No leadership, childishness and deception - how MPs are destroying the trust that's central to democracy

Trust. That's it, the central, essential requirement for democracy to work. People have to trust that their friends and neighbours will behave responsibly and that the people who we send to parliament as our representatives will do, more or less, what they said they'll do. I know, I know, I can hear you: "Simon, what are you drinking, people never trust politicians...": or words to that effect. I suspect, however, that this probably ain't so - there's always been a loud minority who thought politicians were selfish, on the take, charlatans but most people, if they ever gave the matter thought, saw politicians as grand but essentially decent folk.

Yesterday I concluded that we're pretty close to the point where this trust, always a fragile thing, collapses. Three things led me there - watching "Brexit: the uncivil war", seeing interviews with Harlow residents on Sky News and reading Dominic Grieves 2017 election statement. And before we start this isn't about Brexit right or wrong but about whether the people feel able to affect change in a democracy - can trust those they elect to respect how they vote.

I won't go into a whole review of "Brexit: the uncivil war" - suffice it to say that I enjoyed it but felt it was (other than a truly dire scene supposedly set in Jaywick - it's always Jaywick isn't it) too focused on the battle between teams of Westminster insiders rather than on an amazing campaign mostly conducted by regular voters without reference to politicians. It was also spoiled by a silly bit of text at the end suggesting the leave campaign did something evil and malign (it didn't).

Anyway, the important bit isn't the accuracy or otherwise of the drama but the final minutes set in a future inquiry where Dominic Cummings played by Benedict Cumberbatch rants about how nobody had the intelligence, initiative or aspiration to take hold of the 2016 vote and shape it into a real change for Britain. The Cummings character, close to camera, says that a vote to change how we did politics was seen as just something to be managed within the existing political culture. Politicians - leave and remain - were unable to grasp that voters, including scruffy ones in ramshackle shacks by the Essex seaside, were telling us the way we do politics needs to change and that maybe we'd get better government if we paid them some actual attention.

Meanwhile, Sky News had toddled off to Harlow - Essex again as it's not too inconvenient as they can get back to West London to take Jocasta to dance class - where they did vox pops with voters. Sophie Ridge, the presenter, shared clips on social media and these told the same tale as we heard from that end piece in "Brexit: the uncivil war". Politicians are useless buffoons, they need to get on with the job and stop behaving like children. And (trust me on this one) this sentiment is repeated everywhere by leave and remain voters alike. It's accompanied by a growing view that, not only will Brexit not happen but that people will have less power in future because they had the audacity to vote for something their lords and masters didn't want.

Yet despite this, MPs have, time and time again, voted (by slim majorities admittedly) to stop any resolution to Brexit that didn't conform to their view - incidentally, given they are mostly remain supporters, a view that is directly contradictory to the way the majority of the people voted. Every possible variant of legal and procedural sophistry has been employed, all with the intent of stopping the government from implementing the result of the 2016 referendum. And this brings me to the third thing from yesterday because it features Dominic Grieve, one of the leading confounders of that democratic vote in June 2016. There are plenty of others to choose from but I happened to read what Grieve had said to his electorate in the 2017 General Election - here's a chunk:

As someone who has always advocated a close relationship between the UK and the European Union, I accept the result of the 2016 Referendum. I therefore strongly support the Prime Minister’s determination to secure a negotiated arrangement for leaving the EU and for forging a new trading relationship for the future, providing certainty for trade and business whilst giving us control of migration and releasing us from the direct effect of EU Law. I also believe that the people of our country will benefit from a close continuing relationship with a strong EU and I will work to help build these important links for our future. I very much hope, therefore, that the Prime Minister will be able to achieve something close to the goals she set out in her speech at Lancaster House in February.

I challenge anyone to find in this, or indeed in the rest of Grieve's message, anything that justifies how he has behaved in parliament since that election. The address in question - especially given how clear the Conservative manifesto was on the matter - is a colossal act of deception because, as subsequent events have shown, Grieve had every intention of spending the forthcoming parliament manipulating rules and procedures to try and prevent Brexit.

These three examples all speak to the relationship between the electorate and their representatives with the public justifiably exasperated by what's gone on, irritated by the childishness of MPs (and their friends in the mainstream media) and desperate for somebody to grasp the opportunity of reframing the relationship between voter and politician in favour of the voter and away from the tribal elites in the Westminster bubble.

