6 Reasons for enjoying the General Election 2010 : Pt.5

Reason 5: Time for the House of Commons to Reassert and Reform itself

After the expenses scandal the House of Commons will be one of the least experienced in recent times. How will they adapt to the rigours of parliamentary life and more particularly the dreaded Whip System and 'toeing the party line'? There was a lot of talk by the time the Euro elections arrived of more independent candidates standing and there night be one or two. Not as many as I was hoping for back at that time and it will take a while to see how many party rubber stamps make it to the chamber. More importantly, how many of them wish to get promotion to the front bench via the many career moves towards a Government post and pension. It will take a while to establish who these are but if there are a great many of them the old old problem with Parliament will continue, namely, 'never mind the merits', think of your career'. As so many new MP's will have been on the usual political training routes and have not had established careers, saying 'yes' to their could well be an automatic response.

If this were not enough, the amount of legislation government's seem to want to pass has reached a ridiculous level. If it is true that a lot of EU material just passes though for approval with little scrutiny, why is it that the House of Commons so often gets passed by when legislation is being discussed. A great deal of rubbish reaches the statute book without our elected representatives getting much of a look in. If this is inevitable then there is either something wrong with the system or the amount of legislation is too great or is rushed through. Granted, the House of Lords does a lot of scrutiny in committee as does the House of Commons, but it is the Government which dictates the timetable, which amendments will be discussed and when the guillotine will fall to push the Bill through to its next stage. When measures involve civil liberties, criminal liability and human rights the missed provision can be disastrous in the long-term. Governments fully understand their short term aims are best enacted in haste, leaving the rest of us to put up with the results at our leisure.

All the parties are promising one form of constitutional reform or another. Having fixed term Parliaments is one such idea as is the reduction of the number of constituencies. I cant help feeling that many of the reforms that are out there are rather cobbled together without looking at all the variables which the present constitution embodies in its conventions. When a manual working system is being transferred to a computer based system it was always my understanding that a Systems Analyst was the person who set out what the old system did. I remain to be convinced that those suggesting constitutional reform haven't done any in depth analysis. As a half baked idea House of Lords reform will take some beating as it has ended up stalled, but with a second chamber that has excelled at delaying legislation with more legitimacy than the old hereditary dominated chamber. Any reforming government must come to terms that a second chamber that is merely a rubber stamp is a waste of money and a dangerous constitutional omission from the few checks and balances that are left, after it is realised that a Government can almost always on the House of Commons as its lap dog.

The problem to be confronted is how our elected chamber can acquire some credibility, sandwiched as it is between the remote Leviathan of the EU's institutions on the one hand and the emasculated local authorities of England and the aspiring Welsh and Scottish legislatures, on the other. How reducing the number of Parliamentary constituencies will help, inevitably making them bigger, is a puzzle. Distancing electors still further from their representatives doesnt seem a good idea in the light of the invisibility achieved by Euro MP's. Should the Westminster Parliament ever make provision for dealing with English matters without the interference of Scottish and Welsh MP's, representative proximity will be essential as will the need for a proper system of proportional representation so that one party will not predominate to the exclusion of all others.

In the meantime I will enjoy the coming election not only because it will prompt so many of these speculations but it will also be entertaining in spotting how many of these would be political animals have failed to understand the constitutional and political cage they are about to enter.

Dacier

Don’t let them Rob us of our Election Night Results

Although the thought of an election is somewhat daunting and depressing I can’t help looking forward to them. For as long as I remember election results have been more a feature of election night rather than the following day. It was the ‘night’ which really made my day. At first this was on the wireless, yes it is still wire less, and I used to ask my parents who the various people were and why they were always having ‘Parties’. My parents were from a mixture of tradesman, military and professional stock and so I was always curious to know whether the latest result would help the Conservatives or not. I think the first election I remember must have been the one which resulted in the defeat of the Atlee Government and the return of Churchill in 1951. Ever since I have always taken an interest and with the coming of television coverage I have managed to stay up for much of the night to see how the villains and the saints would get on. The election of 1964 and the end of Sir Alex Douglas Home’s ambitions is probably the most memorable especially as I saw on my bed-sit TV that my then MP, Home Secretary Henry (babbling) Brooke, had lost his Hampstead seat. A close second must go to the defeat of Michael Portillo with what must go down as the one which drew the loudest response. I think most of the street where we were living at the time could not have missed the wave of cheers which rippled along the terrace at about 3 am.

