baldysblog.co.uk

Although it was writing in to the Telegraph that first got me interested in blogging unfortunately the DT has got boring as they have changed their format so that people like me are banished to the outer fringes and no longer ‘allowed’ to comment on main articles. However competition is a wonderful thing and I came across the Independent who does what the DT used to do but rather better and in a rather better way.

I have always used the on-line papers to provide stimulus for my own scribbles and because people don’t always agree with you, they prod you into thinking, justifying or simply changing your view anyway. On the Independent today, I was prompted to think about our two party system…

The System

The two party system which also applies in the USA is not accidental because it grows directly from our basic system of Law and Governance – the Adversarial system. For example, the Libdems and the Liberals before them always want voting to be Proportional Representation but they are wrong simply because it is a cop-out because they cannot put together a convincing enough package to attract back to them, the working class votes that Labour took off them early last Century.

There is nothing wrong with the two party system as such but what has changed the picture considerably over probably the past 15 years or so is the rise of the “professional politician” where maximising their career opportunities means slavish loyalty to the Party. The very worse expression of this being “Prime Ministerial Patronage”. This leaves us in virtually an elected Dictatorship that may last a maximum of 5 years and where foolish policies can never be changed because the backbenches never revolt.

A Foolish Example

A prime example is ID Cards and although I have written on this before, it is a classic that can never be repeated too often.

Because of my IT background, I have always opposed these on purely technical grounds and never even bothered with the Civil Liberties issues simply because the system just won’t work and will collapse and be abandoned on “national security grounds” within 8 weeks of going fully live.

The Government locked itself into taking advice only from people who were bidding for the contract to provide the “system”, in other words, the advisers had a vested interest in the whole thing happening and therefore, their “advice” was coloured by a business opportunity not by a clinical feasibility analysis of the requirement.

Both the Government and their MPs were and still are totally unqualified to make such decisions and a further proof will surface next week when the totally lack-lustre Home Secretary Jacqui Smith will launch a consultation paper on ‘policing Internet usage’ … Oh for the Love of … Where is a Vet when you need them most ?

So how do we change this situation ?

The medium, longer term solution is to devise a separation of powers so that the executive – PM + Cabinet is separated from the Legislature – The House of Commons but these are Constitutional amendments that should take time to evolve.

A more immediate step might be to outlaw the Whip System and make it a criminal offence even for a Prime Minister, to offer “bribes” or “inducements” to a sitting MP in return for their vote on any issue.

But the immediate thing we can do is to elect as many true Independent MPs as we can find. They may stand as Independent Tory/Labour/Libdem whatever as an indicator of their broad thinking but must always vote on personal conscience.

Put simply if we go back to the English Civil War, we had Parliament as the Legislature and externally the King as the Executive, hence the tension between the two. Today the “King” (PM), sits inside Parliament with his “Court” (back bencher s) sprawling about behind him.

Although this should not be rushed, we need to find a way to put the PM and their Cabinet “Outside of the House of Commons” because in less than 400 years we have come full circle and we don’t want to have another Civil War to settle this do we ?