As I said at the start, trust is central to democracy. It seems that, unless something dramatic happens pretty soon, politicians in Westminster, by repeatedly ignoring voters concerns and interests, will finally have lost the last vestiges of respect as well as the public's trust. What will happen at this point isn't clear - I'm not expecting thousands to take to the streets as they have in France but I do expect a new sort of politician - blunt, cynical and populist - to arrive. And the first place they'll arrive is in local Conservative associations.

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In whose name? A comment on democratic will and other such stuff.

"Not in my name is the cry". Petitions are posted, letters are written, placards are badly spelled, frantic facebook rants are posted. "Not in my name".

Well, yes, absolutely. It's not in your name. Never has been in your name. Never will be in your name. That's whole point really. About this representative democracy lark, I mean. It's not done on the basis of individual approval but of collective approval. So long as fifty per cent plus one of the good folk we choose to represent us in parliament say we do it, we do it. What you and I think doesn't matter. We get to keep our powder dry until the next time we get to choose someone to represent us.

You don't think MPs are any good? Fine - that's your absolute right. But they're all we've got - the inadequate, incompetent, venal and self-serving bastion protecting us from rule by faceless bureaucrats, arrogant technocrats and anonymous securicrats. Depressing I know but that's it really which is why we should pay attention to the voting stuff and take it seriously. It's also why those people who say "we don't need any more politicians" are wrong - we need as many politicians as we can get if we want to hold the government to account - from parish councillors to peers of the realm.

Yesterday - and this is what has prompted all the 'not in my name' stuff - MPs voted to approve airstrikes against targets inside Syria. This followed a week or so of frenetic pseudo-debate and a full day of parliamentary debate culminating in that vote. And it's true that MPs, in arriving at a decision, did so with a variety of motives and reasons. Some will have supported (or opposed) airstrikes simply from loyalty to party - my party leader says one thing or the other, therefore I back that position. And this isn't a bad thing - we decry loyalty and trust too readily resulting in a world where such behaviour is assumed to be self-serving, shallow and essentially corrupt. But, for a complicated issue such as whether to take military action, it isn't copping out to take the view that, all things being equal, you'll go along with the foreign minister and defence minister appointed by your Party's government.

Others - and we saw a bit of this yesterday - will have made their decision on the basis of a moral stance ('I'm a pacifist' or 'ISIS is evil and must be stopped') without consideration of tactics. Again we see this described as sophistry or as disingenuous - as if politicians can never support something on grounds of simple conscience. Worse still, people (as they shout 'not in my name' again and again) make a moral judgement about the reasons for people making the choice - if that choice supports our view its noble and brave, if not its because of bullying, political calculation or stupidity (sometimes all three).

I'm not persuaded by the argument for bombing. Not because of any objection to war or crocodile tears over the civilian deaths that will happen whether or not we bomb. No, my concern is that there seems to be no idea as to what the end of all this looks like. I didn't listen to every word yesterday but I didn't hear an argument setting out a strategy aimed at creating a place to which several million refugees can return and live a fulfilling life in peace and happiness. And I didn't see how bombing Raqqa stops terrorists already in the UK, USA or France from machine-gunning or bombing innocents just to wave their murderous islamo-fascist ideology in our liberal democratic faces.

But my argument lost. Maybe for honourable reasons, perhaps because there's internal turmoil in the Labour Party, perhaps because too many MPs, ministers and media folk didn't understand the issues. But mostly because there was a feeling - one echoed outside the febrile world of Westminster - that, following Paris, something had to be done. And targeted bombing is something.

That bombing isn't being done in your name. It's being done by the UK government on the authorisation of parliament. If you didn't like how your MP voted on this then come the next election you get the chance to vote for someone else - it's how our imperfect system works. If you can stomach party politics, you can join one of the parties and make your case from inside. But shouting 'not in my name' is fatuous and serves no purpose except to make you feel a little bit better about the fact that parliament decided to do something you don't like.

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George Galloway isn't doing his job and doesn't like being reminded...

