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There was an interesting Editorial in today’s Independent on the interim report of a “Speaker’s Conference” and although I think it makes the same mistakes in thinking as most ‘lberal people’ on this topic, it is worth a read: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-lacklustre-reform-1827470.html

If you follow this link, there is a very good comment posted by someone called molitor which makes some very good points which I for one totally agree with. I am not a fan of the current Speaker, any more than I was of his predecessor, both were are are wrong for the job, it seems to have taken Bercow about 5 minutes to turn into an insufferable pompous prat but then again, perhaps that is his natural state.

The Main Thrust

Essentially what we are looking at is an enquiry into why there is under representation in the House of women, ethnic groups, disabled people and so forth. The Independent comments that: “Labour’s experience has shown that only illiberal action with an element of rough justice – all-women shortlists – has a significant impact in practice.”

The problem is that both I and I suspect the vast majority of people in this Country, if they think about it, would object to “positive discrimination”. There is a new TV Series on Channel 4 called “Cast Offs” that uses disabled actors and actresses which is great but something I found interesting was what followed on a news programme where they interviewed among others, a wheelchair bound actress.

Her point was that it was good to break down such barriers but also said that it would be wrong to cast someone in a role just because they had the “right kind of disability”, the right approach was to select an actor that could play the character well and connect with the audience even if they were able bodied.

In other words and regardless of the particular ‘job’ in question, competence and ability should take precedence over “group quotas”. No person should become an MP just because of their gender, colour, race, religion and so on, it is a nonsense.

The Real Problem

It beggars all belief that the Speaker or even the Political Party Leaders see it as their job to dictate “Diversity Rules” because that attitude of itself is the main problem. Even after all the brouhaha over MP’s Expenses they still see Parliament as belonging to themselves. We may let them play in the school playground but it is we who own the school, not them.

The Expenses Scandal has a far greater resonance than politicians yet seem to have grasped. The consequence of that is that Parliament has lost its right to self-regulate on salaries and associated matters, a power has been removed from the Palace of Westminster, this needs to be repeated with the selection of MPs too.

We Need to Develop a Primaries System

If the objective is to get the electorate involved in politics and give them a feeling of “ownership” in the whole process, the only solution may be to design some kind of “Primary System” run at the local constituency level and involving all potential candidates so that the local electors get to decide just who is allowed to stand rather than the local constituency party organisation and their Party HQ, all they can do is field a number of candidates for the public to choose from. That is what you would call real democracy.

It would not be easy in the UK because we don’t have the fixed terms that the US has, the British Prime Minister gets to decide during the maximum 5 year period allowed any Parliament, just when to call a General Election. Obviously this could be changed but “Fixed Term” Parliaments would bring other problems with them such as the US has, fixed terms equal fixed moments to start campaigning.

It couldn’t be a direct copy of the US Presidential system, it would need to be adapted in quite a number of ways because we would be running primaries to select local candidates, not a national one. True, it may mean that we will lose the lunatic fringe candidates but, that may be a small price to pay for allowing the voters to focus on the best candidate rather than just voting for the party label which, will still happen anyway with the hardened supporters but, it is the so called ‘floating voter’ that swings the result.

Funding, Format and Other Stuff…

How to fund this would be another matter, if all the parties had to go through the same process at the same time, a modest amount of public funding would be appropriate. However what would an appropriate format be ? A Public Party Hustings with another Public one for Independents with in both cases the public vote being binding ?

When would such an event take place during a Parliament if we stick with flexible terms also how to introduce such a process would be another challenge: Would sitting MPs chosen by their party under the current system, have to present themselves to go through this process ? What happens if they lose the primary, they would have to stand down at the next election, what if they were the Prime Minister or a Member of the Cabinet ?

The basis would be to try and wrest power back from the centre and the party machines and put it in the hands of the local electorate but the question is, would it increase democracy in the UK ?

Not that easy to work out but, “Good game” and even better than a Recall System, methinks !