Tag: United Kingdom

Parliament is expected to vote today on the government’s flagship bill to guarantee oil and gas licensing rounds in the North Sea. 

The Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, which would require the regulator to hold annual licensing rounds for North Sea drilling for oil and gas if passed, previously formed the centrepiece of Rishi Sunak’s first King’s Speech as prime minister. And it also features centrally in Sunak’s broader political pitch as prime minister. 

Indeed, while the plan has enraged green MPs of all parties — the controversy that naturally flows from the bill is in some senses expected and desired. 

By emphasising his purportedly “pragmatic” approach to climate policy, the prime minister seeks to draw a dividing line with the Labour Party — who he lampoons as over-zealous on green issues. In short, by defining such debates on his own terms, Sunak intends to put Labour on the wrong side of public opinion. 

And so the prime minister desperately goads Keir Starmer, with little nuance but imperious intent, by weaponising “wedge issues” and laying “traps”. The Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, which frays mainstream consensus and opens battle lines ahead of an election this year, can reasonably be viewed along such lines. 

Step back and this approach broadly — and therefore the licensing bill specifically — has a curious origin story. 

The machinations informing Sunak’s “wedge politics” can arguably be traced back to the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election in July last year. This seat, vacated by former prime minister and prominent “green Tory” Boris Johnson, was won by the Conservatives in 2023 by the slimmest of margins. 

In the contest, the Conservative candidate and now-MP Steve Tuckwell capitalised on London Labour mayor Sadiq Khan’s controversial plans to extend the ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ). The cost of environmentally-conscious policy, the prime minister consequently concluded, could be leveraged into a totemic national concern. Net zero targets were pushed back and “pragmatism” was quickly embraced.

Week-in-Review: From Greek marbles to net zero, Sunak’s embrace of ‘wedge politics’ is taking a toll

In the end, Sunak’s net zero rejig featured front and centre of his broader rebrand as a “change candidate” at Conservative Party Conference. This approach still has some life in it, it seems — based on the prime minister’s somewhat confused pitch today that voters should “stick with the plan delivering long-term change”.

In this way, the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill is significant in explaining the historical trajectory of Sunak’s government as the prime minister has slowly given in to those siren voices advocating for a more openly antagonistic politics. 

But here’s the issue: although critical Conservative MPs (especially those emanating from the Net Zero Scrutiny Group) like to caricature climate politics as purely the reserve of “the left”, Rishi Sunak has not only angered opposition parties with his net zero shifting. Rather, some of his most concerned and outspoken critics on the environment derive from his backbenches. 

Take soon-to-be-former MP Chris Skidmore, for instance. 

Skidmore is the archetypal “green Tory”. As interim Minister of State for Energy and Clean Growth from May to July 2019, he signed the UK’s net zero pledge into law. He subsequently served as the chair of the Government Review of Net Zero — with the resultant report making 129 recommendations to ministers on how to take economic advantage of the transition to net zero.

On Friday, as was widely reported, he stated his intention to stand down as a Conservative MP in a move that will trigger a by-election in his Kingswood constituency. In a calm but coruscating resignation missive, Skidmore cited the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill by name. It “clearly promotes the production of new oil and gas”, he maintained — adding that that “the future will judge harshly” those MPs that vote for the bill. 

Chris Skidmore to stand down as Conservative MP over ‘harmful’ oil and gas plans

This is a serious issue for Sunak — and not solely, or at all, on account of Skidmore’s scathing criticism. For Kingswood has a majority of 11,220 and a by-election here will be seriously winnable for Labour. Indeed, the 12 per cent swing Labour needs to win the seat might be considered “mere” — after it gained swings of 21 and 24 per cent in by-elections in Mid Bedfordshire and Selby late last year.

But, Sunak’s electoral travails aside, Skidmore is not the only “green Tory” critic of the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill. Former president of COP26 Sir Alok Sharma, for one, has labelled the legislation “a total distraction”. Sharma will not vote for the “smoke and mirrors bill”, he confirmed to the BBC this morning. 

Sharma and Skidmore, whose leadership on climate policy is informed by their former roles as COP26 president and Net Zero Review author respectively, are known rebels of Sunak’s net zero positioning. They have been consistently outspoken in their criticism of the PM’s approach from the beginning of his post-Uxbridge anti-green tilt. 