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The voting records of Bradford's MPs are now public and they reveal that four out the the District's five MPs vote in most divisions. And this is entirely as it should be because the main reason we elect an MP is for that person to toddle off down to London and vote. This is because the MP is a representative sent to parliament because all of the UK's sixty-odd million people can't squeeze into that chamber with the green seats.

So George Galloway's dismal record on voting - he bothered with just 15.5% of votes - should be a matter of shame for the famously blustering MP. Instead he mounts a ridiculous defence - more a set of pathetic excuses than an argument. Or rather an anonymous spokesman mounts this excuse for a defence;

Mr Galloway disputed the worth of the figures, because they fail to register whether an MP is absent from Westminster – or is present and has chosen to actively abstain.

Furthermore, he argued, his constituents agreed that many votes were "farcical", because most MPs followed whips’ instructions to win rewards, or avoid punishments.

A spokesman said: "The choices on offer are unpalatable to George, being either the Government’s proposal or the official Opposition’s - neither of which George supports. 

Given that the more assiduous voter of our five MPs is Phil Davies - famously one of the most rebellious Tory MPs - the argument about 'whips' is a bit pathetic. It's true that there are plenty of other things for MPs to do - and George Galloway may or may not be doing these (the evidence is mixed) - but not voting remains a dereliction of the duty Bradford West's electors charged him with performing.

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Time to move parliament out of London

Bradford's Goitside - where better for a relocated Parliament Building!

I've said before that one way to rebalance the nation is to move the politicians (and their assorted hangers on) out of London. Ideally - and there is no bias here at all - to Bradford.

We now have that opportunity:

The historic Palace of Westminster is in such poor condition that MPs and peers may have to move out for five years while works are carried out.

The Parliament building is falling down. Time to make that radical choice and move MPs somewhere else - away from the expensive world of London. Instead of spending £3 billion tarting up an old building that doesn't meet modern needs, sell that building and use the cash to build a new one in the North of England.

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We need an English Parliament (in Bradford)

I remember, prior to the 2010 General Election, speaking with Eric Pickles at Party Conference about the 'West Lothian Question'. Eric's view back then was that the question wasn't really a problem and explained - accurately - that it wasn't exactly a burning issue on the doorsteps. You typical Tory voter wasn't going to add 'English Votes for English Laws' to the things they wanted from a new Tory government - certainly not compared to the urgent job of sorting out the economy and mending the train crash that was Labour's management of government finances.

I think that has changed. Not as much as people think following the sensible decision of Scottish people to reject the blandishments of Alex Salmond's rose-tinted independence. But next election, for the first time in a long while, the asymmetry of the UK's constitutional arrangements will be an issue in England especially if we assume that the process of delivering on the devolution promises to Scotland is under way.

Two questions need to be answered - probably on the same timetable as Scottish 'DevoMax'. Firstly are we content with constitutional asymmetry and secondly, having answered the first question, giving the precise details of any new constitutional settlement for the UK. In both these questions the real issue isn't about Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland but is about England. If we reject asymmetry meaning that all the devolved elements of the UK have the same powers and the same relationship with the UK government, then the question for England is whether we have a single English Parliament or a series of regional assemblies.

If we accept asymmetry then the picture for England is more complicated with options ranging from no change at all through solutions founded on English MPs 'double-hatting' to Spanish-style regional mayors or greater devolution to local councils. The problem here is that we retain resentments since one area gets more power or cash, or else we create a series of demarcation disputes between UK and English laws, between differential devolution to regions or sub-regions and between the devolved assemblies and areas without comparable levels of devolution.

Much though there is some appeal in 'home rule' for Yorkshire, I don't see regional assemblies as a solution - firstly because we immediately face boundary issues and secondly because devolution from a UK government to individual regions effectively abolishes England (at least in constitutional terms). If there is to be devolution to regions, sub-regions, cities or shire counties then that should be a decision for an English Parliament.

It seems to me that a 'four nations' solution matches local expectation but also opens up reforms focused on a more federal arrangement for the UK - this might include the numbers of UK MPs, the role (and means of election) for the House of Lords and the promotion of new locally negotiated arrangements for local government. Although giving English members of the UK Parliament a secondary role as an English Parliament provides a quick fix, it also raises some challenges in terms of administration even while it resolves the issue of law-making. Put simply there would be a Scottish government and a Welsh government but no English government - we could find the situation where a Scottish education secretary can't vote on the laws but is in charge of their implementation in England. The 'West Lothian Question' won't have been answered.

