Day 6154: Time to Tear Down This Institution Before It Falls Down

Monday:



Parliament is crumbling, and that isn’t just a metaphor.

We should all be concerned for the physical safety of the thousands of people who have to work in the enormous Westminster folly, built on a swamp, a firetrap with miles of wiring and gas pipes, which is absolutely falling to bits.

But we should worry much more about the safety of our democracy.

It’s the day after Bonfire Night and too many people are saying Guy Fawkes had the right idea. But it’s not the PEOPLE who want to be EXPLODED, it’s the building that traps them in a democracy time-warp.

Private Eye, even less subtle about the state of Parliament

The way we run Parliament is as gothic and arcane as the building itself.

Last week saw another attempt to bring the voting age down to 16 defeated by a process called “talking out”. The Deputy Speaker even refused a request to call a vote because the issue was so important but had only had an hour and twenty minutes debate. So important, then, that it will be shoved to the back of the queue and probably never talked about again, at least not for this backbench bill.

This makes Parliament look ridiculous, and impotent, and deliberately opposed to the issues of young people.

And it happens time and time again. This rule makes no sense to the public, and give a ridiculous amount of power to a certain group of Tory backbenchers who, because they have been gifted with safe seats and so do not need to bother going back to their constituencies on Fridays, can spend their time shooting down legislation basically on a whim. This isn’t democracy. It’s as bad and corrupt as the Rotten Boroughs.

Last week the House of Lords, Nick Clegg’s efforts to reform it having been sunk by the unholy alliance of Tory backbenchers and the Labour Party, proposed measures to voluntarily reduce the size of the World’s second-largest unelected chamber. If all Parties agree – and if the Prime Minister agrees to stop stuffing the place with more Tory peers, itself unlikely given that that power of patronage is one of the few levers remaining to her in her weakened condition – then the upper chamber will diminish from over 800 peers to merely around 600 by 2029.

Asked why not just introduce a mandatory retirement age, the response comes no that would be unfair because Labour Lords tend to be so very much older than Liberal Democrats and so would have an unfair outcome. Well okay, what about retiring people on the basis of attendance, or lack thereof? No, that would be unfair also, because it would seem, Liberal Democrats peers have a much better attendance record than other lords and ladies also.

And what if Lord Tarquin decides he doesn’t want to give up the ermine? Well, hope the reformers, we might not come to that.

Theresa May’s Government, hardly the most legitimate having lost her majority and bought a billion-pound lifeline from the DUP, has adopted a policy of ignoring Opposition Day motions, and not even turning up to vote.

Last week we saw the Opposition resorting to the manoeuvre of “An Humble Address to Her Majesty” in order to force the Government to disclose the assessments of the impact of Brexit on 58 sectors of the economy.

How can Parliament do its job without transparency?

But what good holding a government to account if that government just ignores you? And the government gets away with holding Parliament in contempt because the people hold Parliament in contempt.

What do people think when they think of Parliament? They think expenses scandal, they now think harassing younger women, and they think Prime Minister’s Questions.

Week in week out we see the grotesque spectacle that is the bear pit of Prime Minister’s Questions. Never Prime Minister’s Answers, of course. Deflect, obscure, quote irrelevant statistics, pass the buck, blame the opposition. And bonus points for titillating the sketch writers. MPs always assure us that this half hour of jeering and name-calling is not typical of the House. And yet it is the bit of the House’s week that is most seen by the public and the bit that is most attended by MPs.

And the chamber and building itself are physically designed, confrontational, oppositional, and too small to hold all the members, to drive PMQs – or any important debate – to be an angry shouting match.

PMQs is not an aberration. It’s merely the most obvious sign that the Houses of Parliament are toxic to democracy.

In a building that is by equal parts Public School, Gentleman’s (with emphasis on the “man’s”) Club and Retirement Home, where the people in charge of keeping order are called “whips”, merging the brutal with the downright kinky, is it really any surprise that bullying and harassment run rampant?

There is a solution. Just get out. Not for the duration of repair, get out forever. Move Parliament out of Westminster. Out of London.

And move the Treasury, the Cabinet Office, the Home Office and the Office of the Prime Minister with them. Probably the Foreign Office and the spending departments too, but at very least those.

Move them to the “Northern Powerhouse” and maybe they’ll take it seriously.

Make big changes to stop the new Parliament being an Old Boys’ Club.

Now’t wrong with being Old unless it’s ONLY for the Old, so make it better with votes at 16.

Now’t wrong with being Boys unless it’s ONLY for the Boys, so make it better with action on gender equality and harassment so it’s a place where people of all genders want to work.