‘A total distraction’: Alok Sharma on ‘smoke and mirrors’ plan for more North Sea oil drilling

The question this evening, therefore, as MPs divide over the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, will be whether Skidmore and Sharma are joined in their criticism by other environmentally-conscious Conservatives. 

Former prime minister Theresa May has already voiced less-than-coded criticisms of the bill. Speaking in the debate on the King’s Speech, which featured the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, May questioned whether the government is being sufficiently “strong in ambition” to meet the 2050 net zero target — which, of course, she set in law in the dogs days of her premiership. 

She told the House: “Good government is not about grabbing short-term decisions to get a headline, it is about doing what is in the national interest and in the longer-term future interest of this country”.

Philip Dunne, chair of the environmental audit committee and another notable green Tory, will be another to watch tonight. 

In some senses, Skidmore’s warning that “the future will judge harshly” those who vote for the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill could be interpreted as a message to critical, but loyal, “green Tories” who will this afternoon be weighing up their options. 

A threat?

Ultimately, Skidmore’s decision to press the eject button has left the prime minister facing another tricky by-election — one that is more winnable for Labour than its recent triumphs in Tamworth, Selby and Mid Beds. 

And, given Sunak’s decision to water down his net zero offering began with a by-election in Uxbridge, there is perhaps some political poetry to the prospect that the backlash might now culminate in Kingswood. But, right now, it is the last thing the prime minister needs. 

Moreover, although we can expect the Conservatives’ still-large majority to quash any “green Tory’ rebellion, stinging contributions from the backbenches from the likes of Sharma and Skidmore — as well as potentially from figures like May and Dunne — will form the focus of the media spotlight. 

So it is not the dividing line drawn between the PM and Keir Starmer that will most occupy attention today — but the “wedge” driven between Sunak, by Sunak, and his party. 

Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Twitter here.

Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website, providing comprehensive coverage of UK politics. Subscribe to our daily newsletter here.

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A senior Conservative MP has suggested his party must admit things have gotten “worse” since it joined government in 2010. 

Danny Kruger, a Conservative backbencher, added that his party has left the country “sadder, less united and less conservative” than they found it. 

Kruger is the co-chair, alongside Miriam Cates, of the right-wing New Conservatives group of backbench Tory MPs. 

His above comments were made both at an event last year and in response to questioning by The Guardian newspaper.

They come as the prime minister seeks to spark a revival for his party in the new year, with parliament returning today following Christmas recess. 

Speaking to a private event of Conservative members organised by the think tank ResPublica late last year, Kruger told attendees: “The narrative that the public has now firmly adopted – that over 13 years things have got worse – is one we just have to acknowledge and admit”.

“Some things have been done right and well. The free school movement that Michael Gove oversaw, and universal credit – and Brexit, even though it was in the teeth of the Tory party hierarchy itself, and mismanaged – nevertheless Brexit will be the great standing achievement of our time in office.

“These things are significant, but, overall I’m afraid, if we leave office next year, we would have left the country sadder, less united and less conservative than when we found it.”

Questioned on his comments, Kruger subsequently told The Guardian that: “This was a conversation among party members in which I made the case for realism and for honesty with the public.”

He added: “For decades, across the western world, centre-right parties have controlled the institutes of the state – yet nevertheless have presided over a drift away from their stated values and the interests of their voters.

“Conservatives worldwide have presided over models of mass migration, political correctness and economic short-termism. The British government is making some of the right moves to correct this. But the reaction under way in Europe at the moment is a warning to my party – either we remember the people we work for, or we face obliteration.”

Kruger is one of the backbench rebels urging the prime minister to strengthen his stance on the Rwanda deportation policy. 

Having abstained during the House of Commons second reading of the Safety of Rwanda Bill, he raised the prospect of hostile amendments to come during the bill’s committee stage.

In December, he suggested his party will never “get back into power” unless it makes a commitment to leaving the European Convention on Human Rights.

