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At the weekend, an Editorial in the Times, slightly tongue in cheek one hopes, called for fixed four year Parliamentary terms rather as they have 4 year fixed terms in the United States: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article7060988.ece

At the same time, it is widely rumoured that the awful and barely articulate (have ever seen him speak in the Commons ?), Jack Straw will rush forward proposals for a 300 seat fully elected Second Chamber to replace the House of Lords. Apparently this is really intended as a political trap for David Cameron – if so we can see the grubby paws of Gordon Brown all over that one.

The two ‘news items’ put together indicate the degree of trouble this Country is in and just how intellectually challenged the people in both politics and the media are these days.

Fixed Terms in the USA

Having lived and worked in the States where there are 4 year fixed terms with “Mid Term” elections, American friends will often comment that that their election cycle is just 2 years legislation followed by two years campaigning for the next Presidential Election. There are arguments both for and against fixed terms but overall and unless compatible to the current British context, there is no case to be made.

If you look at the US experience, you will immediately see that it is not just a question of fixed terms, it is also the whole political structure where there is a very strong “Separation of Powers” between the Executive – The President and the Legislature – Capitol Hill. However and although built to a large extent on the British model minus a Monarch, there are substantial differences in their structures compared with ours, the following is particularly relevant.

Americans directly vote for the President, well yes and no. The USA is a Federal Structure and therefore whilst it is true that a citizen votes for the candidate they want to see in the White House, it is in fact done on a State by State basis. Each State has an Electoral College and the number of votes that they can cast is related to the population of that State so there are some with very dense populations (relatively speaking), like Florida where they have a lot more “Electoral College” votes than say Wyoming.

It follows that just as in the UK with “First Past the Post” on a constituency basis, there can be a difference between who wins Office and who wins the popular vote but fails to win Office.

The UK Has Fixed Terms Already

Our fixed Parliamentary terms are of 5 years duration although, a Parliament may be dissolved at any time and a fresh Election called. The problem in the UK has nothing to do with fixed terms or not, it has to do with the assumption that the Government of the day is the same as the Parliament which it actually is not.

Contrast the UK process of forming the Executive with the States: In the States the Electoral Colleges decide who is President, in the UK, the Monarch heeding the outcome of the General Election, “Invites” the Leader of the majority party to form the Government. If we dilute, destroy or in some way modify the “Party System” so that people are forced to vote for individuals and that individual must be normally resident in that constituency, we totally change the picture and introduce uncertainty via independent candidates.

What this then leads to is that a Government may fall by losing a Confidence vote but, providing another Member of the Commons could command a majority in the House, the Monarch could invite them to form a Government instead, the Parliament could continue full 5 year term because constitutionally, the Government and the Parliament are two entirely different entities.

Our Constitution whilst aware of groups of people with ‘similar interests’, is based upon the concept of people voting for a “Person and not a Political Party which is why the Prime Minister of the day is known as the “First among equals” rather than in the case of Gordon Brown, “The biggest bully in the Labour Party.” So when a Leader in the Times calls for “Fixed Terms”, they are talking out of their arse because they don’t understand what already exists in terms of constitutional structures as opposed to current “practice”.

Reforming the Lords

Jack Straw has spent most of his time every year with trying to come up with yet another, convoluted formula for reforming the House of Lords, the question frankly is why ? Yes for ardent Socialists, I’m sure that the very word “Lords” is enough to bring on a hissy fit but in practical terms, it is a total nonsense and definitely a case of putting the cart before the horse. As an analogy it is rather like a patient needing major surgery and all the Hospital does is cut their hair and trim their eyebrows !

The most urgent reforms to our Parliamentary system of governance are directed towards the House of Commons where all power resides. The Lords are no better than the ‘Council of Village Elders’ who have a maximum power of delaying the introduction of a new law by 12 months only and even then, can be over ruled by the Commons sooner.

The Problem

The real problem with revising the Lords or, a ‘Second Chamber’ lies in the fundamental changes that would be required to accommodate an elected second chamber not least of which is that the Commons would need to surrender at least some of its ‘absolute powers’ to it. This in turn means that the majority party in the Commons which forms the Government, can no longer expect to ‘push’ it’s legislative programme through upon which it was elected.

This may be ‘resolved’ by a clear separation of powers so that the Prime Minister and his/her Government stood outside of the House of Commons and indeed ‘mirrored’ the US President in the sense that the Prime Minister is no longer the “First Among Equals” but a directly elected “Head of Government” with both Houses confined to the legislative process only.

Very much a case of “be careful what you wish for in this world, in case you get it”. More importantly, for a Government of which Jack Straw is a member of the Cabinet, it sort of illustrates rather starkly, just how intellectually challenged all of them are to not be able to see that such ‘proposals’ are total nonsense.