And now’t wrong with being… actually there’s quite a LOT wrong with it being a Club. A Club is for the special members who know the secret handshakes. Westminster is a Palace for nobs; we need a Parliament for people.

Make every vote count. Elect MPs by a proportional system. Of course it should be PR. And British PR at that – multi-member seats and ranking candidates by preference, giving the power to the people.

Make every lawmaker accountable to the people. Replace the Lords with 200 elected senators. Maybe, if you really really must, with 50 appointed cross-benchers – they could speak but not vote. If clashing mandates really really worry you, adopt the Cap’n Clegg solution of electing senators by thirds for fifteen-year terms.

Make MPs subject to a right of recall. Fire them if they are guilty of crimes. It’s no good saying you cannot fire an MP. Right now, an MP will lose their seat if they go bankrupt. Parliament should have the power to suspend for a week, or a month or fire altogether.

Make every vote of the House matter. The government ignores Opposition motions, the Opposition uses them for stunts. Neither is good for democracy. Change the rules so that all Bills before the House are taken in order and debated until they are voted on. And if there aren’t enough members in the House on Friday, carry the debate over to Monday. Ditch the ritual. The Speaker doesn’t need to wear tights. And if people want to say prayers before legislating, let them go to church or mosque or temple*.

(*other places also available.)



But more than anything make it a modern building with proper sized offices and proper IT and proper air-conditioning and enough loos for everyone.

And don’t forget to make room for an HR department.

Day 3080: The Gordinator – but is it Judgement Day or Salvation?

Monday:


After terrible results in the local elections and terrible results in the European elections, today the Hard Labour party will take a good long look at itself and realise that they cannot win the next General Election. And knowing that, they will think about getting rid of Mr Frown and decide: "why bother?"

If they were GOING to do it, they would have done it last Friday; they bottled it, just like the Prime Monster did two years ago.

The IRONY is that Mr Frown has done SO BADLY that there's now no point in getting rid of him.



Ask yourself: why WOULD they go through all the pain of doing the deed – and a well thrown mobile phone can really HURT if it gets you! – only to install some luckless lacklustre schmoe (naming no names but it would be Mr Johnson and Johnson) who promptly holds a general election and is annihilated.

I suppose it might JUST ABOUT ease Mr Frown's burden if he knew that the NEXT fellow would be Prime Monster for even shorter than him, but he can still have that pleasure if he waits until May 2010, so where's the incentive to go now?

What does this mean for reform? Well, it's a bit of a DISASTER really. Mr Frown is dead set against making fair votes, and even if he DID – supposing he's maybe done some DEAL with Mr Johnson and Johnson to introduce some AV+ in exchange for Postman Pat laying down his career by moving from Post Office to Home Office – no one is going to BELIEVE in any reform that they bring in. The Conservatories and reactionary Hard Labour peers in the House of Lords Club will find a way to block it; Mr Balloon will wave his hands and say Constitutional Reform is a sideshow and there should be a General Election instead; and there's no longer the year-and-a-day needed to Parliament Act it through over their heads.

It is looking more and more like there will have to be a fluffy elephant handcuffed to the gates of Parliament when it comes to MPs holiday time!


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Day 3060: Source of Annoying Drone Traced to Faulty Speaker…

Monday:


…and obscure Conservatory blogger recommends changing Cable.


It seems that Mr Speaker of the Housemartin is to go after all.

Presumably in his meeting with the Party Leaders Mr Clogg told him that the game was up, while Mr Frown and Mr Balloon looked at their feet and said "umm, probably."


Well, it's not a surprise. His performance yesterday was, more than anything else, DEEPLY EMBARRASSING. If his claim to stay was based on competence in his job, he did a very good demonstration of why he should go; if his determination to hang on was based on him being the man to clean up this mess, he gave every indication of being the man who's been trying to cover it all up.

I have no doubt that his apology to the House and for the House was heartfelt and painful for him to make. But it is not enough. And so it is going to be even more painful for him. He missed his opportunity to stand down with dignity. And so now he's having his fingers prised off the green leather one by one.

I am very sorry for him, because it's not good for anyone to get HUMILIATED like that. But it's the path that he chose for himself.

PS:

In other news, scientists claim to have discovered the source of "the Hum"; apparently that droning noise you can hear is the sound of goats being scaped…

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Day 2693: On Expenses Encore

Friday:


You MAY remember that a month or so ago, I told you how Mr Speaker of the Housemartin had decided to waste a whole lot of everybody's time and money by going to court to try and keep MPs expenses secret.

Well, today he had his day before the beak and the judgement was that he'd wasted a whole lot of everybody's time and money by going to court and no, MPs expenses were NOT going to be kept secret.

We'll find out the answers by this FRIDAY. Just in time to be BURIED by Mr Frown's bad-news day.

