We have too many MPs and they represent us poorly

I think we have too many Members of Parliament of both sorts but I'd like to focus attention on the elected ones - members of the House of Commons. There are 650 of these privileged individuals each representing a constituency of around 70,000 electors. It all seems a very organised arrangement with representation seen as being at something of a human scale when compared, for example, to the USA where members of the House of Representatives are elected for places with over 700,000 voters.

All this would be fine if we hadn't concluded that MPs (and US Representatives) should do the job full time and receive substantial sums so as to have extensive offices to manage research, communications and casework. Being an MP has become a little industry with a constituency office and a Westminster office all beavering away. But at what do they beaver?

The MP will tell you their offices are handling hundreds- even thousands - of 'cases' and that having "the team" (as they doubtless call it) makes them better MPs. Yet it's not so many years since the days when a Member of Parliament had little more than a secretary and maybe a researcher. The latter were often post-graduates (there seemed to be a lot of Americans) who'd take a year working for an MP, probably for next to nothing, because it looked better on the resumé. Constituency work was handled through the Constituency Party office and most constituencies had a professional political agent.

It may be that MPs do so much better these days but, looking in from the outside, it doesn't seem that way. Instead MPs either run full time 'get re-elected' programmes through these offices, making sure that they 'work' the constituency, something that mostly seems like turning up to the opening of a crisp packet and nabbing casework that would be better done by a local councillor. What many MPs say in Parliament doesn't reflect a considered contribution to the debates around impending legislation or to the good scrutiny of government, but rather the less central need to get in the local paper or TV covering North Grandshire or Big City South East.

The other thing with MPs being full time (and the related expansion in the numbers of ministers, junior ministers, under-ministers and assistant under-ministers) is that the function extends from being a job into being a career. If you every played the Sims then you'd recall the political career ladder there - starting as an intern and through grift, effort and cunning, rising through political assistant to campaign manager to head of the mayor's office to mayor. So it is for (some at least - probably most) MPs. Plenty have observed the seemingly smooth path from researcher to special advisor to MP to minister - whenever there's a "new members to watch" article in a newspaper or magazine, it's filled with bright young MPs who took this path (and probably know the writer personally).

In the olden days (I may be simplifying here but it'll do), MPs didn't have big offices, often had another job, and spent relatively little time in their constituencies. I remember being told about one Labour MP from a Yorkshire constituency that he'd visit the place twice a year (the CLP AGM and the Annual Dinner). Now this may be an exaggerated example but it reflects the essential truth about the role of the MP - they are not elected to spend lots of time in the place that elected them, they're elected to spend time representing those people in Parliament. When I worked in Ted Heath's constituency office (correction - the local Conservative Party's office), the great man would visit for a surgery once a month and we'd persuade him to do a few events and activities on top of this (usually coinciding with the surgery day). Remember that Heath's constituency was about ten miles from Westminster and a fair chunk of his voters commuted into and out of London every day.

The question for me in all this is whether we are better or worse governed for having MPs with constituency offices, westminster offices and access to the wonders of modern technology on top of all that. I don't think we are better governed and that much of the things MPs call work either duplicate other activity or else feed the idea that the main function of the MP is to mollycoddle local residents not represent them in Parliament. I'm sure the offices are very busy but it makes you wonder how MPs coped in the past when they'd just a secretary sharing a cramped room with two other secretaries.

I've always considered that there's a size of electorate above which personal engagement becomes impractical. I represented a ward with an electorate of around 14,000, about a fifth of an average MP, and there is no way that I could really know those electors. Don't get me wrong I knew a lot of them, especially in the village where I live, but those I could put in this category amounted to no more than 10% of the electorate. Because this personal engagement fades as the electorate rises (and I guess our brains have a limited capacity for remembering people any how), the size of a constituency really doesn't matter, at least in terms of representation.

So if we are to have full time MPs and fund extensive office support, we don't need 650 of them. I'm not sure what the right number is here (there's a whole science out there no doubt trying to determine the right numbers) but suspect it is nearer 450 than 650, especially if the size of the cabinet and assorted ministerial hangers-on is also reduced. This change would have two effects - because constituencies would be bigger, MPs might pay more attention to policy and less to chasing casework or opening fetes, and there would be two hundred people doing something more valuable than being a full-time politician.

In an ideal world, MPs would gather for a few weeks each year to agree the government's programme, process necessary changes to the law, and set up oversight for the administration. Then MPs would return to their metaphorical ploughs happy that the job of representation had been done well. But that ideal world has long gone and we're stuck with a state-funded political career path. In which case let's at least make it harder by cutting the opportunities to live off the state as a politician from 650 to 450.

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Finishing with Fiona - thoughts on how to sack your MP

Three things about Fiona Onasanya's imprisonment and whether she should be sacked as an MP.

