An Abject Failure Of Democracy

The recent debate over the reintroduction of the death penalty was set in motion by the launch of the new HM Government e-petitions website, which encourages members of the public to submit ideas to be discussed by our MPs in Parliament.

However, far from being a grand new feather in the cap of democracy or signalling a bright new era in participation, the initiative represents another abject failure of our political system.

So removed have our political classes become from reality and the daily requirements of the population they seek to govern, that they feel it necessary to spend hundreds of thousands of our money on white elephants designed to cover up their ineptitude.

Furthermore, such petitions act as another distraction to the public, keeping them from the knowledge that the Parliament they look to for salvation is now largely defunct; knowledge that generations of our uncaring politicians have willingly frittered away our right to self rule; knowledge that we no longer run our country; and knowledge that Parliament is largely incapable of legislating on many matters highlighted by petitions, even if eventually debated by MPs.

In much the same way that a crime recorded by police is a failure of the police or policies to prevent it, the creation of a new democratic initiative is a front for the unwillingness of most politicians to reflect public opinion. Thus, the e-petitions ruse, much like its predecessor, represents not only the failure of politicians and political parties to understand and listen to public opinion (rather than, as they would have you believe, a new found desire to actually engage), but their active and contemptuous dismissal of our views and beliefs too.

The sad truth is that the political classes have more in common with each other than they do with the voting electorate. Government and party policy is increasingly formulated by small, closely knit teams of liberal, metropolitan graduates whose views, values and ideas are unrepresentative of the population as a whole. Frustratingly, these parasites remain insulated from reality by the Westminster bubble and from the economic mess they have wrought by the disgusting generosity of the public payroll. In short, the e-petitions will change none of this, nor were they ever meant to.

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The Dividing Line

If the broadcast and printed media were your only sources of material for current affairs and news, you might be forgiven in thinking that the upheaval at News Corp was the most important issue of the day.

Yet, while the liberal media and Westminster village continue to absorb themselves with the fantastically important matter of News Corporation’s aborted takeover of BSkyB and supposed phone hacking, those of us still residing in the real world have to contend with the prospect of an Italian debt crisis, as the credit agencies again downgraded the country’s credit status.

Meanwhile, our wise, hardworking MPs have rushed like brain-dead sheep to condemn Murdoch’s various organisations, presumably in the vain hope that it would divert attention away from their own scandals, the most recent of which took place on Tuesday night when the House of Commons kindly donated £9bn of our money (or at the least money borrowed at our expense) to the International Monetary Fund, who, in turn, will pass that money to Greece which will soon default on its debts. Excellent work gentlemen. Well done.

Thus, the divide between the political class and electorate widens ever further, and yet more of our money is poured down the drain. In all probability, once the liberal media has given up flogging the Murdoch horse, they will return to the ‘nasty cuts’ agenda, blissfully unaware that their world is collapsing around them.

Winners Or Losers?

Nadine Dorries MP has been right in the past to campaign for measures such as a reduction in the legal abortion limit and selective education.

For having the audacity to stand up for her beliefs and probably those of millions more then she has come under intense and personal criticism from the Left – and for this at least she deserves acknowledgement.

Yet, I do find her rather annoying. Despite her brave, if at times ignorant, stand on traditionalist issues such as abortion, at times she lacks a sense of credibility. Perhaps the attacks by the Left really are hitting home, or perhaps it is because when she gets things wrong it is arguably in spectacular fashion. Who knows?

On her blog last night, Ms Dorries did nothing at all to alleviate these concerns of mine. Quite openly she cited ‘rumours’ from a close yet unnamed source who suggested that the MPs expenses scandal may have been created and exploited by the apparently ‘fiercely eurosceptic’ Barclay Brothers, who have since 2004 been the multi-billionaire owners of the Telegraph newspaper group.

Nadine went on to declare that she agreed with her source who said the Barclay Brothers wish to destabilise Parliament and allow anti-EU parties to gain votes at the European elections because the Conservative Party are not ‘eurosceptic’ enough. Yet, if she really believed the Barclay Brothers were conspiring against MPs then she should have said so rather than using weasel words.

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Undermining Parliament

In a Parliamentary vote held late last night, MPs decided to grant the use of the House of Commons chamber and its green benches to the UK Youth Parliament during the summer recess.

The motion was passed, in the final division, by 205 votes to 17, with the majority of those opposing the measure being from the Conservative backbenches, although there were a few opponents from the other parties.

Unfortunately, leading only rather minor opposition to the motion, Christopher Chope MP reminded those assembled Members of Parliament that, before they voted, they should remember:

The fact is that we have never used this Chamber for anything other than parliamentary debate. We do not even use it for parliamentary meetings or party meetings.

We should not abandon or abandon lightly the traditions of this House, which have meant that this Chamber is the one for those who have the privilege of being elected as Members of the real Parliament, not members of a mock parliament, whether it be a youth parliament, a Muslim parliament or any other parliament.

As Christopher Chope rightly says, traditions should not be lightly abandoned, whether in Parliament or anywhere else. However, this is exactly what we as a nation have been doing, right across the board, for the past sixty years – and to our great cost.

It goes without saying that allowing the Youth Parliament to use the Commons chamber would set a precedent, and demeans the role of Parliament. Having said that, over numerous decades our MPs have been doing a good job of undermining Parliament anyway, so, I suppose, why would they suddenly stop now?

Perhaps, in a few years time, when the Commons have finished the process of passing over our powers of governance to the EU, we could turn the Houses of Parliament into a Museum for Democracy? For a small fee, visitors would be able visit what was once the Mother of all Parliaments, wander its luxuriously panelled corridors and wonder how exactly it came to pass that hundreds of years of freedom and democracy were frittered away so easily and in such a comparatively short period of time.