Mr Cameron is completely right. I must admit, that isn't something I say all that often. But in this case he is one hundred per cent absolutely correct. What has led to this?
Well, this headline in the Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5690836/Deceit-over-cuts-wil-lead-to-riots-says-David-Cameron.html):
'Deceit over cuts will lead to riots', says David Cameron
Basically, Cameron is arguing that spending cuts are necessary (an idea that most reasonable people accept - the British budget deficit is massive, and the country faces losing a credit rating notch, which would be a fiscal disaster). However, he is taking the argument further today, claiming that an attempt by Labour to go into the next election with a manifesto that promised spending would stay the same or increase would make the inevitable cuts much more politically painful. Up to the point, claims Cameron, where people would riot in the streets and lose what little respect they have left for the political class.
Cameron is correct (although maybe overdoing it a bit with the whole riots thing). If Labour try to pretend that they will not have to cut spending during the election campaign (which they are still brazenly doing), then when they inevitably have to cut spending to fill the gigantic hole they have dug for themselves (unless they plan to go back to the 1970's of confiscatory taxes) it will be a final nail in the coffin of respect for Parliament, Government and the political system. It is betrayals like this that permit extremist parties access to mainstream people, and more importantly, their vote.
I love the British Parliament. I love it's institutional organisation, I love the building it is housed in, and I love the way it is run (with Opposition days, snap debates etc). However, there is one area that the New Zealand Parliament could possibly teach the British system something. That is in the field of Prime Ministers Questions (PMQ's) and other Ministerial question times.
People always complain about 'yaa-boo' politics, especially in PMQ's, where the Leader of the Opposition gets up and asks long questions (more like short speeches) in an attempt to embarass the Prime Minister, then the Prime Minister stands up and usually ignores the question or touches on it in the most cursory way, then makes a short address that usually involves the policies of the Opposition parties. The answer to this is not in the personalities of the Members involved. Every Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition have come in pledging to end the 'Punch and Judy' politics (including both David Cameron and Gordon Brown), before reverting to type. The answer lies in the Speaker and the rules of the question times.
In New Zealand, an MP or Shadow Minister is allowed to ask a short question only (although they are allowed supplementary questions), and are usually prevented from overly editorialising in their questions. But in response the Minister must answer the question, and if they fail to do so, the Member who asked the question is fully within his rights to raise and point of order and demand an answer (and this happens more often than one might expect). Speakers are particularly strict (usually) on questions involving numbers: for example "Could the Minister tell the House how many people are currently waiting for operations on the public health waiting lists?" Now, there will be editorialising by the Minister (such as "Health spending has increased by a billion pounds since this government took over" etc), but if they do not provide the numbers then the Speaker will often demand they answer the question a second time, providing the information.
Now, obviously it isn't as rosy as the previous paragraph makes out. The Minister will still often evade the intent of the question without reprimand, and the last two Speakers (prior to the current Speaker) almost destroyed the point of question time through removing the requirement for Ministers to answer the question (they were instead permitted to 'address the question', which meant they could say almost anything). However, giving the Speaker further powers and abilities to compel answers from Ministers may lead to more reasoned questioning sessions, since Opposition members may feel that they can actually gain something from asking policy questions.
Sucks to be the Tories. Looks like Bercow is the new Speaker of the House of Commons. Who'd have thought? Interestingly, I was at a party until after the results came out, and I heard two very different versions of how Bercow got the votes to win. One (from an irate Tory) was that Labour had whipped their votes behind Bercow in order to 'stick it' to David Cameron (on the premise that a Speaker, once chosen, cannot be removed except in truly exception circumstances), so now the Tories will be stuck with a Speaker who they don't particularly like if they win the next election. This particular person was enraged at Labour, claiming it was Labour using their majority (insofar as Labour voted Bercow, and every other party voted for someone else). Strangely enough, across the floor at the same party, I came across a dejected Liberal Democrat who was deeply depressed at the result for Speaker, and particularly upset because he claimed the Lib Dems had thrown their votes behind Bercow and gotten him over the line.
Obviously with a secret ballot we will never know who voted for whom in the Speakers election. But funny that there should be two people in different parties, both of whom are upset at different people for the same result. Of course, Labour doesn't really care... their candidate (Margaret Beckett) got hammered, so after that is was a pick of two Conservatives...
