What a week for British politics
Nearly a week ago now, I suggested that one of the party’s longer term aims on the way out of the expenses crisis should be to push the case for full electoral and constitutional reform. Would we ever, I asked, have a better chance than this?
At the time it seemed a bit of a long shot, even by my terminally optimistic standards, but a week is a long time in the political media. The expenses relevations, coming so suddenly and in such a concentrated form, are unmistakeably betraying the shape of rotten underpinnings. Everyone has quickly come to understand that this is about more than cleaning up the expenses system. It will be beautifully ironic if reportage from the Telegraph, bastion of moderate conservatism, whose party of choice is a prime beneficiary of the current arrangements, turns out to be the catalyst for the biggest shake-up in the British constitutional settlement for three hundred years.
The reform idea has mushroomed everywhere and has needed nothing but the lightest of touches to keep the momentum going. Mark Thompson’s safe seat stats mash-up has turned up everywhere from Guido to the Guardian. Vernon Bogdanor is hardly ever off the radio and Nick Clegg had another decent PMQs on Wednesday in which he made a critical point – that a General Election now, although it is necessary, is not sufficient. It will only change the faces, not the system.
Like much of what he has said this past few weeks, that feels both right and relevant. Just look at 1997. That was supposed to be an election of change that swept away Tory sleaze – but now it turns out that some of the 1997 Labour intake have been among the most corrupt of the lot. Doing the same thing twice and expecting different results is one definition of madness.
What the papers say
A quick-round up, then, of all the comment on electoral and constitutional reform hurriedly offered up by our friends in the media – never have so many relied so suddenly on Wikipedia for so much. I say media, but actually the first, and in some ways still the boldest, article was Clegg’s own offering in the Observer. A little scrappy, but quintessentially radical, this piece called for an end to stuffy Westminster tradition (an old theme of Clegg’s), electoral reform and – gulp – a simple written constitution. This was a couple of days before he decided to become the first politician in modern times to call for the Speaker’s resignation. What’s next, Cleggy? Her Maj?
Well, at the time this still seemed like a shot in the wilderness. Soon after that, Channel 4 News sent me a Snowmail entitled “Isn’t this about more than the Speaker?” Aha, someone gets it, says I to myself, and sure enough, someone else who got it had been bending Polly Toynbee’s ear. And Janet Street-Porter’s. The Telegraph’s front page on Wednesday spoke of “A very British Revolution” and the Guardian has crowned the whole business with its very own mini-series, emblazoned with the title “New Politics” in an exciting shade of fiery orange. Of the broadsheets, only Murdoch’s Times is still floundering in a stagnant sea of Esther Rantzenism.
There doesn’t seem to be much of a shape yet to the debate, except that everybody is referring to how excited everybody else is about the same topic (much as I am now). Many are calling for PR as the default solution – including one such call on this blog. Several apart from Clegg have mentioned a written constitution. Our Shirl, writing in the Independent, offers one of the clearest diagnoses I’ve read yet of the problems with the current parliamentary system (h/t The Sound of Gunfire).
The Guardian’s mini-series offers a positive cornucopia of food for thought – the over-mighty power of the party whips, the undemocratic evil that is secondary legislation, the case for a healthy party system, reform of the Lords and, er, the introduction of More Fun. In fact, once you open your eyes and really look at the state we’re in, it’s hard to know where to begin.
Are we content with this confusion of good intentions? Or do we want to shape them?
I think we, the liberal blogosphere, must choose somewhere to begin. We actually talk about this kind of stuff for kicks and always have. So it’s time to sum it all up. What might a written constitution look like? How might a convention to create it be chosen? How should the key institutions of parliament change? What would we do if we were starting from scratch? What are the relative merits of STV and PR? Anybody got any idea how we start to credibly clean up the expenses problem?
It’s time to rehearse all those points, those former fringe obsessions, as if we were about to do it for real, because there is a chance we just might be.
Much though I hate to interrupt my own reverie at this point, there is a difficulty with all this which I think Cobden pinpoints very well:
this is the most discredited parliament in three centuries. It has no mandate to impose a new political process on the people.
The context for this, it should be said, is Cobden’s fear that electoral reform will mean a “Lib-Lab” stitch-up, and I’d be astonished if that came to pass, but his above point is nonetheless a good one. It’s a chicken and egg question – should we call a General Election first to provide a fully mandated parliament and risk the winning party backing off from the reform agenda as quickly as Labour did in 1997? Or should we set something – something – in stone now, and what might that be?
