Wednesday 10 March 2021

We have far too many politicians lording it over us.

 

I wonder how many people have crunched the numbers and really understand the growth, over the last 22 years, in the number of politicians who now lord it over us?

Back in December last year I posted this summary of the ridiculous numbers associated with the House of Lords

http://harrogateagenda.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-house-of-lords-by-numbers.html

and in this post, I want to cover the number of politicians we have in the House of Commons and the governments of N. Ireland, Wales and Scotland. One major plus, to leaving the EU, is we at least no longer have a layer of MEPs over us!

In the figures I use below I have rounded the figures up and down to hopefully make things a little clearer.

UK government.

As a base line we have 650 MPs in Westminster covering a population 66.7 million which equates to each MP covering 102 thousand people. This breaks down as follows:-

England – 533 MPs - population of 56 mil. – one MP to 105K.

N. Ireland18 MPs - population of 1.9 mil. – one MP to 104K.

Wales – 40 MPs - population of 3.1 mil. – one MP to 78K.

Scotland – 59 MPs – population 5.5 mil. – one MP to 92K.  

So on average that is one MP to 95K across the four countries.

Governments of N. Ireland, Wales and Scotland.

Now this is where it gets interesting as we now add the additional layer of politicians from the three countries which sees the ratio of politicians to the electorate drop considerably.

N. Ireland – 90 Members of the Legislative Assembly in Stormont – pop. 1.9 mil – one MLA to 21K.

Wales – 60 Assembly Members of the Welsh Assembly – pop 3.1 mil. – one AM to 52K.

Scotland – 129 members of the Scottish Parliament – pop 5.5 mil. – one MSP to 42K.

The average across three countries being one politician to 38K compared to one MP to 95K for the UK.

The first question you might like to ask yourself is what do the MLAs, AMs and MSPs actually do all day? It does not surprise me that there is a growing ‘Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party’ who I learn, from a Welsh friend, may take five seats in the next Assembly elections in May this year.

The next pertinent point to make is under all the above we have the local council politicians, at County and District level’ all busying themselves with such issues as road repairs, garbage collection (or re-cycling if you insist), education, public transport, social care and libraries.

So again, I ask what are the MLAs, AMs and MSPs doing all day apart, from with so much time on their hands, causing trouble!

Before I conclude let me remind you that the USA – has 435 members in the House of Representatives and a pop. Of 328 mil. giving one politician to 755K.

So, in conclusion I think the above figures prove we have far too many politicians presiding over us with a large portion of them being a complete waste of rations to use an army vernacular!  The promised reduction in MPs from 650 to 600 by David Cameron has come to nowt and of course as I’ve suggested before I thing we only need around 450 especially with beefed up ‘Real Local Democracy.’ The system we have now smacks of a chumocracy and jobs for the boys and girls.

Our agenda is based on a sovereign people with real power to turn far fewer politicians into our servants and not our masters and we won’t cost the country a pretty penny for our services in fact they would be supplied completely FOC – that’s not one bean!!

If real democracy, translated form the Greek as ‘People Power’, is to mean what was originally intended, then anything short of giving the people ‘Real Power’ is not democracy.    

2 comments:

  1. We must compare apples with apples. Yes, "the USA – has 435 members in the House of Representatives and a pop. Of 328 mil. giving one politician to 755K." but the States have far more power than the Federal government. Take Virginia. There are 100 delegates and a population of over 8.5m, ie 1 delegate to 86k who do a real job creating meaningful local laws. Then there are the Counties, that also have real power, spending local tax money directly on Education, police etc with very little State or Federal intervention or financial support.

    There seems to be quite a push to give the Welsh, Scots, NI and English greater devolved powers or even a move to a loose union of States (Waiting in the wings - Cornwall, Yorkshire, Northumbria etc). This would be a huge change that I believe we could not absorb.

    Gradual small changes could work, but we should watch out for those who want to break up (destroy) the Union as that would release all sorts of unexpected destructive forces.

    That said, continuing with the current highly unrepresentative government that we have is also unacceptable.

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  2. I accept your point about the relationship between Washinton the States and Counties.

    As I said in my post we can easily reduce politicians at Westminster if our second demand for 'Real Local Democracy'become a reaity.

    'Real Local Democracy' will also open the door to question the need for devolution which I believe would be phased out.

    Our demands are radical and will not happen over night. However the idea has been born and is still alive and the future of course holds enough time if the people want the change!

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