It was only three days ago that I discussed the recent news about electoral reform, the BBC's woefully inaccurate reporting of a document, and Michael Wills' statement to the effect of saying "we are happy to stay as we are". Now curiously there has been a separate news story surfacing today on the BBC website that pretty much breaks the same news again, but changes the way it is presented. Where has this come from?

Either the BBC realise they dropped the ball with their last effort not only factually but in making it clear that Labour's actions were a rejection of the PR systems available. This latest story takes the same actions yet tries to spin them as "developing debate". Is this a message that has come from the Justice department to the BBC unhappy with how they're being portrayed, or is it the BBC fearing the hand that feeds it? Either way the new version of events is just as much of a load of bollocks since it alludes to a debate that Michael Wills himself has completely ruled out for the time being.

At this point, it would be premature to seek to reform the electoral system for the Commons while the voting system for a reformed and substantially or fully elected House of Lords is still to be determined. [...] Good progress is being made on the cross-party talks on Lords reform and the Government intends to publish a White Paper in the first part of 2008 reflecting the outcome of these discussions.

Basically this means that PR is not even going to be on the table for discussion until 2009 if we're lucky, by which time it will be too late to change the system before the next election, favouring Labour hugely. Is this the ultimate plan, to keep playing down necessary reform until "instigating" a debate on House of Commons electoral reform to come off as being more "fair" in the run up to an election?

My feelings on this remain the same, Michael Wills is a minister that doesn't bother to vote on parliamentary transparency yet has too loud a voice on this particular issue of the public/parliament relationship, and the whole statement is geared towards not implementing or properly discussing the necessary systems until after the next election. This is democracy at it's worst because the people are being denied a referendum on the issues on the basis of the current situation with the House of Lords, despite a referendum on the public's wishes not needing to be a promise to change straight away. What does the government have to lose by simply asking the people of Britain what they want, once and for all, to fully inform this debate they're supposedly so happy to have?