What might the various components of this embryonic revolution look like, and how do we get from here to there?
Discuss. And if, as I hope, your comment turns into an article, send it to us.
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17 Comments
Funnily enough, I had some ideas of my own earlier…
http://millenniumelephant.blogspot.com/2009/05/day-3063-why-not-call-general-election.html
Luv from Millennium
I agree with everything Millenium wrote in the blog link.
It’s important to get all the new rules in place BEFORE the next General Election, otherwise we’ll have four or five more years of the old discredited system.
And frankly, I don’t trust either Dave or Gordon to implement any changes decided if they win a majority in the next election under the present system.
Mark. I think it is unrealistic to get something like STV for Westminster in within the next 12 months. Even though I advocate STV I think it would be a mistake to rush it in.
In fact I think ERS’s new campaign to get a referendum on the ballot paper to coincide with the next general election is a good idea. That way assuming the referendum is passed (no guarantee of this of course) then this GE would be the last one under the current system.
I know the Tories are totally opposed to proper electoral reform like this but if the people had just voted for it in a referendum would they dare not do it? I think they would have to implement it.
There are however plenty of other reforms that could be brought in more quickly. Secret ballots for Select Committee Chairs and give them real power and teeth. The SC system should be an alternative to a ministerial career rather than a second or third best.
More cajoling required. 17% in a snap poll this evening. 5 down from the last populus poll. Not the best of signs really.
They say turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, but for Gordon Brown, Christmas is coming, no matter what, by June 2010. Given that under FPTP, Labour is going to be banished to the outer wilderness and for a very, very, very long time, aren’t we likely to find that he undergoes a Damascene conversion to the benefits of PR in the next few months? Helping him along the way by means of a constitutional convention would be a good move and a way of getting proposals in stone before the election. If we could top that off with a referendum on a reform package to nail it into place, say in January next year, that would be ideal.
Why do I fear this will all just peter out? Maybe I’m remembering the Blair tactics. Vaguely promise the earth, string out negotiations for ages, wear down the enthusiasts, ultimately deliver mouse. (Oh ok, devolution was not a complete mouse, perhaps am being too cynical about our Tony?) Anyway, if we are stop Dave and Gordon successfully following the same tactics, we’ll need to be clever.
In such a volatile climate as now opinion polls are irrelevant – there will be so many local factors that the number of surprise results in a general election is almost certain to be unprecedented, making the actual result unquantifiable.
It really wouldn’t surprise me if more than half of all seats change hands and there is a hung parliament, but that’s dreamland for the electorate because it would really force the issue of reform.
Such a result is not worth thinking about – it should be inspiration to get out there and campaign.
More votes of LibDems means more chance of better reforms!
Join the LibDems to make YOUR voice heard!
This party will never be as relavant as it is today, EVER AGAIN!!
If the leadership fails to highlight that the LibDems have been pushing for MAJOR radical electoral reforms for such a long time, if Nick Clegg and the party fail to take leadership on this issue, our party will become irrelevant and will not be able to progress. There needs to be immediate calls by LibDem MPs from frontbench to back, for Proportional Representation, an elected upper house and the removal of the Queen as the head of state. If that doesn’t happen, there needs to be a reshuffle with a new leader.
The spirit of the times seems to be doing its thing. Just today I tried to conceptualise reform somewhat, using Bagehot as a guide. In the course of doing this it struck me that the two major political crises of the year – expenses and McBride – could be linked in a way potentially productive of reform. But probably one too inspired by this country’s historical approach to the constitution for Liberal taste. Anyway, here it is:
http://gawragbag.blogspot.com/2009/05/what-would-bagehot-say-forward-to-past.html
Have responded here.
Looks like Alan Beith’s chances of becoming the next Speaker are gone as he’s the latest LibDem to be unmasked as a trougher, to the tune of £117,000 according to this morning’s Daily Telegraph. If this is so, this comes as a major disappointment; he’s someone from whom I expect higher standards.
Even then it’s minor-league troughing compared to John Bercow, assuming of course the Telegraph reports are true.