Speaking to the Inside Whitehall podcast — which is hosted by fellow Conservative MP Jonathan Gullis and former government adviser James Starkie, Kruger said: “I don’t think we will ever get back into power, if we go out of power. And frankly, I think we’re going to struggle at the next without this as well. 

“So I think the next election we win will be one in which we’re standing to leave the ECHR.”

Conservative MP says party won’t ‘get back into power’ unless it commits to leaving ECHR

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Sir Alok Sharma has said he will not vote for the government’s oil and gas bill, criticising it as “smoke and mirrors”.

Sharma, who served as president of the COP26 Glasgow climate summit in 2021, accused the government of not being “serious” about its international climate commitments. 

The oil and gas bill, which would allow for an annual licensing regime for oil and gas exploration contracts, is set to be debated by MPs today. 

Sharma’s comments come after another former minister, Chris Skidmore, resigned his seat over the bill.

“I can also no longer condone nor continue to support a government that is committed to a course of action that I know is wrong and will cause future harm”, Skidmore said in a statement released last week on X (formerly Twitter). 

The Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, a centre piece of the King’s Speech last year, he argued “clearly promotes the production of new oil and gas”.

Speaking this morning, Sharma told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I will not be voting for this bill and as it’s currently drafted, this bill is a total distraction. It is actually a smoke and mirrors bill which frankly changes nothing. 

“The North Sea Transition Authority, which is the body that actually grants oil and gas licences, can already grant licences when they think it’s necessary and the Energy Department has made pretty clear that with respect of this bill, that will not change. 

He added: “What this bill does do is reinforce that unfortunate perception about the UK rowing back from climate action.”

“We saw this last autumn with the chopping and changing of some policies and actually not being serious about our international commitments. Just a few weeks ago at COP28 the UK government signed up to transition away from fossil fuels. 

“This bill is actually about doubling down on new oil and gas licences. It is actually the opposite of what we agreed to do internationally, so I won’t be supporting it.”

Chris Skidmore to stand down as Conservative MP over ‘harmful’ oil and gas plans

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Incumbency advantage is a very real thing in UK politics. When asked to select who they want as prime minister — either the incumbent or the Leader of the Opposition — Britons tend to lump in, perhaps logically, with the then-PM.

In fact, only once since Rishi Sunak turned 18 years old has an opposition party turfed out a Downing Street occupant — that most media conspicuous candidate endowed electorally to pen Speeches from the Throne, grant budget “giveaways”, set tricky fiscal “traps”, castigate their opponents as “risky” and, in good/improving times, urge Britons to stay the course.

What is more, with the demise of the Fixed Term Parliament Act in 2022 following the trauma of the 2017-19 parliament, this incumbency advantage has ostensibly strengthened in recent years. No longer must a government receive the assent of a qualified majority of two-thirds of MPs to trigger a national poll. Constitutionally, election timing is once more entirely the reserve of the prime minister and their lectern; in this area, at least, PMs are given the constitutional green light to be opportunistic.

Notably, the 2024 general election will be the first since the Fixed Term Parliament Act’s official demise — (the 2019 election was called via an FTPA-circumventing one-line bill). And one individual intent on boasting his restored prerogative power, all the way up to the day of its usage, is Rishi Sunak — the beleaguered incumbent desperate for any kind of electoral edge.

“So when will Sunak call the election?”, SW1 has incessantly pondered in recent months. That said, only a few possibilities tend to be considered — with speculators sliding between them as the momentum of events has shifted: the prime minister could go “short”, with an election in the spring/May, potentially catching Labour off guard and centring his “stop the boats” pledge; Sunak could go “long” into the autumn/winter, making the most of an improving economy; or the PM could “very long” into January 2025, his deadline according to the Elections Act 2022, and a schedule that would grant him the maximum amount of time to shift the dial.

How Rishi Sunak could fight a ‘stop the boats election’

Critically, towards the end of 2023, political observers suggested that Sunak’s election options had been reduced to the “long” and “very long” contingencies. In the wake of historic by-election routings in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire and a confused and chaotic Conservative Party conference, a May election simply seemed electorally untenable. 

But as column inches on the broadening of the PM’s political travails and the narrowing of his election options flowed, the government issued a series of announcements which signalled its intent to boldly second-guess the commentariat. 