1. We might need a better mechanism for the voters (Peterborough's voters in this case) to recall their MP. Although that MP going to jail does allow for a recall petition under the current rules but only once any appeals against conviction are concluded. The problem is that collecting 7,500 names is not a small task even in a case as egregious as that of Ms Onasanya. It remains the case, however, that it should be the electors who do the sacking not some commission or board

2. Sending anyone to jail for three months is a waste of time effort and money. I get that there needs to be a process and that perverting the course of justice is a serious matter but three months is essentially symbolic - spent in a comfortable open prison where she can catch up reading, text her friends and write a book about how she was wronged by a corrupt racist justice system. If perverting the course of justice is so serious maybe the sentence should be two years? If not a suitably humiliating community sentence - cleaning public toilets, grubbing up roadside weeds, painting over graffiti - might be a better approach.

3. If Ms Onasanya had any semblance of honour or decency (and I appreciate that this case shows she's deficient in these respects) then she shouldn't be waiting to get kicked out, she should just resign and allow Peterborough to be represented by someone less tainted.

I do think we need a simpler and less constrained recall process - the Clegg reforms were welcome but, in the end, were a total fudge that didn't deliver on the central purpose of giving the electorate a tool to hold their MP's feet to the fire.

Postcode lotteries (or why England is the most centralised large country in the world)

I don't know about you, but the term 'postcode lottery' makes my blood boil. We hear it all the time with its implication that everything should be the same everywhere or else things aren't fair. I get emails lobbying me to propose changes (usually expensive changes) because "it's a postcode lottery".

Here's a typical example:

'Our extensive new report highlights the bizarre situation where charity shops from the same chain, delivering exactly the same services and performing in exactly the same way, can get a completely different package of support in terms of rate relief and waste disposal charges simply because they are located on different sides of an authority boundary,’ said Robin Osterley, the chief executive of the Charity Retail Association.

Yes folks, these charities aren't getting the same deal from every local council because different councils exercise their discretion differently on business rates and waste collections. And therefore something should be done (by implication to make everywhere the same, to remove Council discretion).

There's a reason for much of this - national media and politics. I remember Anne Widdecombe explaining how, regardless of devolution, the national media expected a minister to appear on TV to explain why something or other was a postcode lottery (or failing, or underfunded, or inefficient). So long as this is the case, national government will tell local government what it has to do and how to do it while probably not providing 100% of the necessary resources.

I guess this explains comedian Geoff Norcott's observation (following his appearance on Question Time) that the politicians on the panel end up answering incredibly minor concerns ('dog poo in the paddling pool') that would be better addressed to the Parish Council.

My modest proposal - for when, by acclaim, you make me God Emperor for a week - is that we should ban the term 'postcode lottery' because it is helping destroy flexibility, creativity and innovation by local councils. Not that councils are all that good at this stuff (although we are massively better at it that national government) but, if councils have more discretion, people would be a lot closer to the people - elected people - making decisions about their lives.

And while we're about this business (and I'm still God Emperor) I would stop MPs having huge well-funded constituency offices full of people that go around doing things that really should be done by local councillors - and, yes, I'd devolve the benefits system, immigration administration and much else too. Frankly, we elect MPs to go down to London because we've got better things to do with our lives and, anyway, can't all fit into that fancy faux-gothic pile they've got to work in. And when those MPs have all got there, maybe they can stop fussing about postcode lotteries and let local councils get on with their job of running local services.

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Journalists and maths - things that don't really mix. The case of the boozy MPs.

It's from the Sun so all the gory details (doubtless given the source more of the former than the latter) are behind Rupert's paywall. However the point is this:

BOOZY MPs have sparked a fierce backlash from campaigners by splashing out £11,000 in just one week in Parliament’s bars.

Terrible. All these MPs clogging up bars, sloshing back copious quantities of booze while they should be running the country (or something like that). The problem here is shown by some basic maths. There are 650 MPs which means that, to spend £11,000 in a week, the average MP spent £16.92 - just £2.42 per day. A bear in mind that there are a load of other folk who can buy beer in the House of Commons. So MPs are drinking less than a pint of beer on average (the price list is here - the cheapest beer is £2.70 for a pint) and people are having a go at them?

The 'campaigners' in question appear to be folk working for Alcohol Concern - or so it seems. Quoted in the Daily Express, Jackie Ballard (a former Liberal Democrat MP and professional nannying fussbucket) the boss of Alcohol Concern showcased another lie to make a lame point:

Jackie Ballard, head of Alcohol Concern, said: "At a time when alcohol is causing grief to individuals and costing our society £21billion a year, Parliament should be leading by example."

Seems to me that Parliament is absolutely setting an example - the level of consumption is well within the guidelines of the health fanatics and reveals that, far from being a bunch of drunks, MPs are avoiding boozing on the job. The idea that spending an average of £6.62 on the first day back represents partying "hard into night following election gains" seems to be stretching the point given that this won't even buy half a bottle of the House's house sauvignon.

This is just another example of prohibitionist campaigners taking advantage of the seeming inability of journalists to grasp simple maths. With the result that we get shock horror headlines over takings that would represent a pretty lousy night for a typical city centre boozer.

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Leave the MPs on holiday...