It seems that the Conservative Party is committed to seeking a resolution of the question - albeit with a preference for a Westminster solution rather than an English Parliament. However, neither Labour nor the Liberal Democrats seem to want this with the former wanting some sort of gathering for the great and good to decide on a new constitution (or not) and the latter wanting to abolish England.

For me, the answer has to be an English Parliament with the same devolved powers as those given to Scotland. And, of course, that Parliament should be in Bradford.

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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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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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In which I agree with George Monbiot

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I promise this won't become a common occurrence but George is absolutely right about the Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill:

The bill would permit injunctions against anyone of 10 or older who "has engaged or threatens to engage in conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to any person". It would replace asbos with ipnas (injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance), which would not only forbid certain forms of behaviour, but also force the recipient to discharge positive obligations. In other words, they can impose a kind of community service order on people who have committed no crime, which could, the law proposes, remain in force for the rest of their lives.

I've written before about how the concept of "anti-social behaviour" makes criminals of people who have committed no crime:

I'm finding the term "anti-social behaviour" - or ASB - increasingly worrying. While the authorities deny that the purpose of the term (one of those mealy-mouthed, third way Blairite catch-all ideas) is to criminalise behaviour that is not actually criminal this is precisely what seems to happen.

This new Bill extends the arbitrary power of the police and councils to include "dispersal orders",  a "community trigger" essentially allowing people to gang up on a neighbour and get the police to support them, and the use of these new orders to speed up evictions. The result will be a further collection of bans, restrictions and controls all imposed to give the police powers to criminalise normal, peaceful behaviour such as you and I having a quiet drink and a chat sat on a wall in the park. The only criteria the authorities need is "nuisance or annoyance" - how subjective can that be?

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Prince of Bureaucrats calls for guided democracy...

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I'm told that Gus O'Donnell is a terribly clever man. I'm sure this is the case but he clearly has lost all grip on the concept of democracy:

Would-be MPs should be forced to meet "pre-qualification criteria" before being allowed to stand, a former cabinet secretary has suggested.

Lord O'Donnell - once the UK's most senior civil servant - said the idea could make Parliament more effective.

Government policies would also be vetted by former ministers, accountants and ex-civil servants under Lord O'Donnell's proposals.

I wanted to take this apart bit by bit. But is so completely and utterly stupid - unless, of course, the Prince of Bureaucrats has converted to Sukarno's concept of 'guided democracy':

He proposed a government based on the four main parties plus a national council representing not merely political parties but functional groups—urban workers, rural farmers, intelligentsia, national entrepreneurs, religious organizations, armed services, youth organizations, women’s organizations, etc.—through which, under presidential guidance, a national consensus could express itself.

Of course, there was a much earlier form of this idea invented by an Italian called Benito!

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A frightening comment on the ghastly waste that is HS2 - who runs the country?

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Here's Jackie Sadek from UK Regeneration:

The government seems to be going out on the offensive to promote HS2 today. About time really. I am a staunch supporter (of course, isn’t everyone in regeneration?) and, having visited the HS2 office within CLG in Eland House a few days ago, I can bear witness to the vast operation already under way.

Gantt charts, like you’ve never seen, plastering the walls.  And row upon row of peeps working hard at computers. An air of quiet industry and permanence abounds. Now I don’t know who really runs this country, but whoever it is, believe me, trust me, they have decided we are HAVING HS2. 

There you have it folks. Forget about votes in parliament. Never mind the role of ministers. We are having HS2! Millions are being spent planning it, developing it and make it happen.

I am inclined on these occasions to scream.

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Apparently the Syria vote was lost because Cameron isn't a violent bully

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I think John McTernan was some sort of spin doctor for Tony Blair. And, in an article he has written, he reminds me how much Blair and Brown destroyed honesty and decency in politics. This isn't a comment about ideology or policy but one about behavior and attitude. Put simply McTernan champions the bully:

A Cabinet minister who served in both the Blair and Brown governments retells his first encounter with Labour whips. Newly elected, he was walking through the corridors of the House when he was accosted by one. He was pushed against the wall, his testicles grabbed and twisted sharply – and painfully. “Son, you’ve done nothing to annoy me. Yet. Just think what I’ll do if you cross me.” That is how you manage backbenchers. 