The House of Commons is currently meeting to decide on their new Speaker. Who will replace Michael Martin in the gown of office in (titularly, at least) the most powerful position in Parliament? The results from the first ballot have come in, and no surprise to see no-one has received anything close to the 50% of the ballot. The results are: John Bercow (Conservative): 179 votes Sir George Young (C): 112 votes Margaret Beckett (Labour): 74 votes Sir Alan Haselhurst (C): 66 votes Sir Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat): 55 votes Ann Widdecombe (C): 44 votes
Parmjit Dhanda (L): 26 votes Richard Shepherd (C): 15 votes Sir Patrick Cormack (C): 13 votes Sir Michael Lord (C): 9 votes
The four lowest vote getters (all of whom received under 5%) are all knocked out. Surprisingly none of the others dropped out. Surprising only insofar that people like Ann Widdecombe and Sir Alan Haselhurst can hardly expect a huge jump in support considering there are 63 votes at stake (unless they expect to pick up most or all of them). What will be very interesting is to see what happens to Margaret Beckett's support. In the last day or two she had become the bookies favourite to win (at 2/1), and her third place in the opening ballot cannot be what she was hoping for. There was a news story yesterday claiming that Labour was whipping it's vote behind her. If they did, they've done a particularly bad job of it. Another interesting thing to note is that Labour MP's have been perfectly willing to support Conservatives for the Speakership. Labour candidates between them have received only 100 votes.
Another interesting point is what will happen to the Tory vote in later rounds. John Bercow, who is currently in the lead, is the man many Tories dislike intensely. He has moved from the far-right to the far-left of the party, and is known for a willingness to attack his own side. It is likely that much of his support comes from Labour. It will be facsinating to see if the Tories unite around one candidate in the next round in an attempt to keep Bercow out of the Speakers chair...
Part of the debate of how to make Parliament more accountable and democratic has been the red herring of reforming the House of Lords. This has been a particular bugbear for the left for many years, with the idea being that a group of unrepresentative, undemocratic, rich Tories were blocking the will of the people from being implemented.
However, this is no longer the case. Since Labour's removal of hereditary peers during their first term of office, and really since the Parliament Act which forbade the Lords from blocking a Commons bill more than three times (and later conventions and amendments that make it almost impossible for the Lords to block money bills or manifesto commitments), the Lords has become, I would argue, pretty much the perfect second chamber.
This may sound odd, and more importantly may sound like another example of a hide-bound conservative supporting the House of Lords because it is a) old, and b) has a lot more Conservatives in it than the Commons at the moment. However, I would argue that an appointed upper chamber is a great advantage in Britain, and the House of Lords in it's current form is the best system for it.
There are three main reasons why I think the House of Lords as constituted is the best form of Upper House for Britain (and let me say from the outset that I do not think that an appointed upper chamber is the best method everywhere. In fact, it is only because of the particular history of the Lords that it works in Britain - or to put it another way, if the House of Lords did not already exist, a country couldn't create it). There reasons are lack of democratic accountability (and thus a lack of mandate), the ability to have non-elected people become Ministers of the Crown, and representation and independence.
The big reason, for me, for the continuation of the House of Lords in its current state is the lack of democratic accountability. This may sound like a very strange thing to say, so let me put it another way. The House of Lords is unelected, therefore it has no mandate. Prior to the Parliament Act, the situation was intolerable where you might have the unelected Lords blocking laws with popular approval from the Commons. Today, however, you have a chamber which has been shorn of the power to do anything other than delay and amend legislation. Were the Lords to be replaced by an elected body, the sheer physics of legislative creep mean it is unlikely that a 'senate' or any other elected chamber would be willing to maintain the subservient position of the House of Lords. And, frankly, were a second chamber to have its own elected mandate then it would be right to claim powers equal to the House of Commons. In America we have seen this system further entrench the partisan divide in Washington, but also lead to gridlock between the two Houses of Congress, as different versions of the same law are often introduced, requiring long debate and negotiation even on laws where both houses broadly agree on the general proposal. But the House of Lords could never claim these powers. Therefore, the House of Lords has become (and even accepted as such by many in the House of Commons) the main scrutiniser of legislation.