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"Recall Parliament" goes the cry without really any consideration as to what Parliament is going to do when it arrives back in London. Dragged untimely from holidays, from rare time spent with friends and family away from politics, the MPs will be in a grumpy mood. So when they're presented with a motion that doesn't authorise anything, doesn't extend powers or create new law, it's understandable that the response is a combination of grandstanding and grumpiness.

Yet again the business of our legislature is determined more by what it looks like - "how it plays out in the media" - rather than by whether it is doing anything of any real substance and purpose by holding a debate about the Middle East, ISIS, Gaza or indeed any other topic dominating the headlines.

My preference is for the legislature to meet less often rather than more often - after all the full time presence of MPs in London only encourages them to meet together and, in doing so, manufacture more laws in the interests of MPs and those who lobby MPs rather than the wider public interest. For sure it isn't pitched to us that way. The media savvy woman from the charity or think tank on Radio Four explains how the new rules will protect children or save lives or stop hate crime or prevent some humanitarian disaster. And we - along with the MPs - lap it up.

The matter of whether we bomb terrorists in Syria - or is it Iraq - isn't really any concern of the legislature except in so far as that legislature has a say in appointing the government and votes to allow that government to have the money to buy the bombs and fuel the aircraft. Meeting together to discuss the situation achieves nothing other than for the more pompously self-informed politicians to twang their braces as they intone sombre speeches while others nod as they admire the sagacity of those braces-twangers.

The truth is that not only does recalling parliament not serve any valuable purpose, it is likely to draw the attention of government from the practical task of considering what to do and to focus it instead on the pathetic media circus that would accompany the recalled parliament. Hordes of journalists and pundits who match the MPs blow for blow in their know-all attitude. And battalions of suited think-tankers - from places with names like th Royal United Services Institute or the International Affairs Academy - swarm over the airwaves feeding their undergraduate essays to MPs so as they (the MPs that is) can sound like they have the faintest idea about the situation 'on the ground'.

It's likely too that, given this is the Middle East, there will be protests and representatives of the protestors - often emigres from the places now ridden with war, pillage and rape. The media will add this to the hopper of opinion - it won't point to any solution but it adds a 'human dimension' to the debate and shows, without question, that something must be done. The problem is that it doesn't tell us what that 'something' might be - diplomacy, military aid, bombing raids, troops...we don't know but something.

Soon though the debate - as well as leading to new rules and new powers for the friends of politicians - will begin to be portrayed by the media in terms of what it means for future political events here in the UK. The words are still frowningly concerned with a terrible humanitarian tragedy but the political tactics become a case of getting one over on the other side. Did the Prime Minister take a few hours to spend a little time with his family? Can we criticise the Foreign Minister for failing to meet with some group or other? And the BBC or ITN or Sky person with the Downing Street door behind them will spend five minutes of prime time news explaining what all this might mean for the polls or for next year's general election.

"Recall Parliament" they say - not because it's a good idea (any more than dragging people back off their holidays for no real purpose other than a media story is a good idea) but because it looks like something is being done, like the powers are taking the matter seriously and therefore that, in some magical way, we are getting better government. The reality is Parliament has no role in this, would contribute nothing new or helpful to the debate and would shift the emphasis from an appropriate response to the usual, pathetic media circus.

Leave the MPs on holiday, let the ministers have some time with their family and treat the business of government as if it were the business of government rather than a source of endless media tittle-tattle and gossip.

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Is the Alcohol Abuse APPG just a front for 'Big Pharma'?

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When the debate over cigarette packaging started the tobacco control lobby was very quick to finger some MPs - like Oliver Colville, for example - who had attended the Chelsea Flower Show on 'big tobacco's' ticket. A fair cop, I'm sure you'll agree.

Well I've another fair cop for you. Yesterday the airwaves were filled with details from a report published by the Alcohol Abuse All-party Parliamentary Group (APPG). This rehashed, courtesy of Alcohol Concern (who provide the secretariat for ths APPG), a lot of previously published proposals from the temperance lobby. This, of course, explains how that lobby was so swift to issue appropriately supportive press releases.

However, underneath all this smiling care and consideration is a link with a Danish pharmaceutical business called Lundbeck. The UK arm of this multinational business funds the work of the Alcohol Abuse APPG. Indeed if you google the connection between Tracey Crouch MP (or for that matter Ian Gilmore, the leading liver surgeon and temperance campaigner) you will find that, time and time again, they appear on a platform funded by Lundbeck or subsidiaries of Lundbeck.

So what is Lundbeck's interest in all this? Quite simply it wants to push its products and is using the MPs and doctors to do just that:

Selincro (nalmefene) was approved at the end of February and is the first new treatment for alcohol dependence in Europe for more than a decade. Lundbeck noted that the drug, a dual-acting opioid system modulator that acts on the brain’s motivational system, will be launched in other countries later this year and in 2014.

Now I'm sure Selincro is a perfectly fine product but it's pretty clear that the public health lobby should not allow itself to be captured in this way by commercial interests.

