Thursday, 15 October 2009
This is totally normal except for two things. Firsdtly the length of time Labour has been in power has enabled them to entrench colleagues and thus politicise many quangos. This must be corrected and as well as asbolish as many quangos as possible the rest should be purged of political apparatchiks. Also any that remain should not be “quasi-autonomous’ at all but be part of a dcepartment answerable to a m inister, himself answerable to parliament.
Then and importantly the next parliament will have been elected on a gerry-mandered constituency basis where the Tories with a 10% lead don't gain a majority. If you don’t believe that try feeding into the UK Polling Report’s calculator* ---Con 40- Lab 30, and LibDem 20 and then reverse the Tory and Labour figures. The first gives the Tories 4 seats short of a majority. The second a Labour majority of 126! Fair?)
Clearly the people will have spoken and the House of Lords composition must come nearer to a real balance.
Just one small point - There’s an election still to win, Mt Brogan!
Christina
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TELEGRAPH 15.9.09
Now it is Cameron's turn to put his friends in high places
The Tory leader will use his powers of patronage to break Labour's grip on public life.
By Benedict Brogan
Politics returned briefly to a weird version of normality yesterday, The MPs crowding the gangways of the Chamber for the first time since July looked surprised to find a roof still over their heads and the old palace operating as usual. The restaurants continued to offer subsidised delicacies. Stern men with guns stood guard to keep passing mobs at bay.
In the coffee shops, expenses and the depredations of Sir Thomas Legg preoccupied honourable and not so honourable members. None, though, could bring themselves to complain in public when the House gathered for Prime Minister's Questions. The matter lingered in the background, like an unpleasant stench being politely ignored.
Instead, Afghanistan took its rightful place as the first order of the day for Parliament, and remained the dominant theme of the session. But there was also time for questions to Gordon Brown about the Lisbon Treaty, A & E services in Burnley, the postal strike, child poverty, and the number of ex-servicemen in prison. The last word went to that wily old bird Sir Michael Spicer, who zapped the Prime Minister: "Will he soldier on to the bitter end?"
And then most MPs trooped out, some to get back to their wailing about the unfairness of it all, most to go in search of reasons for sticking with the political game at a time when it no longer seems worth the candle. Outside, the shells of public anger continued to crash around them."Who goes home?" the policeman cries at the rising of the House each night. Much more of this and the answer will be: "Lots".
David Cameron picked up where he left off in July, appearing more at ease with the issues, more in command than the man who is for the moment in charge. No wonder that distracted broadcasters have started to refer to him as the prime minister. Power is being drawn inexorably towards him, like the visitors sucked into the new black hole art installation at Tate Modern.
In fact, for one who makes a virtue of shedding power, Mr Cameron is shaping up to be a commanding force at the centre of politics. It is one of the anomalies of our time: a leader who promises to cede control over swathes of public life is also about to preside over a distribution of patronage on a scale that matches the peak of Tony Blair's Labour largesse in 1997.
Over the next year or so, Mr Cameron will oversee a discreet but vital operation to shape British public life in the image he has chosen: modern, leaner, cheaper and, above all, Conservative. Planning is well under way at Tory HQ. It all centres on his ability to dispense great chunks of political favours.
The expenses scandal is partly to blame, of course. So far, 31 Tory MPs have announced that they will stand down at the next election – although only a minority are those who have been left with no choice following their constituents' reaction to the Telegraph's revelations. Of those, 14 have no successor yet, and Westminster betting is that another dozen – some say more – will throw in the towel in the coming months rather then endure any more scrutiny of their affairs.
Who is chosen to succeed them is now in the hands of Conservative headquarters under the direction of John Maples. For all the talk of localism, the grip of the centre is tightening. Constituencies are being left next to no choice over which candidates can be considered. Those that stray, as in the case of High Wycombe, have their selection suspended.
In Manchester last week, activists complained that the process has been turned into a vehicle for getting the leadership's favourites into safe seats. As the election approaches, the power of Mr Cameron to shape the outcome of each selection will only increase. Just as Mr Blair doled out choice constituencies in the north to his mates in the final weeks before polling day, so Mr Cameron will be mad if he passes up the chance to ensure that those on the benches behind him in a new Commons measure up to the demands he will make of them.
Some of those seats will come vacant late in the day, as a separate operation to overhaul the House of Lords begins. For the first time, a Conservative leader faces coming to power with an Upper House that will not reflect the outcome of the election. All those People's Peers created by Mr Blair have made Labour the biggest party on the red benches, with 213 to the Tories' 192. Add in 71 Lib Dems, and the unpredictability of 183 crossbenchers, and you see why Mr Cameron must as a matter of urgency redress the balance, or endure seeing his programme stymied by a Labour rearguard action.
Tory sources talk of 30 to 40 new peers to be created in short order, which explains the accelerating Establishment stampede to catch up with the Cameron bandwagon. Baubles remain a potent inducement, and the Tories know it. Particular attention is being paid to sitting MPs who might be suitable for a ministerial job in the Lords. The Tory front bench there is in need of bolstering in order to cope with the drudge of government. While those caught dredging their moats cannot hope for the consolation of ermine, a list of candidates is being quietly drawn up. I'm told that the names circulating include James Paice, Keith Simpson, Tim Yeo and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown. All could be asked to exit the Commons at short notice before polling day, giving Mr Cameron another clutch of seats to distribute.
And then there are the quangos being lined up for a leadership cull. Sir Michael Lyon at the BBC Trust, I am assured, will be "gone within hours". Dame Liz Forgan, doyenne of the media Left, who chairs the Arts Council, has been tipped the black spot, as has Dame Suzi Leather, of the Charity Commission. [Yes please; bye-bye to both of those. -cs]
It will not end there. Mr Cameron's pledge to cut back on quangos notwithstanding, plenty of them – there are more than 1,000 – will survive and will require a purge of politically correct Labour appointees. If the public sector is to adapt to a Tory age of austerity, it will need a leadership that is in sympathy with the new government's aims. It may jar with his professed desire to reduce patronage, but Mr Cameron has a generational opportunity to shift the political culture of the public sector back to the centre.
Yes, this is a terrible time for politicians. It may be still a few months off, but a people power election is about to scythe through them. Mr Cameron wants to encourage a similar process in government by doing less, and leaving more to us. But he also understands that normal politics is, and always will be, about wielding power and its distribution. He should seize his chance.
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