Whether it has all been worth it is a recurring question but it has certainly been fun. I think I have managed to catch most of them down the years and a young teenage daughter eventually joined me in this late night lunacy. Imagine the disappointment then when I heard that more local authorities are planning to postpone their counts until the following day. Talk about hiding the democratic process. While trendy suited types try to convince us we should be able to vote in supermarkets and probably soon by hitting the red button, turn outs falls and fewer and fewer people vote. Consequently more and more people fail to recognise the dangers of going into to their own little private worlds as though this makes them comfortable and safe. It does neither; it simply makes them more and more ignorant of what is going wrong with the system. The tragedy of this retreat is that they have no idea what the growing British Mediocracy and Bureaucracy, which is stunting the growth of British Democracy, will lead to.

Is the hiding of the electoral process in the daylight hours when so many voters are at work, give or take 3 million unemployed, part of a cancerous plot? I suspect not, but I do think that it is part of this nations unwitting progress into undemocratic ways, which, if we are honest, have hardly advanced much since universal suffrage began to emerge after the Reform Act of 1832. The Duke of Wellington is reputed to have said after the passing of the Act that, ‘ the mob will now rule’. Unfortunately that mob, the ordinary working and trades people of the country, do not seem to have had much of a look in as the aristocratic embrace of the British Constitution has worked its magic and produced all kinds of leaders which eventually revert to the status quo of middle or upper middle England. We may well be about to see an election which will give rise to a government, which like that of Sir Alec’s or Harold Macmillan’s, owes more to the playing fields of Eton, rather than to those of the grammar school, let alone the New Universities, comprehensive and secondary moderns: yes they still exist as well.

. The minor public schools, Winchester etc, (Fetters?), have always been well represented in Parliament, and this will no doubt continue, although many Oxbridge students now see their destinies elsewhere. How can the less fortunate people get into Parliament, let alone feel they are represented by people they have something in common with? There are those who will say that this might not lead to better government, but judging from the social background of the many Parliaments I have seen come and go, I remain to be convinced that it has yet been properly tried. Robbing the ‘ordinary people’ of the traditional circus of Election Night will not help, and will probably do great harm, to any attempts to re-engage people in the political process. The move away from the depressing low turnouts that our ‘democratic processes’ seem to bring about will not happen. Perhaps compulsory voting will be the next bright idea to finally turn the electorate into the unthinking, obedient servants of the failed Jerusalem that Britain will have become.

Dacier

Archbishops Intervene!

When I heard reports of Archbishop Rowan William’s article in the Times ( Sat 23rd May) it seemed to be out of touch with what has been going on. We were told that the humiliation of delinquent MPs had gone far enough and would endanger our democracy. The next day he joined with the Archbishop of York to call on voters not to vote for the BNP at the forthcoming European Elections.

In reading the article it was clear that the headline emphasized the first paragraph and skipped the ethical issues. There is much to agree with in the article. The Archbishop argues the need to urgently re-establish trust and to connect the underlying attitudes with a wider problem i.e., personal integrity should allow observance of the spirit of rules not just the letter. Asking, ‘what can we get away with?’ is not a sound moral starting point. By acting in good conscience we not only respect ourselves we also earn the respect of others. I have no problem with any of this.

The humiliation of MP’s is not a pretty sight and by itself could indeed be dangerously undermining of confidence in our democracy. Unfortunately the truth which has now come out will run its course and cannot be stopped. But it would seem that electors have woken up to what has been going on and wish to reclaim democracy, through the ballot box to a new Parliament which recognizes the failings of its predecessor. It is because many electors feel that they know what is fair that they have regained their political self respect. Where the danger lies is in irrational voting or abstention which is exploited by extremists. This is sufficient reason not to plunge into a General Election for the moment. Sadly, the PM was not quick witted enough to grasp this reason for delay.

