Parliamentary Representation

On her blog last week, Zehra Zaidi highlighted recently proposed plans by David Cameron, in an interview with the Financial Times, to cut the number of MPs in the House of Commons.

The FT article briefly notes that Cameron wishes to cut the size of the Commons by at least ten per cent, which in real terms would account for around sixty MPs and could lead to the axing of a number of safe Labour seats.

In spite of the supposed independence of the Boundaries and Electoral Commissions, as Zehra Zaidi rightly remarks, Labour has helped create a substantial imbalance within the system over the past ten years – which of course has been to their benefit.

Therefore, as all political parties that obtain power attempt, in some way or other, to use the system to garner electoral benefits, it’s not that surprising that the Conservatives have now said they will try to rebalance the system if elected.

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Ivory Towers

Writing in the Daily Mail today, Quentin Letts (the paper’s Parliamentary Sketchwriter) discusses yesterday’s weekly episode of PMQs – this time between Harriet Harman and William Hague – and the forthcoming special Speaker’s Conference.

The Speaker’s Conference has been called by the House of Commons Speaker, Michael Martin, to address the growing problem of political disillusionment and distrust of most politicians in Britain, as well as declining electoral turnouts.

On a somewhat similar note, Quentin Letts, observing Prime Minister’s Questions from the gallery in Parliament, wrote that:

Looking down at the poor saps in the Commons yesterday, it was hard to be sure why anyone normal would want to be a Member of Parliament.

He then ponders for just a moment why a supposedly intelligent woman (yes, he is referring to Harriet Harman – who would have thought it?) would submit themself to the braying ordeal of Prime Minister’s Questions, before asking:

Is it worth all the effort? And are ministers truly powerful?

An interesting pair of questions – but does Mr Letts take them any further or even begin to hint at why Ministers in Britain have indeed lost many of their powers? Of course not. The EU elephant in the room goes unmentioned once again, and the Mail’s Parliamentary Sketchwriter blabs on undeterred.

Furthermore, one suspects that Quentin Letts cannot even grasp the reasons why a new breed of men and women are attempting to enter high office. In short it probably has something to do with the fact that MPs are, for the most part, short of ideas and lazy. As such, Ministerial hopefuls yearn for the luxuries of the government gravy train – high salaries, big expenses and huge pensions, plus an almost total absence of responsibility.

That is why people such as Harriet Harman submit themselves to Prime Minister’s Questions; it is not for the power but for the perks and the privileges of office – real or perceived. And it is probably also why that with each passing day ‘normal’ citizens in this country become even more fed up with a political system that they can do very little about.

Democratic Issues

On Friday the BBC published an article outlining some of the comments made by various MPs from the three main parties on the arrest of Damian Green over supposed leaks from the Home Office.

Now, what I have found particularly interesting about the whole Damian Green saga (which I think has been completely blown out of all proportion by our typically hopeless media) is the outcry from the likes of Nick Clegg and an assortment of Liberal Democrat, Labour Party MPs.

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg told the BBC in an interview that he was deeply shocked by the arrest of Mr Green and claimed the event was a ‘mayday warning’ for democracy in Britain, saying:

This is something you might expect from a tin-pot dictatorship, not in a modern democracy.

The fact is though, like so many of our MPs that aimlessly waft around in Parliament, Nick Clegg only becomes interested in ‘democracy’ when the safety of the increasingly irrelevant Westminster bubble is punctured.

What do the likes of Nick Clegg really know of democracy? Where were he and others when our powers of self-government and democracy were being given away to the EU? Oh yes, that’s right, they were there in Parliament voting to give it away.

Bearing the above in mind, the speed with which our MPs of all parties have rallied to one another’s side and in the process ignored the real issue of our increasingly non-existent democracy betrays the truth that in fact MPs from all parties often have more in common with each other than they do the voting electorate.

Ignoring The Elephant

Something which never ceases to fascinate me is the way in which entire debates on UK politics can be held without so much as a mention or in-depth look at the incredible influence that the European Union has on a particular issue.

A few weeks ago I attended a debate on Devolution at the University of Bath. To my amazement the EU was actually mentioned relatively quickly, but then unsurprisingly was rapidly ignored and framed in such a way that it appeared to be an external irrelevance to the issue of devolution of powers – rather than as it actually is a fundamentally important element.

Now, interestingly enough we had someone on the panel from an organisation called Unlock Democracy – what appears to be a seemingly unremarkable group claiming to be interested in increasing democracy in Britain. Their representative was a member of its Bath branch called Tim Williamson.

Unlock Democracy evolved from Charter 88 and is an organisation which has its distant roots in the Communist party of Great Britain, so you can already guess what such an organisation’s views may be. However, I suppose its history is in some respects by-the-by – what is more important is the type of organisation that Unlock Democracy has now become.

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