Empowering the obvious counter-narrative, the throughline of the government’s major announcements in late November/December was that an election would be called sooner than expected. Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement, which saw a larger than expected National Insurance cut expedited to January; the PM’s pre-Christmas confirmation to lobby journalists that an election would definitely be in 2024; and the pencilling in of the spring budget (likely the government’s last major set-piece opportunity before the next election) for the historically early date of 6 March, all operated along such lines.

Rishi Sunak confirms election will be next year, despite legal right to wait until January 2025

Indeed, these latter two pronouncements came during the news desert of Christmas recess (one of which was issued directly to the press lobby). The signalling seemed clear. The prime minister wanted Britain’s columnist class to continue to feverishly speculate about an election date and, crucially, to recast their expectations. As a consequence, it was once more roundly resolved that the PM was keeping his options when it came to election timing. 

Labour’s line

But an early signal Sunak had overreached with his election expectation management was an interview with shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry, who told Sky News on 28 December that a May election is “worst kept secret in Westminster”.

The view to 2024: What next for British politics?

Breaking the Labour-Conservative twixtmas truce, which saw few party figures tour the broadcast studios, Thornberry seized on the government’s decision to announce a budget in early March. It “seems to confirm” that May is the most likely election date, she said, finger on the pulse of the parliamentary press gallery. Rarely would a statement from the shadow attorney general figure so highly in the news agenda — but SW1’s lust for election content, combined with the pre-New Year news nadir, meant Thornberry’s intervention was immediately exalted as something significant. 

In chorus, SW1 judged that Labour would now seek to call the PM’s bluff on election timing, with Sunak slated as a “bottler” if he refused to make good on his May hints. As we entered June 2024, it was foretold, Labour would begin to talk about Rishi Sunak’s Election That Never Was. 

As this new narrative developed, commentators — both sympathetic and not — began to urge the prime minister to end the election speculation and get ahead of any consequent “bottler” sledging. This arguably peaked on Thursday morning with a piece in ConservativeHome from Editor and former MP Paul Goodman, entitled “Sunak should rule out a spring election as early as this week”. Goodman stated his case persuasively:

Until or unless Downing Street rules a spring poll out, the lobby will press one of its favourite questions: namely, when will the next election take place?  The longer Number Ten fails to declare, the more speculation there will be.  And the more there is, the more cheerfully Labour will pile in – preparing to frame the Prime Minister as a ditherer if he waits until after March 6 to rule out a May poll.

In the end, it was telling that the first question the prime minister was asked when placed in front of a pool camera on Thursday afternoon was about election timing — and even more revealing was Sunak’s prepared response: “My working assumption is we’ll have a general election in the second half of this year and in the meantime I’ve got lots that I want to get on with”. 

Rishi Sunak suggests general election will be in ‘second half of the year’

Such a headline-generating announcement might, all else being equal, be considered canny politics. Indeed, Labour leader Keir Starmer’s heavy-on-rhetoric, light-on-substance New Year speech was easily knocked off poll position in the news agenda by the PM’s election rearguard action. 

But Labour Party figures quickly piled on the pressure according to the agreed script. “Our unelected prime minister has yet again bottled holding the election”, Labour’s campaign coordinator Pat McFadden said in the aftermath. The prime minister is “going to be squatting for months and months in Downing Street”, Starmer himself declared.

In the end, Starmer and Sunak’s call and response felt tangibly like an election campaign had already begun. Indeed, the prime minister may want to forestall his inevitable, and inaugural, encounter with the electorate — but with the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK all having essentially kicked off their campaigns this week, it would seem politics at large has already shifted definitely into election gear, Sunak’s assent notwithstanding. 

Keir Starmer: Exhausted UK must reject PM’s ‘pointless populist gestures’

Was an early election ever a real possibility?

Moreover, the prime minister going “long” with an election in late 2024 was, if not a political inevitability, a political necessity. Rishi Sunak’s self-preservation instincts, with polls still refusing to relent, was always likely to see the PM stretch time in this parliament to its limit. As I have written before, the question is not whether Sunak should go “long” or “short” with an election — but “how long?”.