The second reason is the ability to use non-elected people as Ministers. Many people have been lately decrying the selection of Sir Alan Sugar as the new 'Enterprise Tsar' (whatever that means... but it does mean his elevation to the Lords), which seems ironic, since that many of those same members of the chattering classes have been saying how wonderful the American and French cabinet systems are (where anyone, whether elected or not, can be invited to sit in Cabinet). I argue quite the opposite. I think it is a great strength to be able to select someone who the Prime Minister considers to be the best for the job, even if that person may not have been elected. Now of course, the backbone of British-style democracy is that the Government must be accountable to Parliament, and must therefore sit in Parliament. So, appointing someone from outside the political world would be impossible without a chamber that is appointed, since without the appointed House of Lords, such a 'non-political' person would have to wait for a by-election, stand for it, and win it before they could take on their ministerial duties. An appointed House of Lords gives the Prime Minister the opportunity to select whoever they think may be best for the particular government role, and it also give those who would be unlikely to reach a Ministerial position in an elected chamber (for example, Lord Miners or Sir Alan Sugar, who both have spent their careers in business and are therefore unlikely to have the inclination to either stand for Parliament, or to sit on the backbenches once they got there) or those who would be unlikely to be chosen as a party candidate the ability to help the country by being part of the Government.
The third reason ties in somewhat with the first. Because the members of the House of Lords are appointed for life, this gives the members great freedom from both the electorate and party whips when it comes to amending or delaying legislation. In the Commons the party whips wield immense power (as do the party hierarchy), because they can make ore break the Parliamentary careers of most politicians. Any desires that a backbencher might have of higher office (and there would be VERY few who could say with a straight face they have no such desire) are reliant on the party leadership. It is difficult for MP's to vote against the party on contentious issues where the party is three-line whipping (as in, pulling out all the stops to get MP's to vote the party line). However, the Lords (for the most part) have no such ambitions, and considering the largest bloc of Lords sit aloof from any party, this reduces the power of party whips further. Take, for example, the attempts by the Government last year to extend to 42 days the amount of time police could hold suspects without charge. The Government was successfully able to pass the legislation through the Commons on a knife-edge vote. The Lords voted down the bill by such a majority that the Government's case was irreparably damaged and the law was shelved. The fact that the Lords do not have to run for election also gives them the stand as a bailiwick against hasty and ill-prepared legislation being brought in as a response to a particular issue that has enraged the public. Now, of course I will never attempt to argue that the Lords always lives up to this Utopian picture I have painted. Of course there have been times where the Lords has happily passed through legislation without amendment that turned out to be ill-advised or had large loopholes. But an unelected chamber has the ability to hold up bills for scrutiny in the face of public and governmental demands in a way in which no elected chamber could.
There is one other small argument for the retention of the House of Lords. Money. Interestingly, a quick look through the Lords expenses shows a much cheaper house than it's elected cousin. Lord are not paid salaries, and can claim expenses only for sitting days they actually attend. The average Lord receives (this is a non-scientific perusal of the expenses documents) around 40,000 pounds a year, including office expenses (although this exclude a large number of Lord who claim little or nothing on expenses). An elected body would be significantly more expensive to run.
I've recently started a little project about the national health service (NHS) and I stumbled across this on BBC that got me thinking:
A nurse who secretly filmed for the BBC to reveal the neglect of elderly patients at a hospital has been struck off for misconduct.
Margaret Haywood, 58, filmed at the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton for a BBC Panorama programme in July 2005.
She was struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council which said she failed to "follow her obligations as a nurse".
Ms Haywood, a nurse for over 20 years, said she thought she had been treated harshly and had put patients first.
Now, I have never thought deeply about whistle blowing before. In the previous times I have seen it, it has usually been done by members of the public service who are unhappy with a government's decision, and have then leaked that information to the press. This, I must admit, I have not always felt comfortable with. This story has led me to take a new look at whistle blowers in general. This highly experience nurse saw the terrible level of care her patients were receiving from the hospital and other staff members and worked with the media to bring this information to light. Now she has been struck off the nursing register for it, on the basis that her filming of patients was without their consent. 'OK', so I thought, 'well, we don't want ourselves being shown in these kind of situations on national television without our consent'. However, it turns out that the BBC obtained the consent of everyone who appeared on television (or their relatives if the patient was in no state to give informed consent).
As far as I can see, both the BBC and the nurse acted both correctly and with integrity. It is deeply worrying that if there are (and I'm sure we can all accept that there are) failings within the public health system that anyone who tries to bring attention to this is not only fired from their job but struck off the medical register. It is disappointing that the Labour Government's vaunted whistle blowers protection system has failed to utterly miserably.
If we need a strong and independent media for a fully formed democracy, we need to make sure people cannot be have such an extreme sanction placed upon them simply for speaking out about a situation such as this. This culture of punishing the whistle blower breeds and nurtures the faceless unaccountable bureaucracy who cannot be brought to account by those they serve, and cannot have their failings brought to public light. Only by lifting the rock on the failings of the NHS, or any other public service provider, can we (the taxpayer - remember us?) be certain that our fellow human beings are receiving the level of care they deserve, and also that we are getting value for the billions we pump into our public services.