This isn't politics it is physical assault. Yet McTernan seems to think it admirable and he repeats his joy in violence:

“Hear that noise John? It’s limbs being broken.” That was the job, and it was done.

This is a truly unpleasant world, the sort of nasty, violent, principle-free world captured so terrifyingly (and sadly too gleefully) by 'The Thick of It'. And it makes me sick. If violence, bullying and unpleasant vulgarity is how John McTernan thinks politics should be conducted, he shouldn't be let anywhere near it. At best McTernan is an apologist for nasty bullies, at worst he is one himself.

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A point about the equal marriage debate...

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It's just that I'm a stickler for these things. The debate - and the decision of parliament isn't about marriage it's about the institution of marriage. Let me explain.

Imagine that my partner (of whatever gender) and I decide to get married in the ancient pagan Armenian style by leaping over a fire. Maybe that good old Saxon way of jumping over a broomstick. Or a thousand other ways including wearing a big white dress and walking down the aisle.

At the end of this ceremony we are married. All the bits that we talk about - love, commitment, eternity - can be included. We can throw a bash - lashing of grub and gallons of good ale.

Except for one small detail. The government doesn't think us married. So all those privileges granted to married folk simply because they are married aren't granted to us. Jumping the fire won't suffice. We have to sign a register in front of witnesses and collect a piece of paper from the representative of government that says we're married.

The gay marriage thing is about this bit of bureaucratic procedure not the love, joy and commitment bit. If there were no privileges granted in law to married people then there would be no need for the piece of paper and no need for the debate. And no need for us to be bothered about who exactly is getting married to who.

And because it's about a piece of paper rather than love, commitment or eternal partnership, there is absolutely no justification for witholding the privilege that paper grants simply because the couple are both women or both men.

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Representation...

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You hear the cries about politicians:

"We elect them to do what we say!"

And a host of variations on this theme.

These cries are wrong. And it is important that we understand why they are wrong - it's not because we aren't democratic or that it's anything to do with the modern idea of the political party. No, it's because we choose a representative - someone to go down to Westminster (or in my case Bradford City Hall) and make decisions on our behalves.

We don't instruct such a person (although he would be wise to listen and on occasion consult) nor is he a delegate, sent there with a limited mandate. What we have done is entrust the politician with our votes - the votes we would have had in some sort of 21st century agora. And we cannot know at the point of choosing our representative quite what all those votes will be, we are unable to predict every bill, every amendment and every committee debate or discussion. We have to trust that the person we choose will act in our interests - or in what he honourably sees as our interest.

None of this is about spending time in the constituency (although time spent there when parliament is in session is time the MP spends not doing his job), nor is it about the whip or the manifesto. It is quite simply that no system could be created that allowed all of us to "have our say" on every little item before MPs or to vote in every division. Even in these days of whizzing technology, of the Internet and the smart phone, the idea that all the thousands of votes - let alone the work on committees - could somehow involve us all is a nonsense.

In describing this situation - one that has been the case since Simon de Montford's first parliament - I have been careful to avoid the word democracy. Indeed, in the strictest of senses our system is not democratic, other than at the moment when we chose the men and women who will represent us. People try to pretend that democracy is about more than debating and deciding together - it is not, that is absolutely the whole point of democracy.

I am a representative. I vote firstly according to my conscience, then on what I understand to be the interests of those who chose me and lastly in consideration of the advice given me by my Party. And, when the day of democracy comes, those I represent have the chance to chose someone else should that be their wish.

In the meantime I will say what I think right and vote accordingly.

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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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Why the Houses of Parliament should be in Bradford...

When I worked for the Children's Society back in the 1980s, the charity relocated its headquarters. From Kennington to Clerkenwell -  a distance of about three miles. At the time, some of us wonder why the Society needed to be based in London. After all, much of the work wasn't in London but across England and Wales, perhaps the largest part of the fundraising took place outside the big city and London was then and is now a very expensive place.

