Reform. What reform?

The expenses scandal continues; the government blatantly lies to us; things should change; nothing will change. It is dispiriting but I am increasingly coming to the view that we will limp along to the next election without any attempt at reform. The election will cause a change of government and the new government will have to concentrate on salvaging the economy. And that will be that.

Today we will get a new face in the Speaker's chair. Bercow, if he gets it, will be problematic because of his personality, but otherwise it will be same old, same old.... No reform can be expected from there.

The real issue is not the fiddling of expenses or members of the Lords clocking in to get their daily allowance but the actual function and purpose of Parliament. We have a government selected from members of the Houses of Commons and Lords, a lot of whom are given jobs that could be, and probably are, done by civil servants. Power resides in the hands of a handful of people. That's the real tragedy. Our parliamentary democracy has been surreptitiously hi-jacked and subverted over the years, almost without anyone noticing. MPs have little to do other than act as lobby fodder on the few days they attend the Commons and provide an additional Citizen's Advice Bureau in their constituency. The Lords, as a consequence of Blair's partial reform, ironically now have the time to do what MPs should be doing - namely debate and amend legislation. Some of them have not missed the opportunity to make money out of this.

One has to ask what is the point of having 640 MPs when so few of them are usefully employed? And the question will still be asked (and not only by myself) until efforts are made to change and improve.

What I would like to see happen (and I won't hold my breath waiting) is for a reform commission set up to spend a year travelling across the country genuinely seeking input, spend whatever time is needed to distill this into a report with recommendations, and finally (and crucially) hold a binding referendum to determine the next step. The referendum questions should put three or four models before the public and should include the option of leaving things as they are (the "don't meddle" option). I think too that a year of debate prior to the actual referendum would be required to ensure that all the options were fully understood and another year to prepare implementation of any change.

Constitutional change is a difficult and risky business, therefore it is right to spend four or five years on it, but at the end we would have a renewed democratic system. On the other hand, we might end up with the "no change" option, which would still be OK because we will have endorsed the status quo. At the moment we have no trust in anyone within the present system.