One of the more disappointing (but not unexpected) results from the European Elections was the rise of the British National Party. Unlike both the National Front or even the British Union of Fascists (the British sister group to Hitler and Mussolini's parties), the BNP has now won seats at both Council and European level, and must now be considered a real threat to the established system. Nearly one million British people went into a polling booth last Thursday and put a tick next to the BNP.
Before I go any further, let's have some perspective. Fewer people voted BNP that voted for them in the 2004 European Election. Because of the woeful turnout, a smaller number of votes was able to achieve a much greater result for the BNP. And despite their successes at Council and European level, there did not seem to be anything in the results that the BNP are likely to come within cooee of winning a Westminster seat, or even of winning control of a Council. While there are a sizable number of people voting BNP, they are still a small minority, and there is no chance of the next election bringing a huge number of fascists into the Parliament where Churchill led the fight against Hitler.
So what does it mean for British politics? Well, first it means that there is a very sizable group of people who are very angry. Whether they are simply angry because of the expenses scandal, or whether there is a deeper anger over immigration and so-called reverse racism is a difficult question, and one I cannot hope to answer. However, I would point out that the Conservatives ran in 2005 on a strong immigration platform, and yet seemed to make no headway whatsoever in the North. Indeed, in a number of urban northern English seats the Conservative vote did not increase at all, or even fell from 2001. This would apparently indicate that in 2005 immigration was not the defining issue for large numbers of northern voters. It would be ironic in the extreme if immigration became the major issue for many voters now, just as large numbers of the Eastern European immigrants who came to the UK are going home because of the financial crisis.
But for those who are angry about immigration, it shows two things. One is that the major parties are not appealing or are not even discussing the problems that immigration has brought with it. As the rise of UKIP shows that Labour have failed to make the case in favour of Europe to a large part of the electorate, the BNP vote shows that the government has also failed to make the argument in favour of immigration. And that Labour has failed to spend enough money to make sure public services keep up with the increases in population that immigration brings. When an 'English' person can't get a council house because they are filled with immigrants (one of the main causes of anger against immigrants), the fault lies not with immigration itself, but with a government that has completely failed to either plan for the influx of immigration, or (once these issues became obvious) spend the money required for maintaining public services.
The second point is that over the last fifteen years, the word 'racism' has been so overused that it has lost the power to shape people's opinions. Fifteen, even ten years ago, a party being called 'racist' would probably have been enough to turn normal people away from it. But over that period allegations of racism have been so widespread, and often deployed against the most innocuous targets, that the power of the word has gone. To put it another way, so many things have been called racist in recent years that when something truly racist like the BNP comes along, attacking it for being racist no longer has the same power. It is a real shame that this has happened.
So, what next? Well, the biggest thing that must not happen (and both government and opposition MP's have done very well at this so far) is to paint everyone who voted BNP as racists. They are not all racists. Probably only a small minority of people who voted for the party actually believe in a 'whites-only' party. Labelling all BNP voters as racist will push this sizable minority further away from engagement with the major parties. Following this, there must also be a real look into the effects of immigration on people in the industrial cities of the north, and how they can be alleviated. Rather than looking narrowly at immigration, the conversation must now turn to provision of services so there will be enough for everyone. Major reforms will be required that will make service providers more accountable to the people they provide them to. Council housing stock must be repaired and the government must create conditions to increase the amount of new houses being built in inner city areas. And the major parties must make the argument to the people of Britain that immigration is a good thing. Simply rolling their collective eyes at the ceiling when someone brings it up, or claiming the person raising the issue is racist is not good enough. If immigration is a good thing (and I believe it is), then the major parties have a duty to tell the people of Britain why this is.
Finally, however, the results also show us the dangers of proportional representation. It has allowed a party that would almost certainly never win a seat in Westminster to sneak in in last place in two regions because of the voting system. Proportional representation in Westminster would see similar outcomes. As a matter of interest, I put in the pure vote totals into the New Zealand electoral website (that allows an estimation of a percentage of seats won according to a different proportional representation system, the St Lague formula, which is a favourite of many who call for PR in Britain). It shows that for Labour to form a government they would have to ally with the Lib Dems, the Greens and either the BNP or UKIP. The Tories would have an equally difficult task of forming a government. PR gives fringe and extremist parties both the chance to get into Parliament, and also power over the formation of government far above and beyond their vote share.
