reform measures they don’t like but which were in the Coalition agreement, Conservative votes for Lords reform look a far more likely route to getting elections than a return to a Labour Party of always promising, never delivering.

Yes, it’s a bizarre topsy-turvy world where Conservatives who don’t want reform are a better way of getting elections for the Lords than Labour who talk a good game. But that’s where Labour’s record in government leaves us; lots of talk, no delivery.

Though perhaps it’s not surprising that an unelected peer who spent so many years in a government that kept on stalling on its own promises to introduce elections thinks it shouldn’t really matter if it’s all kicked into the long grass yet again…

Lords reform is just one of several reasons why Lord Falconer is wrong, though it’s telling that he thinks the best way to defend first past the post is to look for arguments other than those over how voting systems operate to do so.

Note: the Liberal Democrat Yes campaign is stepping up a gear later this week and I’ll be covering that in due course. In the meantime, I should also add that Ed Miliband’s speech in favour of AV – including the section about Nick Clegg – was rather better than I was expecting. Though Labour colleagues such as Lord Falconer and those planting false stories with The Guardian are putting tribalism ahead of Labour’s own manifesto, Ed Miliband didn’t take that route at all in the speech. Credit to him for that.