Britannia Radio

23 May 2010

Three Dangerous Ideas from Two Radical College-Boys

Neither of our two new whiz-kids on the block has yet seen his 44^th birthday.  Yet, with the certainty of youth and a self-confidence scarcely justified by experience, they feel they already know enough about British parliamentary democracy to take it upon themselves to make fundamental changes.  

 They say they want to be ‘radical’, as if that is automatically ‘a good thing’.  How cool of this new Coolalition.  To hell with over 700 years of experience.  

Of course the real problems they face are a loss of confidence in our parliamentary system, and how to make their coalition work for more than a few months. 

They prefer to ignore equally real answers which are, perhaps, too uncomfortable to contemplate.  

I venture to suggest the British people have not lost faith in our parliamentary system but in the many slimy individuals who have occupied both Houses of Parliament in recent years.    Get rid of them and confidence will return.  (Throw the EU out of Britain as well, and confidence will rocket – but that’s another issue for another day.) 

As for making the coalition work, they have no business defying the decision of the British people.  That’s the choice the politicians made after the election result, and now they have to live with it.  And so do we. 

How much better for us all if the Cameroon had simply defied the other two parties to vote him down when he attempted to govern with a minority government.  All he had to do was remind them that they were both broke and needed to fight another election within months like they needed a lobotomy. 

He might then have introduced at least the handful of real Tory policies buried here and there in their manifesto, and seen Tory support soar ahead of the inevitable next election.  Tough, yet potentially triumphant.  But it was beyond him. 

Instead the coalition wants to change the way we vote and how our parliament works.  It is a wholly unnecessary leap from two specific short-term problems to three hugely misguided long-term so-called ‘solutions’.  All three are irrelevant and potentially damaging to the British body politic.

So let’s just look at these proposed fundamental changes to our system of accountable democracy, which none of us voted for. 

1. A fixed term parliament 

This not even a Camoroon idea.  It was included in the Labour manifesto!   Isn’t that reason enough to rebut it?  But no, the coalition has adopted it.  If implemented, a future government would fall between elections only after at least 55% of all MPs had supported a vote of confidence.  That is numerical nonsense, of course.  A majority is half, plus one, not just as a mathematical fact but also as a parliamentary majority.  It has worked just fine for centuries.  

But if this ludicrous idea were to be adopted, what exactly does the Cameroon propose should happen after a vote of no confidence without 55% of the vote?  He does not say.  But the answer is blisteringly obvious.  Chaos.  Instability.  The very opposite of what was intended – so often the effect of new legislation.  We would have no effective government, possibly for years before we were permitted to vote for a new one. 

It would leave the British people vulnerable to whatever economic or other dangerous pressures arose meantime.   A hapless government would remain in office making decisions as best it could, but knowing that it no longer had the support of the people who elected it in the first place.  Timely, decisive action would be all but impossible, perhaps for years. 

On second thoughts, no wonder Brown thought of this nonsense.  That was exactly what had happened to him, only without losing a vote of confidence in the House.  This is not just an absurd idea.  It is a dangerous one. 

The cynic, on the other hand, could be forgiven for suggesting that – after the 13 shambolic years of Nu-Labour – a few years of ineffective government might just be a good thing!                

2. Proportional Representation 

We must first remind ourselves of one crucial fact - our Mother of Parliaments is a legislature.  The government of the day functions as an essential part of the parliamentary process, and is held to account in public on a daily basis.  No parliament can bind its successors and every newly elected government has the power to amend or repeal any legislation it inherits.  These are fundamental differences between the UK and many other systems of democracy around the world, especially as practised on the continent of Europe 

Advocates of proportional representation display the weirdest misplaced thinking when they argue that it would benefit the UK.  The exact opposite is true.  It would perpetuate the very problem it we now have – a hung parliament.  We would be obliged to endure coalition governments permanently.  

There are several versions of PR, none of which is designed to produce a strong government with a clear mandate.  Under the alternative vote system, it has been calculated that there would have been 281 Tories, 262 Labour, 79 Lib-Dims, and 28 others in the House.  Under the transferable vote system, there would have been 246 Tories, 207 Labour, 162 Lib-Dims, and 35 others.  Both recipes for compromise and indecisiveness.  

PR is widely used on the continent and elsewhere around the world, more often than not to elect parliaments which are essentially talking shops rather more than they are legislatures.  The EU is the obvious extreme.  France is a classic example.  

In such countries, any new government is forged in the image of the elected president or first minister, and members of his government need not be members of parliament.  They are, effectively, nominated ministers with no mandate from the people.  They might even be described as appointed bureaucrats and they often regard themselves in that way – Brussels again.

Such a system, which disconnects the people from the state, can result in a legislative process which makes the repeal or amendment of existing legislation extremely difficult, if not impossible.  Again, France is a classic example.  Eventually, people develop a built-in disrespect for the law – contempt even.  They come to the conclusion that if the law cannot be changed or repealed, the best solution is to ignore it.

 Do we really want that attitude here?  We have, or used to have, real respect for the law, in my view based on the knowledge that any future government could – and often would – change it.

 But back to revolutionary thinking about our parliamentary democracy.  Here is a suggestion that might greatly improve the quality of thinking we currently see in the House of Commons.  We have allowed politics to become a career.  That has been a profound mistake.  We need people in parliament with a wealth of experience in all walks of life, and who are old enough to contribute worldly wisdom based on personal experience over many years.

 Youngsters of 20-something, with no experience outside school, university and a job as teacher, social worker, political researcher or the like, cannot bring what is needed – however bright and clever they might be.  Frankly, they are still too young.

 Years ago the back benches of the House of Commons were full of thoughtful, experienced men and women who had something to contribute after spending years in ‘the real world’.  They also tended to say what they truly thought, and to offer opinions based on direct experience.  Because they had no great ambitions for high office they would be free to deny the whips when they thought it necessary to speak out. 

 Many arrived in parliament wanting nothing more than the opportunity to contribute to public life - “to put something back into society”, as they put it.  Those folk are gone.  As a result, our democracy is much the poorer.  Nowadays your chances of selection as a first-time  candidate if you are over 40 – especially in the Labour party - are as close to nil as makes no difference. 

So why not introduce an age limit?  You cannot stand for a seat in parliament until you are 40.    

Now that’s truly radical.

3. Elected House of Lords

This has to be the most dangerous and stupid idea of them all.  It is a direct assault on the primary purpose of a second chamber, which is an essential component of the checks and balances needed by any acceptable system of accountable law-making. 

The original hereditary composition of the House of Lords ensured that those who largely controlled the country’s wealth also influenced its legislation.  Any Bills which risked damaging the wealth-creation process would survive only after close scrutiny and amendment.  Precisely because peers were not subjected to election they were able to criticise and make amendments objectively and – generally speaking - in the best interests of the country. 

Take that independence away, and the crucial benefit of a second chamber is neutered.  Political parties will nominate or elect their candidates to the upper house, and they – like MPs in the House of Commons – will be under exactly the same pressures to vote as their parties dictate.  Their personal survival will demand it.

Since the introduction of Life Peers, the House of Lords has been overloaded with political appointees, many of whom have no more than party loyalty to justify their elevation.  That should stop. 

So here’s another revolutionary idea.  There is an argument to be made in favour of a House of Lords to which no career politician can be elevated unless he or she separately qualifies under the following criteria. 

Every new Life Peer should be a nominee approved directly by the Monarch on the sole grounds that he or she has already made a significant contribution to public life or society in their own field of knowledge or experience. 

Now that really would be a radical change.  It would also be a huge improvement in our own best interests.

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