Every now and then, I appear on a BBC World Service programme called WORLD HAVE YOUR SAY. It's an hour long phone in, with people calling in from all around the world. It has a massive audience. Today they were discussing whether, considering the expenses scandal, Britain is still seen as a beacon of parliamentary democracy. I was on with a Nigerian journalist and a senator from the same count...

Here's Nick Clegg's plan in full: Changing Politics For Good A 100 Day Action Plan to save Britain’s Democracy Britain’s democracy is at a turning point. Not in living memory has confidence in politicians, trust in the system, or faith in the government’s capacity to change things been as low as it is today. The expenses scandal has exposed a culture of arrogance and secrecy that has long be...

They - the ranks of the dissatisfied - are calling for more direct democracy. The use of the word direct saddens me, because it's an admission that our democracy, as we used to know and respect it, is no longer seen by a large proportion of the British public as fit for purpose. The expenses scandal has turned a nation once satisfied with, even proud of, its democratic institutions and of tho...

Patrick Wintour's write-up of the continuing expenses scandal today contains a neat insight into a recent Cabinet meeting: "Only one cabinet minister, Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, told his colleagues that if he had contributed to the problem through his expenses claims then he was quite willing to offer his apologies. No other cabinet minister followed his lead, even if there was...

Living Reviews in Democracy (LRD) is an online, open access academic journal launched in 2009 with the support of the Center for Comparative and International Studies at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich.ISSN: 1663-0165 It publishes articles and reviews covering all aspects of democracy. This includes coverage of political theories of democracy, democratic systems of government and democrati...

This blog is maintained by leading political scientist Pippa Norris who is currently McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics, at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. It presents her personal comments on current world political events.This includes writings about recent political conferences, publications and research. Key topics are the state of democracy in the world, po...

Peter Oborne has done well in identifying so powerfully a new political class whose malignant grip on our political institutions is corrosive of democracy. Politics is not a career. Politics is not a profession. Politics is something each one of us engages in as part of our everyday living, as normal as eating or breathing. And standing for election to occupy a democratic position is something tha...

Another week gone, and the Parliamentary expenses row is still a raging conflagration. If anything, its getting worse. I know the old adages. A week is a long time...... Events, dear boy, events.....In the world of politics, things do happen. And then things move on. But not this time. This last ten days, something hugely significant happened in British politics. The people lost confidence in thos...

A Cabinet minister claimed expenses on his constituency house and rented out his London home while living in a grace and favour apartment in Whitehall it has been disclosed.

It is a nicely judged campaign from the Daily Telegraph; first allowing the press to concentrate for days and days on Labour MPs and Ministers before turning on the Tories. Of course the cynical manipulation of the expenses system by many MPs is a genuine news story, and it will have done the Telegraph’s circulation and