We concluded - in that slightly jaundiced way of young people - that one of the reasons for staying in London was convenience. Not for the staff but for the Trustees and other important folk - all of them (with one exception in Wales) were living either in London or handy for the city. Had we relocated to Walsall or Harrogate, it would have been a terrible bind for those folk!

Back then I used to observe (and remember I'm a Londoner and was living in London) that since the government couldn't relocate the cultural and economic centre of the nation away from London, perhaps they should consider relocating the political centre. Not the bureaucrats - there has been a steady round of relocations for civil servants from basing the DHSS (as was) in Leeds and Newcastle to shoving the BBC off to Salford - but the politicians.

So my proposal is that, as a step to rebalancing the nation, the Houses of Parliament should be relocated to Bradford. Not only would this save loads of money but Bradford has better parks, better architecture and a better environment than the great wen. Those rich bankers and celebrated media persons can stay down in the busy, smelly city but take the politicians out of London and you'll maybe see a change in how they see their role and how they make the decisions that affect us all.

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What is regeneration for then? A comment on the Select Committee report...

I mean seriously how can we begin to know whether a given regeneration strategy, policy or programme is right or wrong, effective or ineffective when we seem not to have the first inkling as to what we mean by regeneration.

For some regeneration is simply the process of transferring money to poor communities rather than redistribution to poor people. It is a victory for the collective outlook, for the idea that deprivation is communal rather than personal and individual. And the worst among these people are the poverty-mongers, those who argue against the sin of ‘gentrification’ who seem to delight in the existence of the poor. For whom the elimination of poverty is a goal until the improvement of a place transforms its demographics when we are told we’re pushing poor people out.

Others see regeneration as a process of development – the improvement of the physical environment of a place so as to enable change, most usually economic change and typically change driven by shiny office blocks or sleek business parks. This – what we might call the ‘field of dreams’ approach to regeneration – relies on the belief that places cannot fix themselves, that inward investment is critical to regeneration. And they make a mission with the poverty-mongers by promising the jobs and economic advancement they demand as the price of preventing gentrification.

Whatever approach to regeneration is taken it has a vital element – government funding. Here’s the conclusion of the communities and local government select committee:

Funding for regeneration has been reduced "dramatically and disproportionately" over the past two years, and unless alternative sources can be found, there is a risk of problems being stored up for the future

The government is wrong to place so much emphasis on funding streams such as the New Homes Bonus, the Regional Growth Fund and rail investment, which, "whatever their benefits, are not focused primarily upon regeneration"

The withdrawal of Housing Market Renewal funding in particular has created significant problems, "leaving many residents trapped in half-abandoned streets"

The government has "apparently paid little regard" to the lessons from previous approaches to regeneration

There are concerns that, in spite of its aspirations for ‘community-led regeneration’, the government’s approach will do little to support it. At a time of significant spending reductions, many of the community groups most closely involved in regeneration are uncertain about their future

Other than learning lessons from past regeneration programmes, every single one of these conclusions is about funding – about the direction of taxpayers’ money to the process of regeneration. Yet the very lesson from the past – one that coalition ministers seem to have learned despite the best efforts of “experts” to persuade them otherwise – is that 40 years of intervention in “deprived communities” simply hasn’t worked.

Targeted, area-based regeneration doesn’t work – especially when it’s mostly nice middle-class community development workers going into poor communities and stroking them while sympathising about the lack of good schools, jobs and aspiration. Yet the regeneration industry trooped down to London so as to give evidence to this select committee – or rather to plead the case for their industry’s continuing existence despite forty years of failure.

 

The truth about poverty – and poor people – is that most of it (that is most of those poor people) isn’t in places with multiple deprivations. For sure, those deprived places have a high proportion of poor people but people without jobs, the elderly without savings or pensions, single mums and others struggling to get by are in every neighbourhood.

Our regeneration efforts should be directed to people who are poor – be it in cash or aspiration – rather than to selected communities chosen because there’s a concentration of poor people. Our aim should be to “renew” people rather than to “regenerate” places.

In the end the regeneration debate is a dead end. Scoffing at the government because they say “it’s up to neighbourhoods” takes us nowhere. And saying there’s no strategy suggests that, without those middle class community development and regeneration “experts”, people and places can’t improve.

