Electoral Reform Society

Thomas Cawston argues that ring fencing NHS funding has failed to produce the necessary increase in efficiency and that more drastic cuts may be needed, but Alan Maynard says that this approach is more likely to make the situation worse

In estimating the ‘Blair effect’ on the Labour Party, particularly during the period from 2001 to 2005, one is confronted with a paradox. On perhaps the most important level, it has been wholly beneficial. The Labour Party has been in power with overwhelming (and even after 2005 certainly comfortable) majorities for over eight years. It has at long last achieved Harold Wilson's ambition of becoming the natural party of government; forming a non-Labour government still seems a distant dream to the opposition parties, even as the third term begins.

In reply to Michael Dyer's criticism of the Jenkins Commission's AV+ recommendation for reform of the House of Commons voting system, Ken Ritchie argues that AV+ is not such a bad proposal given the limits placed on the Commission by external political considerations.

What is Proportional Representation? Vernon Bogdanor Martin Robertson, Oxford, 1984, 164pp. £12.50 hbk £3.95 pbk.

(1983). United Kingdom central council for nursing, midwifery and health visiting. Representation: Vol. 23, No. 93, pp. 46-47.