Last week I developed my thoughts about the advantages of a hemisphere parliamentary chamber which received a comment saying:
"Our system is based on adversary just the same as our system of trials" to which I replied:
" Yes and we once used cucking
stools for witches!!"
My reply was obviously intended to be light-hearted while making the point that
as time moves on things do change and I am now strongly of the opinion,
something that I've come to fairly recently, that our adversarial system is out
of date and not fit for purpose especially the task of holding the executive to
account.
As I explained last week the purpose of ALL MPs in parliament is to make
and scrutinize laws and most importantly hold the executive to account.
A couple of weeks ago the rebellion by 100 odd Conservative MPs, to the
government's Plan B, in place of any opposition from the Labour party, proved
the point that MPs should vote on what they feel is right for the country and
not what is necessarily best for their party.
The adversarial clashes in the House of Commons may provide some theatre and
blood sport, especially since the introduction of TV cameras, but in terms of
improving our governance I don't think it adds a single benefit. In fact, I
believe it probably makes our governance considerably worse.
In our pamphlet we explain in some detail, under our third demand 'A Separation
of Power', how the current make-up of the House of Commons contains around 200
MPs on the government benches, including the cabinet, ministers, whips, other
office holders, Parliamentary Private Secretaries and ‘greasy pole climbers’ who
are all compromised in relation to holding the government to account. If the
cabinet/executive is taken out of the Commons then all the MPs in it will more
readily hold it to account.
Incidentally in the hemisphere parliament in Iceland, the Althingi, the seating arrangements, after elections, for the eight odd parties that make up the 63 seat chamber are allocated by lottery which obviously minimises conflict and maximises cooperation.
Finally we should do the same in a completely new parliamentary building, housing only around 400 MPs, in a location at the centre of the population of Britain which is in around Derby, albeit that does not include the population of N.Ireland, so an adjustment to the North East of Derby is needed. This would leave the Palace of Westminster to become the site of one of the prime tourist attractions in the world based on the mother of all parliaments!
I am in total agreement. The physical movement of Parliament is imperative, IMO. It is so important that we break the hold of the Westminster mafia (media, entrenched Civil Servants and politicians) and also have a parliament that more represents all of England. (The break up of the UK, sadly, is now inevitable)
ReplyDeleteNear the geographic centre of England, can be found a few disused warehouses. Refurbish one with some IKEA furniture and set up a parliament along THA lines. We MUST do that. Internet voting might not be ideal, but could be achieved at a reasonable price. Maybe there will be sufficient angry donors soon that this can be achieved, side-lining Westminster so that it becomes irrelevant. (Give the building to Tim Martin - he'll make better use of it!)
The latest "honours" list just showed the contempt that the Westminster mafia has for the rest of us.
I'll second that except that I'm not sure the break up of the UK is inevitable.
DeleteI hope that you are right.
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