• Forum
• SITREP

• Military

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space
• Public Eye

Further Reading

House of Commons

The House of Commons consists of 659 elected MPs, of whom 529 represent constituencies in England, 40 in Wales, 72 in Scotland and 18 in Northern Ireland. In July 2004 there were 119 women MPs and 13 MPs who had declared that they were of minority ethnic origin. After a Parliament has been dissolved, and a General Election has been held, the Sovereign summons a new Parliament.When an MP dies, resigns3 or is made a member of the House of Lords, a by-election takes place.

The United Kingdom is divided into 659 constituencies, each of which returns one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons. Constituencies vary in size and area; the average electorate is around 67,300. The largest electorate in December 2003 was the Isle of Wight (with 106,600 registered voters) and the smallest the sparsely populated Eilean Siar (21,300).

The maximum sum a candidate may spend on a General Election campaign is currently £5,483 plus 4.6 pence for each elector in a borough or district constituency, or 6.2 pence for each elector in a county constituency. A higher limit of £100,000 has been set for by-elections as they are often seen as tests of national opinion in the period between General Elections. All election expenses, apart from the candidate's personal expenses, are subject to these statutory rules.

For a long time a large proportion of the borough members were the nominees of peers and great landowners; or were mainly returned through the political interest of those magnates. Many were the nominees of the Crown; or owed their seats to government influence. Eich adventurers,-having purchased their seats of the proprietors, or acquired them by bribery, supported the ministry of the day, for the sake of honours, patronage, or court favour. The county members were generally identified with the territorial aristocracy. The adherence of a further class was secured by places and pensions: by shares in loans, lotteries, and contracts ; and even by pecuniary bribes.

From the reign of Charles II the growing inequalities in the representation were left wholly without correction. An electoral system had become established, wholly inconsistent with any rational theory of representation. Its defects, originally great, and aggravated by time and change, had attained monstrous proportions in the middle of the 18th century. The first and most flagrant anomaly was that of nomination boroughs. Some of these boroughs had been, from their first creation, too inconsiderable to aspire to independence ; and being without any importance of their own, looked up for patronage and protection to the Crown, and to their territorial neighbors.

As the system of parliamentary government developed itself, such interest became more and more important to the nobles and great landowners, who accordingly spared no pains to extend it; and the insignificance of many of the boroughs, and a limited and capricious franchise, gave them too easy a conquest. Places like Old Sarum, with fewer inhabitants than an ordinary hamlet, avowedly returned the nominees of their proprietors.2 In other boroughs of more pretensions in respect of population and property, the number of inhabitants enjoying the franchise was so limited, as to bring the representation under the patronage of one or more persons of local or municipal influence.

In 1793, the Society of the friends of the people were prepared to prove that in England and Wales seventy members were returned by thirty-five places, in which there were scarcely any electors at all; that ninety members were returned by forty-six places with less than fifty electors ; and thirty-seven members by nineteen places, having not more than one hundred electors. Such places were returning members, while Leeds, Birmingham, and Manchester were unrepresented ; and the members whom they sent to Parliament, were the nominees of peers and other wealthy patrons. No abuse was more flagrant than the direct control of peers, over the constitution of the Lower House. The Duke of Norfolk was represented by eleven members; Lord Lonsdale by nine; Lord Darlington by seven ; the Duke of Rutland, the Marquess of Buckingham, and Lord Carrington, each by six. Seats were held, in both Houses alike, by hereditary right.

The election in 1761 was signalised by unusual excesses. Never perhaps had bribery been resorted to with so much profusion. One class of candidates, now rapidly increasing, consisted men who had amassed fortunes in the East and West Indies, and were commonly distinguished as "Nabobs." Their ambition led them to aspire to a place in the legislature ; their great wealth gave them the means of bribery; and the scenes in which they had studied politics, made them unscrupulous in corruption. A seat in Parliament was for sale, like an estate; and they bought it, without hesitation or misgiving. Speaking of this class, Lord Chatham said : "Without connexions, without any natural interest in the soil, the importers of foreign gold have forced their way into Parliament, by such a torrent of corruption as no private hereditary fortune could resist."

To the landed gentry they had long since been obnoxious. A country squire, whatever his local influence, was overborne by the profusion of wealthy strangers. Even a powerful noble was no match for men who brought to the contest the "wealth of the Indies." Nor were they regarded with much favor by the leaders of parties; for men who had bought their seats, and paid dearly for them, owed no allegiance to political patrons. Free from party connexions, they sought admission into Parliament, not so much with a view to a political career, as to serve mere personal ends, to forward commercial speculations, to extend their connexions, and to gratify their social aspirations. But their independence and ambition well fitted them for the service of the court. The king was struggling to disengage himself from the domination of party leaders ; and here were the very men he needed, without party ties or political prepossessions, daily increasing in numbers and influence, - and easily attracted to his interests by the hope of those rewards which are most coveted by the wealthy.

By the 1830s most of the boroughs and towns represented were not the later growths of modern industry and trade, but the decayed country market-places and hamlets of a long-past age. Fifty-six of these, with less than 2,000 of total population, were electing 1n of the 658 members of the House of Commons, and 30 others, having less, altogether, than 4,000 of population, were electing 60 more. But that was not the worst of the facts. Most of these "rotten boroughs," as they were styled, were enveloped in the estates of the great land-owning lords; the voters were their tenants, and a free election in them was never known. Such cities of modern origin and great importance as Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds, had no representation, and that of London itself was small. What bore the name of the House of Commons had its representative commission, we can see, from a small fraction of even the well-to-do middle class, and not at all from the toilers of the commonalty

The system of purchasing seats in the House of Commons, however indefensible in principle, was at least preferable to the general corruption of electors, and in some respects, to the more prevalent practice of nomination. To buy a seat in Parliament was often the only means, by which an independent member could gain admission to the House of Commons. If he accepted a seat from a patron, his independence was compromised ; but if he acquired a seat by purchase, he was free to vote according to his own opinions and conscience. So long as any boroughs remained which could be bought and sold, the market was well supplied both with buyers and sellers.