And, critically, this brutal backdrop was not going to decisively change in the months to May — no matter how many “traps” Hunt lays at the budget or how many “rabbits” he brandishes. 

So (very) ‘long’, prime minister: a January 2025 election has never looked more likely

In fact, the prime minister is said to have made plain to his own MPs that a late election has long been his intention. With Labour intent on turning Sunak’s election-timing trump card into his political disadvantage with “squatter” and a “bottler” sledging, the refusal to publicly pronounce on this point until Thursday afternoon might reasonably be construed as a strategic misstep.

Of course, Labour’s “squatter” attack line — in the same way as a late election — has always been essentially unavoidable for Rishi Sunak. As John Major found in 1997, the optics of being seen to hold onto power past one’s time are inherently politically difficult. And the PM could be doubly exposed to this criticism, given that he remains, as opposition parties like to point out, a “man without a mandate”.

But if the “squatter” jibe was a given — the “bottler” attack line seems a consequence of recent, apparently misguided, election expectation management. Such an attack could have been avoided if the PM’s election announcement to the press lobby in December had specified his intention to go “long” — the real “open secret” in Westminster. Rather, the PM’s decision to keep Britain in feigned suspense, and crucially Keir Starmer on his toes, has proved costly in the immediate term. 

Ultimately, only time will tell whether the “bottler” narrative has definitively set in — but it seems apparent that Labour’s “squatter” sledge has been bolstered in its political potency by Sunak’s refusal to overtly pronounce on poll timing up to this point. 

Of course, Labour wants to style Sunak’s election statement as him pushing back an election and clinging on to power — having first brought forward the prospect of an early poll in late November/December. Had the prime minister, therefore, been either more coy on an election date or more authoritative in stating his intention to go “long”, we might not have seen such an attack appear for many months yet. Instead, potentially eleven months out from an election, the PM is already rubbished as a “squatter” by Labour Party apparatchiks. 

The ‘squatter’ in Downing Street

Before this week began, Rishi Sunak’s dire political circumstance, lagging poll numbers and failure to shift the dial in 2023 was already constraining his ability to exercise his post-FTPA prerogative power election-calling power. The politics, still, no less than necessitates an election late this year. 

But the PM’s decision to will this power into existence in late 2023 by openly presenting an early election as a possibility has lost him the election narrative, too. It means, rather than positioning himself as working doggedly to a pencilled-in date in late 2024, Sunak is instead castigated as a “bottler” and a “squatter”. Keir Starmer can be expected to continue to press his case at Prime Minister’s Questions throughout the first months of 2024. How the prime minister gets ahead of this narrative, right now, is unclear. 

Year-in-Review: The rejection of Rishi Sunak

Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Twitter here.

Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website, providing comprehensive coverage of UK politics. Subscribe to our daily newsletter here.

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Chris Skidmore has announced his intention to “stand down” as a Conservative MP over the government’s decision to expand oil and gas licences.

Skidmore, who authored the Net Zero Review as the government’s de facto climate tsar, issued a statement on X (formerly Twitter) saying he will stand down as an MP “as soon as possible” over new legislation set to be introduced to the House of Commons next week.

The Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, a centre piece of the King’s Speech last year, he argues “clearly promotes the production of new oil and gas”.

He also revealed that he will immediately give up the Conservative Party whip when the commons returns on Monday.

Skidmore had already announced his intention to stand down as an MP at the next election.

His statement read: “As the former Energy Minister who signed the UK’s net zero commitment by 2050 into law, I cannot vote for a bill that clearly promotes the production of new oil and gas”.

It adds: “As fossil fuels become more obsolete, expanding new oil and gas licences or opening new oil fields will only create stranded assets of the future, harming local and regional communities that should instead be supported to transition their skills and expertise to renewable and clean energy”.

“The Net Zero Review I published a year ago next week, Mission Zero, set out how net zero can be the economic opportunity of this decade, if not our generation, bringing with it hundreds of thousands of new jobs, new growth, new regeneration and inward investment worth hundreds of billions of pounds. To achieve this however requires long term commitment to the energy transition, and a clear and consistent message to business and industry that the UK is committed to climate action as a global leader, as it has been for the past two decades.