If those “experts” want to make a difference, let them go to these places and make a business of improving them. Not by grant farming but through enterprise and effort. Not by taking government cash to pay themselves good wages but by reaping the dividend from the success of others – the value that comes from helping someone out of poverty.

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Is your MP backing an in/out referendum? They should be...

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In the Spring of 2000, I stood and addressed the assembled members of Keighley & Ilkley Conservative Association - seeking to be selected as their candidate for the forthcoming general election. Following my address there was a period for questions from the floor. I may recall wrong but I think it was the late Councillor Eric Dawson who asked the "in/out" question about the European Union. The dreaded question - "should we leave the EU".

We were prepared for the question about joining the Euro - I thought it a mad idea then and feel quite vindicated in that view by subsequent events. But to be asked whether we should leave the EU was a question of a different magnitude and not a matter to which I had given a great deal of thought or attention.

So I gave a thoughtful but somewhat equivocal answer, saying that we wouldn't join the Euro and that, if in the future we had a referendum about matters European it would be about whether we stayed in or came out. It was perhaps the first time I'd considered the issue in that way and I concluded by saying I really didn't know how I would vote in such an election.

I now know the answer to that question. Despite all the good that the European project has done - not least helping preserve peace and promote prosperity on the continent - it has served its original purpose. Not the unspoken purpose of a federal union but the stated purpose of co-operation in first rebuilding war-damaged economies and then building the trust needed to insure against such damage occurring again.

Today the EU is a monster - tangled in bureaucracy, mired in corruption and riddled with a courtier class more interested in personal advancement than democracy or liberty. The EU splashes money across public institutions below government level - buying the favour of business, of academia and of communities with dollops of taxpayers' cash. But despite this largess with other folks' money - or maybe in part because of it - the EU is despised by so many people. No-one who has come into contact with the EU - other than those who sold their independence for EU cash - believes it is an institution doing good.

I am convinced - and have been for several years now - that we should withdraw from the EU. That the time has come to reject the directed, dirigiste and protectionist model promoted in Europe. So, like many others I will be urging MPs (although my own MP will, I suspect, require little urging) to support the proposal - to be debated in parliament later this month - to hold an 'in/out' referendum on the EU.

I urge you to do likewise.

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Just a thought...

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What follows isn't to take sides in the debate (such as it is) about Sarah Wollaston's alleged criticisms of Tory Whips. Although I would find it difficult to support Mrs Wollaston given how she voted on this occasion. However, her criticism of the whips - or rather the Observer's probably partisan reporting of the event - raises an interesting question:

The Observer has learned that last Monday Wollaston told a closed meeting of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers that when she asked to sit on the committee that will scrutinise the health and social care bill she was informed by a government minister that she could only do so if she remained completely loyal. She told this newspaper: "It is made very clear to you that if you are on a bill committee you support the government. I was not prepared to accept that."

It is understood that Wollaston wanted to table a range of amendments to the bill, which will hand GPs responsibility for commissioning NHS services, in the biggest shakeup in its history. But she was warned that the only changes she would be able to put forward were ones suggested by, and acceptable to, the government.

Now in one respect, Mrs Wollaston is a member of a club - one that got her elected as an MP - and has to play by that club's rules. Which means that, if they don't want to put her on a particular committee, they don't have to. And frankly, why should they want to put someone on a committee scrutinising the Government's Bill who wants to change it?

In another respect, this illustrates the problem with the whip system and with the independence of MPs. Mrs Wollaston, may still have to opportunity to influence the progress of the bill - either through supporting cross-party efforts or through later stages. I appreciate - and understand - her frustration.

However, I wanted to return to a related nonsense - the barring of councillors from contributing to debates on the basis of "interests". Assuming that Mrs Wollaston still practices as a doctor, it would not be possible for her to contribute at all to discussions about these matters were she a councillor and the decision within the remit of a local council on which she served.

For my part, I'd rather have input from those with real knowledge even where (as is so in this case) the individual has a direct personal interest in the outcome. An interest that could potentially affect that individual's financial circumstances.

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When you think about it, the Speaker's an irrelevance.