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MPs outside earnings - more unworkable populist nonsense from Labour

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I guess that this works well with the focus group and appeals to the hair shirt tendency in politics:

"There will be some business people coming into parliament [for Labour] but, after they have become an MP, there will be a short transition at the end of which they will not be allowed to work for, or be a director of, a company. A choice has to be made by Labour as to whether we want parliament to be a reflection of the people whom we represent or be perceived as an instrument of the corporate sector."

But what do we mean by working? Labour suggest that it's only the 'corporate sector' that's a problem - so the suggestion is that business is inherently corrupting. I find this deeply disturbing and it reveals that Labour retains its essentially anti-business, anti-choice agenda.

And in order for the proposal to work, we will need more monitoring and a new set of rules governing MPs. Rules that will allow the writer, lawyer, doctor or consultant to earn money while serving as an MP but not the businessman. Such a policy takes away from the essential contract between MPs and those who elect them.

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Politicians and booze - how drunk or sober are MPs?

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The Mirror has revealed (or so it says) just how sloshed our MPs are:

Politicians and workers in the House of Commons guzzled £1.4m of booze last year, shock figures have revealed.

The newspaper goes on to list, will growing shrillness, just how many bottles of champagne, beer, cider and  wine were sold. And we are shocked!

But should we be so shocked (other than by the subsidy)?

There are 650 MPs and let's assume that the rest of the people employed at the House of Commons amount to a further 650 folk. I'm ignoring drinks bought for guests or visitors (although I'm sure a fair bit of the booze was in the form of such entertaining by MPs). That's a nice, tidy 1300 people who spent that shocking amount of £1.4m.

The House of Commons sits for about 150 days each year (again we can argue whether this is too many or too few) so on each day £9,300 is spent on booze there. This amounts to £7.15 per person - essentially a round of drinks. Even if only MPs are drinking that's only £15 each - is this really so shocking?

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In which I angrily disassociate myself from most Tory MPs

"It's for the children" they cry and reel out carefully pre-packaged statistics showing how millions of kids are killed, maimed, left with brain damage and generally corrupted by their mum or dad having the occasional gasper whilst fighting the traffic on the school run. So-called facts are wheeled out about how smoke inside a car is so very much more damaging than any other sort of smoke resulting in ugly, pasty-faced children who fail all their maths exams.

And MPs clamber onto a bandwagon constructed from these lies - I guess if enough lie tissue is laid down it results in a solid structure ideal for politicians to demonstrate how much they care about "the children". These self-serving MPs then pontificate, nay compete, about how much they care, about how "the time is right" despite knowing the law is virtually unenforceable and utterly pointless. Indeed one such idiot MP - the public health minister no less - even said that it doesn't matter that the law can't be enforced.

This is bonkers. A sort of post-modern demon has captured the minds of our MPs and twisted them to believe that passing unenforceable, divisive and ugly laws is somehow a good thing - "for the children". These bizarre human beings, trapped in the glamour of a local paper headline, argue that banning smoking in cars will somehow change behaviour and that will be all fine and hunky-dory.

What we'll actually see is that nice middle-class mums and dads won't smoke in their cars (mostly because very few of them actually smoke) whereas the same people who use mobiles phones on the move, don't make sure their kids wear seatbelts (or indeed wear on themselves) and have been known to drive along with a five-year old on their lap - these people will carry right on smoking.

The people who voted for this have voted to open a new avenue for health fascism. It will be only a short time before social housing landlords are urged to ban smoking in their homes. And when they don't a law will be passed banning such smoking - housing officers will become like sniffer dogs hounding ordinary folk to the edge of despair for the terrible crime of having a fag while watching the late night movie on a Friday night.

And then we'll get the ban on smoking in houses - any houses - with children. Granting the health fascists right to smash into your privacy - "for the children".

There is no defence, no justification, no sense to this proposal yet nearly 400 of our MPs cheerfully voted for the amendment. And they did so knowing they could brag about how much they care - "for the children" you know, "for the children".

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Those boozy MPs - Some maths for the Daily Mail

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Terrible!

Taxpayer-subsidised bars for MPs sold more than 65,000 alcoholic drinks in the last year - despite a promised crackdown on the Commons 'booze culture'.

There are 650 MPs. That's 100 drinks each across the year - and this assumes that only MPs drink in the House of Commons bars (which isn't true) - which is less than two drinks a week. Even the most enthusiastic New Puritan is more or less OK with two drinks a week.

Of course, the Commons issues passes to lots of people - researchers, secretaries and so forth - and there are hundred of people who work in the House. All before we account for the guests of MPs. While subsidising the bars is wrong, the idea that there is some kind of Commons 'booze culture' is arrant nonsense.

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Is anyone paying attention....

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Over the years I've remarked often that most people, most of the time, simply aren't remotely interested in politics. More to the point those people not only aren't interested, they aren't paying attention. Yes we can grab their attention by putting a big headline in front of their eyes - to which they'll respond with an "oh yes, terrible" sort of remark and then return to chatting about the football or the latest celebrity divorce. Or more likely, what their children are doing at school and the latest gossip about colleagues at work.

