It is worth taking stock of where we are. The Government’s Bill still has no friends in its current form. It still proposes a system of recall that is possible only in the narrowest of circumstances and, in most cases, still only by permission of MPs. It will do nothing to empower voters. For that reason it has been savagely criticised by every pressure group campaigning for improved democracy—everyone from 38 Degrees and Unlock Democracy all the way to the TaxPayers Alliance. It has been trashed by everyone from the Morning Star to The Daily Telegraph, which described it a few weeks ago as an “insult to voters”.
As a consequence, the Prime Minister felt obliged to describe the Bill as “the minimum acceptable”. Labour’s shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), said that
“the Bill needs to be strengthened considerably from its current state in order for it to have meaning.”