Mr Clogg got in EARLY with his own expenses declaration.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7400952.stm

This is GOOD, because he has been calling for more OPENNESS and HONESTY about MPs pay and it is better to show that he has nothing to be afraid of.

On the other fluffy foot, people seem to have made a bit of a FUSS over the fact that he needed to spend seven thousand pounds on repairs and carpets for his constituency home.

"It's a CRUMBLING OLD EDIFICE, and we had to put in a SUPPORT to keep it up. But now we've got the SUPPLIES and we've got CONFIDENCE, I'm sure we can make it liveable,"

said Mr Clogg.

(I wonder if the Torygraph might have gotten the WRONG end of the STICK, though!)

Fortunately, Mr Speaker Housemartin is not going to waste any MORE time and money and has dropped plans to appeal the case.

Day 2611: Sometimes if it flies on a broomstick and cackles then it IS a witch!

Sunday:


Apparently it is all about CLASS.

If you're criticising Mr Speaker of the House Martin, Speaker of the Commons, then you are a BAD person indulging in SNOBBERY.

But if you're defending him, then it is PERFECTLY OKAY to dismiss his critics as "stuck-up upper-class hooray-henrys".

It is no wonder people get confused about the intricacies of our CLASS SYSTEM!

There are only TWO questions that are important, and Mr Speaker's BACKGROUND is IRRELEVANT to either – it is neither proof of fault NOR any excuse, and people should address the QUESTIONS and stop making SNIDE INNUENDOS to avoid them.

One: is he any good at his job?

Two: is he on the fiddle?


There is quite a bit of evidence that the answer to the first question is "No". He is biased and bullying and has even managed to "forget" that Mr Clogg gets a go at Prime Monster's Questionable Time. He has never put aside his tribal affinity for the Labour, even though it is part of the oath he swore when he got the job.

Traditionally, Mr Speaker is picked from the OPPOSITION benches so that he will not favour the government. Typical of the Labour to throw out tradition where a grab for more power is concerned, Mr House-Martin (formerly of the Labour) followed on from Ms Betty (formerly of the Labour) even though Lord Blairimort had a huge majority. If there is a cause for RESENTMENT it is there, in treading on the toes of the House of Commons not in whatever job it was he used to do before becoming a white-collar desk-worker.

But what is most LUDICROUS is that NO ONE is allowed to even raise the question.

Mr Phoney Tony Benn is always fond of saying of people in power: "who gave you that power and how can I get rid of you?" Not that he says it about his MATES like Mr House-Martin.

But Mr Speaker IS a powerful position – if you want to have any chance of making a point in debate you have got to get on his good side. He has huge powers of patronage because of that, and he can make a real difference to the passage of legislation if he chooses to. And as we saw only this week, he can THWART legitimate amendments just by blocking an amendment, and can do so without having to give any reason. Or he can choose to accept the motion on the Iraq war that nearly got Lord Blairimort defeated. But just because we agree that it was GOOD that he did the latter doesn't mean that he should have such arbitrary powers nor that he shouldn't be accountable.


The answer to the second question is something that DEMANDS to be looked into.

Making use of air-miles picked up on the job is something that a lot of businesspeople see as perks of the job, or even a legitimate recompense for HAVING to do all that travelling.

But funding your wife's taxi trips out of the public purse… that is starting to look decidedly IFFY.

Everyone accepts that Mr Martin has followed the LETTER of the rules… but that doesn't mean that everyone is totally happy with those rules in the first place. And particularly that the person looking into whether those rules are satisfactory is… Mr Martin himself.

I WONDER what he will decide about claiming for taxis?

Two of the last three Mr or Mrs Speakers were from "humble backgrounds": a "Tiller Girl" and the son of a Welsh miner. And the other was a tailor whom, despite being a Conservatory, the Conservatory grandees all sneered at because he was only "trade".

It is usual that Mr Speaker serves two terms. That is what the last three did. But Mr House Martin has already done those.

Personally, I think that it might be a bit better if the Speaker served only ONE term. You should pick a new one each Parliament and at the end of that Parliament he or she goes directly to the House of Lords Club for trebles all round. That should stop anyone… er… outstaying their welcome.

Meanwhile, Mr Clogg has come out in support… oh very fluffy dear.

It didn't get him off the hook when he questioned the procedures when the Speaker threatened to ban him for even suggesting such a thing!

This ISN'T a "witch hunt"; this is a very traditional Liberal demand for a bit of openness to answering some legitimate questions.

No one should be above scrutiny. Saying that you (or your muckers in the Labour) are above the law… that is the REAL snobbery. It is the arrogance of power.

And Liberals don't put up with that sort of thing!