It may pain us political types but all that effort to 'dominate the media narrative' or other such tommy-rot of the spinners world is just that, tommy-rot. People aren't paying attention. Here's Populus' weekly poll that asks people what stories they've noticed:

Only the NHS story among these is relevant to UK politics and just 8% 'noticed'. People really aren't paying attention to the news (even where they're watching the news programmes, I suspect this flitters through people's lives like background noise).

Now some of the politically-obsessed will now be heard muttering about 'apathy' and 'engagement', even 'participation'. These anoraks miss the point - the point is that wealth and comfort makes politics less and less relevant to people. And this is a good thing, it represents a little more withering away of government - another step towards us not actually needing government at all.

Now I appreciate that, right now, we have the most intrusive government since we decided that the king wasn't a god and didn't own all the stuff as of right. But this covers over the fact that most people's connection with government comes through one or all of health, education, welfare or having the bin emptied. And so long as they're not actively annoyed or upset by one of these, they have few problems with government.

The shift here is from government being something that is actively done to us to us being consumers of government. It really doesn't matter whether we pay directly or through taxes, we perceive ourselves as customers rather than subjects. And the debate around politics is about us exercising our consumption role rather than choosing someone to "run the country". Elections are the point at which we can choose different strategies for managing those services - it may not be the best way to do this but it's the way, for now, we've chosen. So when the Conservatives were rambling on about financial sovereignty and other such grand matters, Tony Blair talked about 'schools and hospitals' and won the election.

For me the importance of this change from subject to customer is that it suggests that government is not necessary - at least not on its current scale - to the delivery of what we currently (and wrongly) see as 'public goods'. There is a reducing need for us to provide, for example, healthcare or education through the medium of government, it is a choice that we make because it seems to us better, fairer or more effective.

The big winners in this sort of politics are those who - as Blair did - focus on what, when I was a student activist, called "soft loo-paper politics". Rather than endeavouring to change the world (or even Hull University) the successful political leader focuses on getting better services - health, education, filling in potholes. And the politician - the MP or councillor - bends his efforts to dealing with these issues, to be someone who badgers away at the minutiae of constituency problems. The old sort of MP - a grand fella who lives grandly in London and descends on the constituency for the AGM, the annual dinner and a couple of (reluctant) weeks at election time - no longer fits the bill however valuable the contribution of those men might have been.

A good few years ago I wrote in praise of 'idiots'  - those people who didn't engage, weren't involved and only (at best) reluctantly turned out to cast a vote in elections:

Round here they’re probably in their thirties or forties, employed at a middle management level in business and industry. They worry about how well their kids do at school, they concern themselves with making their family safe, they grumble a bit about paying taxes but have enough cash afterwards for it not to really matter. Such folk are ordinary, hard-working and inherently conservative. But they also see little or no link between the act of voting in a politician from one party or another and the significant things in their lives.

Or to put it another way, these people aren't paying attention. And isn't that wonderful, cheering and independent!

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Guilt by association...the Telegraph tries to skewer an MP on his predecessor's sins

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The Daily Telegraph reports on the success of Conservative MP, Stephen Phillips:

Stephen Phillips, the member for Sleaford and North Hykeham in the East Midlands, has reportedly been charging clients about £600 per hour in his capacity as a commercial lawyer.

He is believed to be the best-paid politician in Britain as a result, clocking up more than 1,500 hours of non-parliamentary work since July 2011.

Mr Phillips, 43, has received £922,380.20 in barrister's fees since July 2011, in addition to his annual MP’s salary of £65,738...

Now this seems to me wholly admirable. Mr Phillips points out that he does this work when the House isn't sitting (and that it's turnover not profit) plus mentioning how this provides him with a tentative link to the real world.

In my view we need more MPs like Mr Phillips who see it as public service rather than just a job (albeit a quite well paid job).

What I didn't understand, since no-one is accusing Mr Phillips of wrongdoing or dereliction of duty, let alone expenses fiddling, why the newspaper chose to conclude the article by talking about his predecessor Douglas Hogg. Seems to me that this is a rather unpleasant attempt to smear Mr Phillips by associating his working life with the moat-clearing expense of the man he succeeded as MP.

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Bradford spring becomes a murky autumn

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I nicked the headline (from the Techie Fairy) because it sums up George Galloway's problems in Bradford and the doubtful legacy it brings. The Guardian reports on George's troubles:

Ten days after giving her name publicly as spokeswoman for the campaign, Smith's car windscreen was smashed. Banners from the demo were on the back seat. Concerned that she may have been targeted by Galloway supporters as a result of the campaign, she called the police, who confirmed last week that they were investigating the incident as an alleged hate crime, as well as "a complaint relating to comments made on a social networking site". Smith says officers have told her they are contacting Facebook and the IP addresses behind the profiles responsible for the worst abuse.