Whilst the relationship between integrity and rule observance, is a point which needed making, it gives insufficient emphasis to those who ignored the rules. How anyone can say that the purchase of a duck island was an expense incurred wholly, exclusively and necessarily in the course of carrying out parliamentary duties, is beyond imagination. It is a breach of the rules and the claimant is having a laugh at our expense. You might have a different way of expressing this when not in the presence of an Archbishop.

Although many now lack faith in the Parliamentary system we must keep faith with those politicians who have earned our respect during the present crisis. We must also trust the people through the electoral process. But this is where democracy is it at its most fragile and which as we now know, in view of his and the Archbishop of York’s condemnation of the BNP, gives rise to his concerns. If our faith in democracy is lost, or if our votes are misplaced, then delinquent politicians will not be the only ones being humiliated. This is why the intervention of the Church of England should be welcomed by all tolerant people and why others should join in. Lord Tebbit’s advice not to vote for the main parties could easily become, in the present volatile situation, a constitutional nihilism which he had not foreseen, but which we must all fear.
Dacier

At Last, a Reason for Everybody to Vote!

Suddenly we are living in interesting times. We are now living through a Rump Parliament, but this time it will not be a Cromwell that storms in and shouts, ’for Gods sake go!’ It will be the electorate.

Some might be thinking of abstaining. This is the option for the sulking fence sitter. My attitude to abstainers is that they haven’t thought it through. Granted, some just can’t be bothered. Some might be intellectual or moral cowards. Some might be anarchists and don’t like the fence. This is nothing new. Fence sitters are well known in political history. Indeed Benjamin Franklin had a name for them, ‘Mugwumps’ these are people with their mug on one side of the fence and their wump on the other. It was such people he probably had in mind when he said, ( I am quoting from memory here), ‘Gentlemen, we must all hang together because, if we do not, we almost certainly will hang separately’. This seems apposite in the present constitutional crisis.

When the going is getting tough we do not want apathy. We need more people involved, not less. We don’t want the tough guys to get going because they will exploit our divisions for their own, sometimes extreme, political agendas. So come the General Election, all political parties must get their acts together. May I suggest they address the main problems confronting us and spare us their favourite lunacies.

Environmentalists should stick to issue which would achieve their environmental aims. Promoting legal brothels and funny fags will not concentrate minds. George Orwell showed in his book, ‘1984’ how a population can be kept down by means of alcohol, pornography, and gambling. We need clear thinking, energy and a strong grip on reality if we are to stop this crisis becoming a disaster. Both main parties should give us a break from trying to deregulate, regulate and privatise in varying degrees and serving us a dog’s dinner which no one wants. Might I suggest that they do a few important things well? Achieve something approaching social justice and avoid exploitation and scapegoating of the weak, inadequate and vulnerable. Make serious headway in environmental renovation. Dealing with freeloaders would give encouragement and hope to ordinary hardworking people who feel they get little reward for their decency. I’ll vote for any honest competent candidate who holds such values Any policy outside those values should be dumped and even those within them should be prioritised and only then put in a manifesto.

In seventeen days time we can vote in the European Elections, so vote. Encourage others to vote. Don’t take the Tebbit route and vote for small parties out of spite. Vote for the party who you see as having the right policies. A big thoughtful turnout would be a better shock than the Tebbit treatment for our political classes and more effective than abstaining. None of us want extremists to dominate any more than we want a Cromwellian outcome. A Peasants Revolt at the ballot box is what we need. The message to the politicians at the EU elections should be a fulfilment of Mr Shirky's prediction, ‘Here comes Everybody!’, so look out, we cant wait for the General Election.(See Book Review below)
Dacier

They just don't get it

Harriett Harman tells us they have got the message. The Prime Minister is angry. So much so he had to repeat it three times. That was John Major’s technique. Watching ‘Mr Three Time’s’ government sink was rather boring. Watching the McMillan government go down against the back drop of the Profumo affair had great entertainment value. The final months of this government as it sinks into the depths will be painful. If only the waters were as shallow as some of the politicians it is consuming. Some of them still haven’t got the message.