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Any given group of people will – in their debates and discussions – tend to focus on the things that are of direct personal concern. And our politicians are no different in this respect. Councillors indulge in vigorous debate about the precise structure of scrutiny panels, the details of how we arrive at an upper chamber (and who gets the particular sinecures therein) a great contention and members of parliament think that the speaker of the House of Commons is important. And that the public might be remotely interested in what those MPs think of him and, indeed, what he might think of them.

And – in a truly joyous twist to this irrelevance – the Speaker’s Wife (I’ve capitalised it as I think she sees it as some kind of official and therefore important position) has weighed in:

The wife of Commons Speaker John Bercow has accused Conservative MPs of running a "whispering campaign" against him. Sally Bercow said many in the party could not accept he had been elected to the role "fair and square".

Mr Bercow, himself an ex-Tory MP, has had several run-ins with former colleagues unhappy at their treatment. But Mrs Bercow told Sky News such rows were "ridiculous" and that her husband was not biased towards Labour but "on the side of backbenchers".

A sorry tale for sure – backed up as it is with terrible tales of certain backbenchers “not being called” by Mr Bercow, of confrontations in corridors and of sleights and snubbing. I feel so sad for those MPs having such a terrible, terrible man overseeing them. Except for one simple fact – the Speaker is not important. Not in the slightest. All he does is decide who speaks and doesn’t speak on the floor of the House and oversees the rather messy system of discipline for MPs. To us out in the real world he is little more than a curiosity, a ceremonial position of almost no significance.

Just like us councillors discussing the membership of committees or arguing about who does or doesn’t get to speak in a debate, the matter of how parliament orders its business matters little. There’s no indication – for example – that it alters the manner in which the business is conducted and it certainly doesn’t change the nature of parliament’s decisions. Yet MPs – because the Speaker matters to them – get all agitated, pompous and self-righteous about the position.

Frankly the whole debate is ridiculous. But then I just spent best part of an hour talking about what time we should hold Council meetings so maybe I’ve no room to talk!

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We want referendums not patronising debates in parliament

I watched the Winslow Boy on TV the other day and was reminded of parliament’s arrogance and tendency to nonsense. I fear that nothing much has changed since those Edwardian days, parliament and government remain concerned primarily with creating the semblance rather than the reality of democratic debate. So it is with these proposals for on-line petitions to get a debate.

I have concluded that the idea of on-line petitions to get debates in parliament or even – bless – a bill proposed is a load of patronising nonsense intended as a sop to those wanting a genuine extension of participatory democracy. Indeed the dire warnings about petitions for withdrawing from the EU (yes please) and capital punishment (no thanks) reinforce just what out masters really think of us. And remember that those besuited, well-connected BBC media types are our masters too – not our friends.

From next year, voters are to be guaranteed that the petition with the strongest public backing on a government website will be drafted as a bill and put before MPs.

The Coalition will also pledge that petitions which reach a fixed level of support will be ensured time for a Commons debate.

Sir George Young, the leader of the Commons, has indicated that he intends to press ahead with the concept, conceived in the Coalition agreement, in the New Year.

The scheme is intended to reconnect voters with parliament amid concerns of waning trust in the political system following scandals such as disclosures over MPs’ expenses.

However, there are fears that the proposals could become a vehicle for campaigners
promoting populist causes célèbre, such as a return of capital punishment or withdrawal from the European Union.

So what? MPs will just ignore any serious proposals and focus – as they do now with private members bills – on the Government’s agenda. That is all that matters. The petition driven debates will be frothy and exciting but will amount to nothing in the end, will make no substantive change to a Government’s agenda and will cover up the failure to introduce a real provision for citizen referendums.

Real citizen initiatives – resulting in a question on a ballot paper for us all to vote on – would challenge the basis of our court-centred government. Rather than policy – such as avoiding a referendum on our membership of the EU – being decided in a choreographed, gentile discussion between ministers, opposition leaders, the media lobby and the top of the civil service, we might get policies that people actually want. And a real debate not the pane et circenses we get from parliament.

If it is right – and it is – to encourage local referendums on levels of council tax, elected mayors and other matters, it must also be right to encourage citizen-led national referendums. Imagine if the government had to put tax increases to a ballot? Or signing treaties? And think of the real debate that referendums on legalising pot or abolishing inheritance tax would bring?

Wouldn’t that be good for democracy?

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