I’m still a little staggered by this story of Cameron’s latest big idea – to force a new Prime Minister to hold an election if they take over mid-term.  This is a bit rubbish, but read further and you will find not only other rubbish ideas but one in particular that is extremely worrying.The first point to make is an obvious one: neither Cameron nor the rest of the Tories would have been demanding this in 1990 when Thatcher got the boot and John Major took over.

Cameron said:

It means putting the people in charge, I believe you should be in Number 10 because people have voted for you.

In which case campaign for a change to the whole electoral set-up to have a president, because the way our system works we do not vote for a PM.  We do not even vote for a government or party – we just vote for our local MP.  In Northern Ireland constituencies they don’t even have the same parties to vote for so not only didn’t they vote for Gordon Brown, they didn’t vote for Tony Blair either (or Major, or Thatcher).

The ironic thing is that if Cameron becomes PM a lot of the votes he gets will be from traditional Tory voters who don’t even like him and who would prefer a different leader and PM, given a choice.  Hmmm… there’s a thought.  Perhaps this idea is not just a reaction to Gordon Brown being an ‘un-elected PM’ but a way to make it less likely his own party will dump him for a more traditional right-winger at the first opportunity?

Over in Horsham the leader of the council resigned last year and another councillor became leader.  Does that mean we should hold elections across Horsham because we have an unelected leader who nobody voted for?  I’m not suggesting it, and nobody else is, but the situation is exactly the same.

I think there is a problem with the system, that voters can possibly want a particular person for their MP but want a different party in government – though they might not like the leader of that party.   I think that other people, maybe including Cameron think that is a problem too – but forcing general elections is not the answer: just a way to highlight even more that there is a problem.

A corollary of this idea is to ask what happens if a government loses its majority. If Labour had a small majority which then disappeared in a few by elections I am sure Cameron would try a motion of no confidence to force a general election, which is fair enough under our system – but how does that reconcile with the idea that ‘the people’ had voted for the current PM?  You can’t have it both ways.

It is interesting that Cameron should be putting forward this argument that the people vote for a PM when there is a real possibility of us ending up with a party getting more votes but fewer seats.  As the leader of the party that is most opposed to any form of proportionality it really is a bit strange for him to become so concerned all of a sudden over the people having a say.

Open primaries is the other rubbish idea.  What he wants is to have open primaries in 200 constituencies. One major objection to this is that it would remove one of the remaining reasons to join a political party – being able to decide that party’s candidate.

There are practical problems too.  What if a candidate resigns at short notice, or a snap election is called when a constituency has no candidate?  It was hard enough to arrange the votes for just Labour members in Crawley within two weeks.  Local parties have the right to de-select candidates.  Do they lose that right if the candidate was selected in an open primary?  If they did de-select a candidate would the new contest also have to be an open primary?

If we really want to steal ideas from the American system, there are plenty of better ones to nick before this one.

Initially the plans is to allocate the funds according to share of the vote at the previous election.  Based on the 2005 elections that would mean £184,000 going to UKIP, £80,000 to the Green party and £56,000 to the BNP – so £320,000 to three parties without a seat between them.   Again the hare-brained scheme draws attention to the fundamental unfairness of the electoral system.

This has not really been thought through because it has obviously just been made up at short notice.  It is only a couple of weeks since the manifesto was produced, so you kind of get the impression this is something that has been hastily cobbled together since then.

The interesting part of the proposal is to only have these primaries in 200 constituencies.  Why 200?  Why not all of them?  And which 200 constituencies to choose?   It is pretty well established that the choice of which party governs us is made in just a few marginal constituencies, with the rest being more or less safe one way or the other.  Is the proposal to hold primaries in the ones that actually make a difference or in the really safe seats?

Holding primaries in ultra-safe seats is good in one way – it will give voters a chance to take part in an election where the result is not a foregone conclusion.  But again that is just a tacit admission that the system is deeply flawed, and moving to a more proportional system, even the AV system would do that.

So I think the ideas are rubbish, but hidden away in all that is something a bit more worrying: this would cost about £8million and would be paid for by cutting the amount spent on the Electoral Commission.   When there is so much concern about corruption in politics is it really the time to cut funding to the independent body that regulated party and election finance and elections?

When the Tories are already talking about reducing the number of MPs (by reducing the number of constituencies, which will coincidentally be Labour constituencies) and then start coming up with plans to reduce the capabilities of the body which is supposed to oversee elections it is enough to turn anybody into a bit of a conspiracy theorist who suspects the headline-grabbing policy to force ‘unelected PMs’ (aren’t they all?)  to call an election is a smokescreen for a reduction in the oversight of politics.

All these rubbish ideas were launched in Essex where Cameron was going to see his sister married to Jeremy Fawkus.  I’m sure you can all complete the joke; it practically writes itself.