It may, of course, turn out to be nothing to do with Respect but there's a sense of worry among those who have criticised what this party is up to in Bradford. On the social media sites there's a feeling - just that so far - that people acting for Respect or George Galloway are trying to take down accounts that are critical of Galloway's record since becoming Bradford West's MP.

Of course it's easy for Galloway to fend these criticisms off - after all he's not in Bradford most of the time (and before anyone gets too shirty, this is true of all the City's MPs) and isn't lord and master of all his supporters. However, there are plenty of reports that Bradford West constituents - unable or unwilling to see George - are trying to see other MPs from the City for there to be some substance in the criticisms of Galloway's efforts on behalf of Bradford West.

At the time of the by-election there was a sense that this was the breaking of Labour's stranglehold on politics among the City's Asian community and especially in the Pakistani muslim community. Rather than an endless game of positioning within clans, families and friendship groups, we were to get real debate about the concerns and worries of Bradford's young asian population. It seems that George isn't interested now he has his place in parliament - we return to grandstanding about the middle east.

However, what is most striking about the situation is the reaction of the useful idiots who George used to cover up his divisive campaign. The handful of white socialists who thought that George was campaigning on their issues rather than running an unpleasant, sectarian campaign amongst Bradford's muslim community:

"The only way the party can recover is to elect a strong and principled leader who can work to build an effective party, one who can build party structures, develop support, win elections and draw a clear distinction between the policy of the party and the words of its MP. Whether that's what the party wants remains to be seen," 

These are the words of a wishful thinker scrabbling around to justify the point or purpose of Respect as a party rather than its real position as a vehicle for George Galloway's ego.

The worst thing about all this is that the hope that Galloway raised in a lot of people has been dashed. I'm not surprised for the man was always more mouth than trousers but I am saddened for those enthusiastic youngsters who took to his cause. Not to liberate Palestine or get a free Kashmir (for all that they wanted those things) but because they were told that Galloway's megaphone would shout loud and long about Bradford. It hasn't - all we've had is the occasional 'parp' amongst George's screeching defence of Assad's Syria and the theocratic regime in Iran.

In truth, by playing the politics of race and religion, Respect has set Bradford back. Our journey towards a Bradford identity - to being, yet again, a place to be proud of - hasn't ended but Respect has taken us on a turn away from the more direct path. We have to make the case again for cohesion rather than multiculturalism, for fair-dealing rather than special treatment and for all communities in the City to be equal.

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Stewart Jackson: nannying fussbucket masquerading as a Tory MP

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Stewart Jackson has been all over the airwaves saying what a terrible thing it would be if gay people could get married. You shouldn't be surprised since he has a less than glorious track record as an illiberal, judgemental and nannying fussbucket. Here he is telling us that the town he represents is a "drunken slum":

"Peterborough is in danger of turning into a "drunken slum" because of the number of open off-licences, says city MP Stewart Jackson. Mr Jackson is concerned that in a mile-long stretch of road in the Millfield area of the city there are more than 30 shops selling alcohol.

Mr Jackson believes there are "too many licensed premises".

Why Stewart do you have such an issue with drinking - you've nailed your colour to the tax on poor people known as minimum pricing and now you think a shop shouldn't be allowed to sell booze because a shop round the corner does? What kind of free market is it that you support? And what sort of message does it send out about Peterborough if its MP thinks it such a dump?

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Perhaps we should try some of this democracy stuff?

When I pitched successfully to be the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Keighley back in 1999, I made some observations about 'modern'. This was, after all, amidst the white heat of Blairite modernisation and the audience wanted to be reminded that simply changing things to be 'modern' didn't automatically make them better. As I pointed out a couple of days ago, Blair's 'modernisation' of local government resulted in the loss of transparency and the neutering of full council as a decision-making meeting.

Today Charles Moore speaks of modernising - this time exploring Cameron's take on the idea. And in doing so he captures an essential truth - all this modernising is undermining that most ancient of ideas: democracy:

The way we are governed today, by whichever party, increasingly resembles a coup. A small group brings in a new leader, and rules, rather unsuccessfully, from his Downing Street court. Party members, local councillors and even MPs have incredibly little influence on what is decided. In an age when we expect the democratic rights of the citizen to grow, they are diminishing. He or she knows that we are governed by rules issuing from Europe, from the demands of human rights judges, from regulations not properly legislated for, from quangos and officials, so he knows his vote does not count. Is this a situation, as modernisers like to put it, “fit for the 21st century”? 

The idea of the 'court' surrounding the leader (whether god emperor or prime minister) is a central theme in Finer's History of Government and is something that the enlightenment in government - the US constitution, the idea of human rights and the principle of universal suffrage - sought to reduce in power if not remove. Yet, as Charles Moore shows us, that court - the 'Westminster Bubble' - remains as powerful as ever. The interaction between people within this narrow clique determines the policies and debate of the age, which is why we're talking so much about gay marriage and so little about inflation and the cost of living. This is why the BBC's advert for the Radio5 Live "app" talks of "cars driven by renewable energy" and how the debate about energy has become dominated by the need to 'reduce carbon' rather than why the old lady round the corner can't afford to heat her house.