@burkesworks: I’d want to know more about it before condemning Alan Beith. I’ve come to be quite wary of the Telegraph’s little “in other troughing” section at the bottom of articles; usually it’s because it wouldn’t stand up to being fleshed out into a full story. Alan Beith’s been there a long time, they don’t say over what time period this £117,000 was claimed, or whether he and his wife actually claimed for the same things.
“to the tune of £117,000”
that would be £117,000 over 8 years
or 14 1/2 k a year, bit more than half the second home allowance, then
or about £1200 a month, so less than the new “extremely tough” limits brought in this week
sigh
Richard F: But still spent on things that aren’t acceptable. If the Lib Dems are going to keep the support of non-members like me then they need to NOT do what Labour and Tories do. If someone has done something wrong accept it, confess, and do something about it. You have the chance to be the morally superior party, don’t throw it away by acting like the partisan fools of the red and blue benches.
“But still spent on things that aren’t acceptable.”
Well, clearly not all of it. This was the worst the Telegraph could throw at them in the sense of “things that were unacceptable”:
“Sir Alan also claimed £6,298 for food between 2005 and 2008 and £5,050 for a cleaner in the same period, as well as recovering £5,457 from the public purse for a John Lewis kitchen and £219 for an air conditioning unit. ”
Cleaner I’m not at all impressed with, he should pay that back. That’s a generational thing. £5k over four years sounds like a couple of hours a week as well, so it’s not like it would kill them to pay for it themselves. Probably a lot of the food needs to go back as well. I’m fine with food being paid for when it’s on top of their normal eating expenditure, but £60 a week assuming parliament is in session half the year is a bit steep to be just from that. Get an M&S sandwich.
The kitchen and the aircon unit, well, they do sound like reasonable expenditure to make a place liveable to me. However, I’m very confused as to why they’d need to have spent money on a kitchen in a rented flat?? We’re definitely paying for someone’s capital improvements in this case, just not the MP’s!
So that’s £5k should be returned for the cleaner, maybe £3k for the food(?), and another £5k WTF was going on there?
That still leaves £104,000 that apparently not even the Telegraph could make anything out of.
I also think “partisan fools” is a bit strong. We’ve all been raging away at our dafter MPs on this site for days (as, to be fair to them, have ConHome).
I support the view that this is a momentous time, for the timely and necessary democratic renewal of the British Constitutional arrangements.
It will,however,only happen with an immediate General Election and pledge for a `Constitutional Reform Commission’ appointed before that Election is held,to clean up, as Nick Clegg has put it `This Rotten Parliament’ and `Medieval System of Expenses’.
1.In 1981, when the `Gang of Four’ first came to light, to form the SDP there were two potential Liberal Prime Ministers, namely Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams.
2.Shirley Williams, should have been the first woman Prime Minster : instead of Margaret Thatcher.Had that been the case she surely would have launched the `Constitutional Reform Commission’ that she is recommending today.
2.A reading of Paddy Ashdown`s `A Fortunate Life’ shows how the `Project’ with Tony Blair, that led to the Roy Jenkins PR Commission recommending AV and not SDV ran into the sand, due to blocking by a combine of Jack Straw,`Two Jags’ and Gordon Brown.
3.This `Rotten Parliament’ has lost all `moral authority’ to continue governance,without being deemed by Press and Country, as a `Lame Duck’ or `Duck Pond/ Moat Dredging Government’.
4.The People, especially all those suffering the `slings and arrows’ of the worst recession for the poorest in our community,since the 1930`s, deserve better Government and an immediate General Election to cast their ballot on this Government the only way to achieve that new confidence in public duty and humility required.
5.I believe that there should be a cross Party Parliamentary Motion, to determine a `Constitutional Reform Commission’ and a set context terms of reference.
6.Parliament should be made binding to essential reforms, such as smaller central Government,elected House of Lords, a form of PR and independent and scrupulous scrunity of M`P Expenses’ in perpetuity.
7.There may also be a number of subsidiary recommendations, aside from the binding ones, such as `Recall’ and a new democratic link between M.P. and Constituency -i.e. Q and A sessions with Constituents and Annual published M.P.s Reports and account of all work completed and attendance at Votes etc.
8.I agree with Shirley Williams,that the `Constitutional Reform Commission’ should contain eminent British Constitutional historians, such as Professors Vernon Bognanor and Peter Hennessey, whom are noted for their objectivity.
Where I disagree with Shirley Williams, is that I believe that a General Election should be imminent and then the `Constitutional Reform Commission’ and not the other way round!