“I cannot vote for the bill next week. The future will judge harshly those that do. At a time when we should be committing to more climate action, we simply do not have any more time to waste promoting the future production of fossil fuels that is the ultimate cause of the environmental crisis that we are facing”.

It adds: “But I can also no longer condone nor continue to support a government that is committed to a course of action that I know is wrong and will cause future harm. To fail to act, rather than merely speak out, is to tolerate a status quo that cannot be sustained. I am therefore resigning my party whip and instead intend to be free from any party-political allegiance.

“I am deeply grateful for the privilege I have had to serve in government across several departments, including as Energy Minister attending Cabinet, and to have been appointed as the Independent Chair of the Net Zero Review. It is nearly fourteen years since I was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Kingswood, and I am especially grateful to my constituents for placing their repeated trust and faith in me. First and foremost, my duty has been to serve them, as their elected representative.

“It is with that duty to them in mind as their representative that my personal decision today means, as I have long argued, that they deserve the right to elect a new Member of Parliament. I therefore will be standing down from Parliament as soon as possible.

“It has been a remarkable and wonderful opportunity to serve as a Member of Parliament for nearly fourteen years, but I now intend to focus all my energy and attention on delivering net zero and the energy transition”.

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Democracy is in retreat globally, hastened by multiple dysfunctions. To reduce the UK’s own democratic deficit, support is growing for some kind of proportional representation (PR). And, still, key Labour politicians remain unconvinced. 

But the argument can be tipped towards PR by fixing easy-to-attack flaws in current models — including complexity, disproportionality, too many wasted votes, excessive party boss control and loss of local links. Frankly, these are flaws which many PR enthusiasts do not sufficiently address. 

We propose a straightforward solution: existing versions of PR can be greatly simplified and improved on by giving each representative voting power in the assembly proportional to the number of votes they actually received from the electorate. Let’s call it ‘Votes-Weighted Representation’ (VWR) — a system that sees representatives vote the votes that elected them.

Under VWR, a country/region would be divided into multi-member constituencies. Each voter is granted a single vote; and ballot papers list each party, followed by its candidates in that constituency. 

As with Single Transferable Vote (STV), voters rank candidates and/or parties. If a voter only ranks a party, its local candidates are deemed to be ranked in the order listed. (To spread its votes between more of its representatives, a party can list its candidates in different orders in different parts of a constituency). 

Again, like STV, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated; their votes are in turn transferred to next preferences, to avoid wasting votes. This is repeated until the number of candidates left equals the number to elect (6 or 7, say).

But — in a significant improvement and simplification to STV — rather than donating ‘spare’ votes to less-matching lower preferences, each elected representative keeps all their votes (including transfers to them), and ‘carries’ them into the assembly as their ‘vote weight’ or voting power. (We can total these up more easily by counting in ‘round thousands’: e.g. 35,499 votes gets a weight of 35).

VWR will thus allow a much closer, multi-dimensional matching of candidates to voters, with far fewer ‘wasted’ votes than systems with some kind of electoral threshold (explicit or implicit), but that lack vote transfers from unsuccessful candidates. VWR with 6-member constituencies will typically yield moderately high effective electoral thresholds, but below the equivalent STV ‘quota’ of 14.3% (1/7). 

In this way, VWR will achieve better proportionality (of voting power in the assembly) than existing PR systems, while still avoiding excessive party fragmentation and associated difficulties in forming coalitions.

VWR will also improve local links, given voters with particular preferences are free to override parties’ candidate orderings. Moderately popular independents will be readily electable (based on Ireland’s STV experience). If several representatives from the same party are elected, they can be linked to different sub-constituencies for casework. Voters will be more able to approach a representative they actually voted for than under current systems.

‘Complexity’ is a pretext used to attack all current forms of PR. VWR is simpler to understand, explain and justify. Compared with existing systems, VWR will allow more accountable, more responsive and finer-grained coverage of multi-dimensional political space. And, significantly, VWR is the only PR system satisfying all the criteria in the Make Votes Matter Good Systems Agreement. 

VWR will help democratise democracy and stem the destructive rising tide of strongman ‘leaderism’, party and government ‘capture’, and de-democratisation. More details are in this recent peer-reviewed article.

Proportional Representation

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