The big mistake some MPs are making is that they don’t realise the questions voters are asking themselves. Why cant MP’s understand the simple words, ‘wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred in the course of your Parliamentary duties’? Why should voters believe them when they try to convince us they know what they are doing? Competence, judgement, and honour are now being questioned. Even some senior politicians are clearly unaware of how ordinary people have to cope in a recession where keeping a job and a home is a losing battle for increasing numbers.

Politicians fail to understand that voters have a good idea of what is acceptable in the work place. To hear Sir Ming Campbell tell the Newsnight audience that the rules are in fact only guidelines, came as a shock. This from a respected MP and a Barrister. He is of course not the only lawyer in Parliament. Lawyers will exploit ambiguity and spurious justification in the performance of their professional duty. This doesn’t always work in a court, but to try it in the current public arena was a lapse of judgement.

For politicians to tell the public that this is all a distraction from major world issues is to state the obvious. The voters also know who has, in part, caused those problems. Government jumped into a war on doubtful grounds, failed to see where the money markets were taking us and then gave loans to the banks without seeking guarantees The present PMs talent for dithering and/or making policy on the hoof, compounds this poisonous mixture. We need a cooling off period not a General Election. Why? Because the deep waters which are consuming the worst offenders also contain more incompetents, especially those nasty sharks who once they have had our votes, will come after us.

Dacier

Why Blog?: or Blogging by Candlelight?

Why Blog?!; ( Or blogging by candlelight?)

I think that being asked why you have a blog is a good question and so is, and, ‘...what’s with the name!?’ This is a very normal reaction. My reply, sometimes, is that I am like the character in E.P.P.Thompson’s essay, ‘Writing by Candlelight’, (1970) who sounded off in a letter written to The Times as a result of the country being blacked out by the power workers strike. Better to write something rather than suffer the frustration of silent dissent. The letter came from the Surrey Hills and its author won the lottery of getting it published. By good luck, no wasted effort.
This blog comes from the hills of the Welsh borders and my writing is not by candlelight but in what might be, for all I know, a cyber padded cell. No one may hear. It may be a symptom of not having to descend into the lowlands and put the world to rights while taking the cattle truck to work. It might have much deeper meanings for well paid counsellors of some type. However, my justification is that this cyber cell takes up little room but has the special feature of a partially sound proofed window in the door. This means that there is just a chance that some other poor victim or member of the management might pick up a few words which, by happy chance, in the former case might allow them to carry on for a bit longer, or in the latter, might cause them to ask themselves, ‘Is this really the best way of running the asylum?’ So, no more burning effigies or reaching for the Private Eye rubber brick when watching TV. As long as we are not running on emergency candles, of course., my wife’s new command is, ‘ Save it for the blog.’
So it is most fortunate that, what I shall call our first pre-election leaflet, fell through the letter box this morning.. Instead of being used to light the wood burner these will now be a source of inspiration. This first example was quickly followed by our polling cards for the European Elections, due next month. In taking another look at the leaflet, which tells me all this particular prospective parliamentary candidate is doing at the moment, no mention is made of any election whatsoever. I would have expected some references to the European Election but perhaps this is a canny candidate. Perhaps he knows that most people have no interest in such matters. I have no idea who the candidates listed will be until I get to the polling station and the candidates seem happy at the moment to keep it that way. It is probably explained by election etiquette. If your standing for Parliament its the MEP’s prerogative to mention Europe. This distant relationship with Europe is rather unfortunate for democracy and the rural community. We seem to be forever picking up the work schedule sent down from Brussels. This week it’s the new procedures for tagging sheep, causing yet more fears of departures from the industry. See what I mean. Another bee escapes the bonnet and Europe wasn’t even mentioned on the leaflet! Are you .listening in the corridor out there?

Nearly forgot the name. This is part of my newly created campaign to make use of all those family names that are never used or have been forgotten. It makes a change from the usual label and is a gesture against Jacqui Smiths now confirmed scheme to get us all fixed up with our National Identity Cards. She has as much chance of convincing me that it will work, let alone serve liberty, than she has of convincing me that she has a second home in Redditch. Nice to know she thinks we can afford it though, like Trident.....
Dacier.