Labour offers too little too late on electoral reform
In his conference speech Gordon Brown announced a package of constitutional reforms. In particular he announced plans to hold a referendum on whether to replace the first past the post voting system with the Alternative Vote (AV) early in the next Parliament - assuming Labour wins the next election. This is almost the very definition of too little, too late. While AV would give the voter somewhat more choice, it is not proportional. Promising a referendum after the general election is meaningless: remember when Labour promised this in 1997?