This government by dinner party - directions decided by chats between friends and through the prism of metropolitan ignorance rather than through the process of democracy - presents a huge problem. But we stumble around looking for an solution. For some it lies in the Internet - a sort of iDemocracy where engaged and empowered citizens interact via the web. Others want devolution and fragmentation - driving more decision-making down to regions, cities and borough. And others celebrate the bureaucratic state - disdainful of councillors and dismissive of MPs and political parties.

Democracy isn't a modern idea. I suspect that the idea of voting to help make decisions has been used since prehistory - competing with 'one potato, two potato' as a decision system. And we like it, we have confidence it and we are prepared (most of the time) to accept the decisions that it throws up. The problem with our modern state is that nearly all the decisions that matter to ordinary people aren't made using this tried and tested approach. Instead they're made by groups of "professionals" without reference to the people. The policies that determine whether someone's child is taken into care, if you can build an extension, whether you can set up a business and what your children are taught - these policies are decided without reference to democracy by those "professionals".

Indeed, us politicians are frequently told by the lawyers who guard the policies set by these "professionals", that we cannot change or overturn them. And we are further compromised by role confusion - not just being rebranded as "community leaders" but with our key role of making decisions on behalf of those we represent neutered. Under the new public health arrangements, we will have a "Health & Well-being Board". This will be a formal committee of Council but with officers given voting rights alongside councillors - in the cause of 'partnership' the principle of electing people to make decisions is compromised. Councillors are not expert enough to make those decisions and must be joined by the (unelected) professionals.

Right across government we see decision-making that should be done by people accountable to the public being done by the unelected - local enterprise partnerships, schools forums, probation boards, a veritable host of the unelected and unaccountable. This is post-democracy - consultation, partnership and the 'professional' have replaced the tried and tested process of electing people to make decisions on our behalf. We have decided that democracy - elections, MPs, councillors and so forth - are a bit of a pain. Or rather we haven't decided, the system has gradually sidelined politicians - the people's representatives - to the stage where the only way for us to effect any change is for us to join in the game, to play at post-democracy.

Democracy isn't modern and it runs counter to our cult of the expert, our obsession with that unreachable ideal of 'evidence-based policy'. So the powerful have emasculated democracy and replaced it with a pretty spectacle, a place of sound and fury. Great fun, as observers of parliament know, but ultimately pointless. The decisions are made somewhere else.

Maybe we should stop calling it "mob rule" and try that democracy stuff again. It might work, you know!

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Nannying Fussbucket of the day - another illiberal Liberal Democrat: Jenny Willott MP

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I do sometimes wonder whether there remains anyone in the Liberal Democrat Party who actually possesses a shred of belief in liberalism. Each day I see another example of a Liberal Democrat politician advocating something that restricts freedom and limits choice.

Today it's Jenny Willott who thinks that the poorer residents over her inner-city constituency should be made to pay more for a bottle of wine:

"We need to do much more to tackle this problem - alcohol abuse is not only destroying the lives of individuals and families, it is also a huge burden on society as a whole.

"These measures are not about stopping responsible drinking but designed to tackle the minority who cause alcohol-related crime and disorder in our local communities, as we see each weekend in Cardiff.

"This is something I feel very strongly about and have been calling for action on for years. I am delighted that the Government is proposing to introduce a minimum price for alcohol, and encourage as many people as possible to contribute to the consultation to ensure we get this vital policy right."

I'd love to understand what strange process goes through the minds of these Liberal Democrat MPs - forget about the facts, let's get a headline in the local rag by proposing yet another illiberal restriction, control of ban! I can only suppose that political parties are not subject to the trades descriptions acts!

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"MP calls for ban..." Here we go again!

MPs like a good call for a ban - guaranteed to get them a headline! And here's Charlie Elphicke a member of the Public Administration Select Committee (boy does this remind me of Jim Hacker):

Charlie Elphicke, Conservative MP for Dover and Deal and a member of the Public Administration Select Committee, said at a meeting of the committee this morning that face-to-face fundraising was "one of the great infestations of modern life that lashes out at people in the street" and was "toxic to the charity brand".

"If parliament acted to stamp out this abuse and invasion of our personal space, would that be the right thing to do?" 

Well actually, Charlie, that answer to your question is "no". You - by which I mean parliament and MPs - have no responsibility for the "charity brand" (whatever that may mean). Charities are private organisations and their public image is a matter for their trustees and no-one else. More to the point, chugging may be annoying but it is not an invasion of your personal space and a charity fundraiser - usually a student supplementing their income - who "lashed out" at anyone would be quickly charged with assault.

Banning things just because we don't like them or worse, calling for bans just to get a headline, is an appalling attitude. Too many MPs - from every side - seem however to think it OK. It isn't.

