For a few years I have campaigned for the Gentlemen’s Club of Westminster to be torn apart. Its unwritten rules, self-preserving conventions, nods and winks have created the culture that has brought parliament and the Labour party to its knees. A special one day recall Labour party conference in the summer would be cathartic and allow some fresh new candidates to emerge.
Last July I could not even obtain a seconder to my proposal to remove the preferential tax status of MPs. Now it is no longer acceptable to be a tax avoiding MP. Times have changed. One day historians will muse about the irony that it was the Daily Telegraph who have so helped undermine the establishment.
There will be more to come and there should be, not least the outrageous use of £2m of taxpayers money to subsidise Tory offices and agents. There are Tory MPs who faced reselection battles solely because they refused to hand over taxpayers’ money to their Tory Association. I estimate that over 80% of Tory MPs siphon expenses directly into Conservative Associations.
But this revolution is far bigger and long lasting if we get it right. Why is the taxpayer paying towards David Cameron’s property investment in Witney? It is not right and it is not appropriate. What of the House of Lords, whose elaborate expenses system cannot survive and consequentially neither can its non-elected status? A smaller elected House of Lords is now inevitable.
We need fewer MPs, not through Cameron’s gerrymandering, but through a Royal Commission, and a single member transferable vote system to allow easier ousting of particularly unpopular MPs.
The expenses of civil servants, their first class travel and their pensions will all come under renewed public scrutiny, as will and should the age of the paid councillor and the proliferation of paid roles on Police, Fire and Health Authorities. All this information will need bringing out for proper scrutiny.
I would take this revolution further with some additional steps. A fixed term parliament, with fixed sitting days moves us on from the Gentleman’s Club. The structure of business and inability of individual MPs to initiate real legislation needs blowing away. A comprehensive childcare policy would be both practical and symbolic. A transfer of power away from the whips would bring us into the modern century. The resourcing of MPs to run their own public enquiries into major issues who open up corridors of power. The Pandora’s box is now open, but will we grasp the opportunities?
The pain of recent weeks is huge and hurtful. Let the Labour party emerge refreshed in September, not with more of the same, but with a boldness to match the anger of the general public and a radicalism to leave political establishment gasping for air.
I agree – it is an historic opportunity to make a whole host of long overdue reforms to open up and decentralise our democracy.
We have a duty not to let this be swept under the carpet as though it was just about expense. This is about a centuries old culture, and it is simply a scandal that we as new labour when we came in in 1997, didnt challenge it and change it. It was Labour at our worst where it was OK as long as we were the establishment, but we forgot one thing. We would be in opposition again at some point and we needed to liberate Parliament before we were. The sad irony is that if we had, it may have put off the inevitable move from Government into opposition that seems almost inevitable now. The Party should be very careful in not trying to just make this go away with a quick fix. We have a duty to use this second oppertunity (the first being in 97) to do what we should have done, and some of us tried to do the first time. It was our old timers, our party managers and the unelected establishment around the Speakers office that conspired to stop reform and we got treated as though we where modern day Guy Fawkes. As John says we can not let this happen again.
This system of expences is completly flawed and it has floored those MP’s that did not have the savvy to understand how it worked. It must be hard enough when starting out as an MP to cope with all the work that has to be done to also understand what you can claim for. Many Mp’s claimed within the spirit of the ruling but fell foul of the actuality. If there was someone there to oversee what could and could not be claimed for why have many been embroiled in some cases with trivialities. This is the time when the media has and can flex their muscles, they know popular opinion and can use it to the best and worst advantage. They have demonised our hard working MP’s and brought the house down to scorn and contempt. A time I suspect for building bridges, not finding scapegoats and making a proper expence system that everyone understands and is published annually like all local councillors allowances and expences. People may not like it but until the people who run our country are paid a proper salary for doing so then this kind of villifying of public servants will go on.
While FPTP gives too much security to many MPs, PR gives too much security to the political centre ground – consolidating its grip on the establishment (and vice versa). Institutionalized backstairs deals, no meaningful manifesto commitment – who could take, let alone advocate, that systematized skulduggery?
Fixed term parliaments by themselvesalso give too much security to MPs and governments.
I used to loathe the idea of prmaries, but now I can’t really remember why – a hangover of anti-Americanism? Who cares?
Apart from primaries, we should look at the Right of Recall in 3 areas:
A:Individual MPs should be subject to a by-election if say 10% (figure t.b.discussed) of their constituents sign a petition for that.
B: there should be a general election if say 10% of electors in say 10% of constituencies (at least one to be in each of the four ‘national areas’ of N Ireland, Scotland Wales, England) call for one. The ensuing parliament not to sit for longer than the agreed maximum term (4? 5? t.b.d)
C: measures: if electors petition in at least the same number as per B, the substance of the petition’s wording to take priority in parliamentary debate over all other business (except supply? I’m not sure. tbd). I think a free vote would be a necessary part of this process.
This is NOT legislation by referendum – to which I am opposed. But opponents of a fixed popular will will have to argue their case explicitly and in substance.
Worst case: “the death penalty might be re-introduced”. If you are a consistent democrat, you must accept that parliament (overwhelmingly opposed to the death penalty since the mid 60s) has an obligation to allow the public some access to debates on t his issue.
If you are a Whig, as so many of the ‘great and the good are’ and believe ‘the man in Whitehall knows best’, you will deride or deprecate this approach. But now the public do not think the man in Whitehall knows best, and certainly don’t think the men and women in Westminster know best. You would be giving a tump card to the BNP…
The Second Chamber. Wholly elected, it would lead to constitutional and administrative and probably political deadlock. Thre is something to be said for the Joe Haines plan (300 or so (tbd) of the closest runners-up in the previous general election. If we want more, ior take say 100 of the above, ther would be room for indirectly elected members, such as mayors, council leasders etc etc. This happens in France, and no doubt elsewhere.
Rusehd and demagogic reform leads to own goals. Let’s think it through on the above basis, and work fast and inclusively.