I am slightly surprised to be congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds)—and he is a friend—on his honesty in admitting that he once sat at the feet of Roy Jenkins. That is not something to which people are normally prepared to admit.
I find it astonishing that, in a month when the Front National in France has made considerable advances, someone in this House should argue for changing the electoral system. I do not want to detain the House for too long, so I will not go into detail about how damaging this proposal would be to effective government; how it would transfer power away from constituents and local parties to party leaders, kitchen Cabinets and bureaucrats; how it would empower fringe parties at the expense of parties that are fit for government; how it would damage the direct link between many MPs and a constituency; and how, interestingly enough, countries that have such systems always have to amend them as those problems start to come through.