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Apathy, elitism and bureaucracy - an ancient problem

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

So it’s that apathy thing again. You know, people who can’t or won’t be bothered to waddle down to the village hall to vote. Apparently this is “humiliating” for the Prime Minister – or at least that’s what the FT says:

David Cameron’s hopes that Britain would embrace his vision of US-style elected police chiefs lay in tatters as the public turned its back on his latest attempt to change the way the country is run.

An inquiry was launched on Friday by the Electoral Commission into a day of apathy at the ballot box, which saw only one-in-seven voters turn out in an election the prime minister insisted would transform Britain’s policing and which cost £100m to set up.

But it isn’t really as simple as that. And neither should we be as bothered about low turnout as us political sorts say. Don’t get me wrong, I do think we should vote – early and often as the saying goes – but I don’t have a problem with people who choose not to do so. Or indeed for the many folk whose lives are liberated enough for the act of voting not to cross their minds.

Last Thursday’s election saw record levels of apathy – mostly because the government (and the Electoral Commission) lost sight of some basic marketing principles. Police & Crime Commissioners may indeed by a better mousetrap but unless you tell people about this – repeatedly until you’re bored with the sound of it – they won’t avail themselves of your improved rodent catcher.

However, this still doesn’t matter. If people want to vote they will go out and vote. Take note that in Corby where 90% of the UK’s political class – not to mention the hordes of press and TV media folk – has been camped out for the past two months, the turnout was a measly 44%. Every house in Corby had a leaflet – probably a dozen leaflets, if by-election behaviour was normal – and despite this over half the registered electorate didn’t bother.

Why didn’t they bother? Probably because the outcome (and the act of voting itself) really doesn’t matter to them very much, if at all. And why should it unless we make it purposeful? A parliamentary by-election changes nothing, all it does is find a new representative to fill a set of vacated boots. Oddly enough the PCC elections were rather more significant – at least there we were picking someone to be in charge of something!

In an unusual departure the Daily Mail spots the problem:

The reality is that the public is hugely disillusioned with a gilded, out-of-touch political elite which seems incapable of connecting with the aspirations and anxieties of ordinary people.

People really are getting to believe that “it doesn’t matter how you vote, the government always gets in”.  And this is so true – that gilded elite the Mail describes will carry on in ‘power’ even though we vote some of them out and some of them in.

The really funny – or maybe depressing - thing about this is that it’s not new. Here’s S E Finer writing about the world’s first government, Sumer:

“Equally there was a contrast between the mass of artisans and rural labourers, and the ruling elite which comprised the rulers and their courts, the temples and their priesthoods, the scribes and accountants. This elite was very narrow; the more so since the keys to power...were so very difficult to acquire.”

Back then legitimacy – what we like to call “mandate” – didn’t come from those artisans and rural labourers but from the gods. Today, legitimacy in theory comes, via the act of voting, from the people. The thing that those apathetic Britons have spotted is that withdrawing that mandate by not voting exposes the elite for what it is – a self-selecting, self-supporting court surrounding the places where power is executed.

Thursday’s apathy isn’t a reflection on the current government but a consequence of government by the unaccountable gilded by the thinnest sheet of democracy. When I look at the areas where us Councillors are told we have no real jurisdiction (despite de jure responsibility) this becomes ever more clear – education, child protection, planning, licensing; all now so rules bound as to make the councillor’s role little more than a rubber stamp.

To give just one example – you thought, did you not, that the schools are under “council control”? After all there’s an Education Department filled with Directors and Assistant Directors. Think again. The funding goes straight from Whitehall to the schools via a formula set in London. And decisions about the management of those schools are made by a thing called the “School’s Forum” that (in Bradford) meets in private and contains representatives from the schools, council officers and so forth. Councillor’s – the folk you elect to make decisions on your behalf – have no role to play in this at all. Except to be blamed when the school’s fail.

This is where the apathy comes from – MPs and councillors stop being representatives and turn instead into guides through the castle. Our role is to handle ‘casework’ and to act as ‘community leaders’ rather than the idea of representative democracy – that we send someone to the place where the decisions are made so he or she can help make those decisions on our behalf. Today, a councillor or MP can sit on all sorts or panels, committees and boards while doing nothing other than accede to decisions made elsewhere by the bureaucracy.

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"Reining in Twitter..."

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....seems to be the big challenge for Leveson today - and what a challenge!

Senior MPs have said that Lord Justice Leveson must find a way to stop people from wrongly identifying people using social media channels, after Lord McAlpine was falsely accused of being a paedophile.

And what a silly "senior MP" - one Conor Burns:

"We are going to have to bring Facebook and Twitter under the same laws as libels committed by newspapers or television channels.”

Er, Mr Burns. Facebook and Twitter - as well as this blog and your secretary - are already subject to the same libel laws.

We elect these people but who selects them?

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Some MPs - including the speaker - just don't get it do they?

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This expenses thing - you know the one where they rent houses to one another. The public want to know about it - here's a poll in the Telegraph asking whether MPs should disclose whether they rent their tax-payer funded house to another MP:

Pretty simple really. We don't trust MPs not to fiddle so absolute transparency is essential.

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