A failing system

Saturday, March 07, 2009

A failing system

The Daily Telegraph leader, God bless its little cotton socks, is calling for an inquiry into the financial crisis. This comes nearly a month after Cameron asked for the same thing, and four months after we had made our pitch. "Billions spent and we are still left in the dark," the newspaper complains, arguing that, "The case for a public inquiry into the economic crisis grows stronger by the day."

However, it also points up the role of the Commons Treasury select committee, which later this month will publish its report on what led to the virtual collapse of the banking system and how the Government has dealt with the consequences.

We are told It has taken evidence, in public, from most of those directly involved, from the past and present chairmen and chief executives of the major banks and from senior politicians, regulators and Bank officials. As in America, the paper says, "this sort of investigation is best carried out by the legislature." But then it makes a singularly apt point:

However, unlike in America, the parliamentary select committees here are less powerful and more politically inclined. They have a majority that favours the governing party and too often, in the search for a consensus, there is a tendency to pull punches. This is not to say that the select committee has done a bad job. Since we have yet to see its report it is impossible to judge. But there must be a suspicion that it will not have done enough to satisfy a powerful public appetite for clear answers and greater certainty.

The point is well made, and highlights a very specific weakness in our parliamentary system. On our other blog recently, I wrote:

Ultimately, in a parliamentary democracy, the buck stops … in parliament. However powerful a government might think itself to be, it lives and dies by permission of parliament, which can bring it down with one vote of confidence.

Short of that nuclear option, the day-to-day work of scrutinising government is – or should be – carried out by the select committees. They are the bodies that really get down to detail, call the witnesses and examine the documents, producing at great expense detailed reports which, themselves often provide the basis of debates on the floor of the House. That is how the system works … or should do.

The problem is, as The Telegraph also suggests, the system does not work – not only in this instance, but across the board. Committees are under-funded, badly resourced, superficial in their approaches and most often fail to get to grips with the subjects they address.

I do not even know if it is worth trying to put any energy into trying to improve the system, but believers in parliamentary democracy should be concerned that an important part of the system is considerably less effective than it should be – if not an outright failure. To that extent, it is worth a try and, shortly, I hope to publish a long piece illustrating how the system fails, with some suggestions as to improvements.

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Is this significant?

There is a curious detail buried in the horrific but not altogether surprisingstory of the car crash that killed Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's wife and put him in hospital where he was visited by President Mugabe. I hope they checked all the food and every medical tool afterwards.

The MDC is, understandably in view of the large number of Mugabe's opponents who have died in car accidents, demanding an independent inquiry. Maybe the UN can oblige or that well-known supporter of democracy and human rights, the European Union.

However, what caught my attention was the description of the truck that ploughed into the Prime Minister's car, which for some unknown reason had no protection at all:

Police on Friday said Tsvangirai's car collided with a truck which crossed into the oncoming lane and side-swiped the prime minister's vehicle, causing it to roll several times.

ABC News in the United States cited unnamed US officials as saying the truck belonged to a contractor working for the US and British governments.

The truck, which had a USAID insignia on it, was purchased by US government funds and its driver was hired by a British development agency, the report said. USAID stands for the US Agency for International Development.

One would certainly like to know a bit more about that.

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Say it ain't so - part 5,379

We seem to have a Secretary of State who is incapable of getting anything right as I do not consider being praised by Hans-Gert Pöttering for sounding "European", which does not mean that she sounded like somebody from a European country, getting it right. Incidentally, though the boss thinks that "this stuff is beyond fisking", I intend to write a bit more later on about Hillary's trip to the European Union.

In the meantime, Glenn Reynolds rounds up several references to a completely cuckoo decision on what sort of a gift to take to the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov. It would appear that Madame Secretary of State gave Mr Lavrov

a present meant to symbolize the Obama administration's vow to "press the reset button" on US-Russia relations.

She handed a palm-sized box wrapped with a bow. Lavrov opened it andpulled out the gift: a red button on a black base with a Russian word peregruzka printed on top.

Oh help! This from an Administration that boasted of being more knowledgeable and professional in its dealings with the rest of the world.

In the first place, as others have pointed out, giving the Russians a button to push does not exactly send the right signal. Here, why don't you press this red button and see what happens. We might talk later on but, then again, this might just be IT.

Secondly, as Mr Lavrov explained in some bemusement, that is the wrong word. Перегрузка does not mean reset. It means overload. Is there nobody in the State Department who knows elementary Russian? Or did they do this on purpose to embarrass the Secretary of State? (After all, somebody must have told her that American democracy, which is, in fact, the wrong expression as the country is a constitutional republic, is older than European, whatever that might mean.)

And to think we complained about Condoleezza Rice! Well, that just goes to show. It can always get worse.

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