A New Politics

8/14/2019 A New Politics

1/4

The Guardian | Thursday 21 May 2009 1

Towards a blueprint for reforming government

These are exceptional times. You

have to go back to the days before

the 1832 reform act, to the old

corruption with its vote-buying,

electoral intimidation and rotten

boroughs, to find an era in which

the British way of politics was as widely discred-

ited and in need of reform as it is today. Two cen-

turies ago, the answer to the scandals seemed

plain systemic reform and, though it was 100

years coming, votes for all. Today, faced with

an alarmingly comparable collapse of esteem

for politics under the democratic system, the

answer to the new corruption is the same as it

was to the old: systemic political reform and a

modern, reinvigorated, devolved democracy.

Amid the continuing torrent of jaw-dropping

expenses revelations, it is hard to comprehend

how so many apparently decent MPs could each

have set aside their capacity for moral judgment

about their own actions. Even so, the expenses

crisis is not simply a set of personal failings and

transgressions, occasionally exaggerated. That

is why it is not enough to call for heads to roll.

The deeper problem is systemic. It is rooted in

the whole way we do our politics. A general elec-

tion is certainly not irrelevant to addressing that

problem; but it is not a fundamental solution

either. In the end, we need a new politics more

than we need a new government.

The mood of anger is understandable. Moods

of anger often are. But they are rarely good guides

to wise action. That is why it is far more impor-

tant to focus on what should be built rather than

on what should be destroyed. The White House

chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, observed last

year that one should never want a serious cri-

sis to go to waste. A crisis is not just an occa-

sion for blame and punishment. It is also, as Mr

Emmanuel added, an opportunity to do things

you could not do before.

That insight has been powerfully borne out by

the expenses crisis. Agendas that for years had

seemed trapped on the political margins have

suddenly been swept into the mainstream and

have captured the public mood. Radical pruning

of MPs allowances. An end to parliamentary self-

regulation. All-party agreement in advance to

accept Sir Christopher Kellys report. A Spea ker

driven from office for the first time since the

17th century. Party leaders calling on local par-

ties to purge errant MPs. Approving references

to Oliver Cromwell. Genuine all-party agreement

on reform. None of these things happened before

the publication of MPs expenses. All of them

have happened since.

The reform agenda can go much further. It

must now do so. Fixing the expenses system is

not enough. The reformers who urged the case for

radical reform of MPs finances have also earned

the right to have the rest of their menu of politi-

cal reform taken more seriously and urgently.

The reactionaries who opposed change, often

on the grounds that these are not real issues

of interest to real people should have learned

that reality bites hard and that reform is not a side

issue. Nick Clegg yesterday called this a once-in-

a-generation moment to change politics for good.

He was spot on.

Today, Guardian and Observer writers map

out some of the possible moves. They range from

the composition of select committees through

reform of the House of Lords to the role of the

press. Online debate on the ideas is already vig-

orous. Some proposals are systemic; others are

more focused. Some, such as Lords reform, would

take some time to implement; others, such as

reform of the role of the attorney general, could

be made today. Most require all-party agreement,

while some could properly be initiated by the

government alone. All of them are urgent.

Public life matters. It should be a

high calling, not a base one. Gor-

don Brown often speaks for the

better angels of politics, but he

presides over an unprecedented

pandemonium of its fallen ones.

His handling of the expenses crisis has often

been clumsy. This week, however, largely

because he listened to others and learned from

his mistakes, he finds himself in the right place

on these issues at last. He must now go much fur-

ther on the equally imperative reform agenda.

He has the means, motive and opportunity to

help shape the new politics that modern Brit-

ain, so different a country from the Britain that

spawned our broken parties and our discredited

institutions, craves. It took the founding fathers

of the United States four months to agree their

constitution. Mr Brown has longer than that. He

has a year in which to cement his place in history

as a great political reformer or as a great political

failure. These are exceptional times. And this is

an exceptional opportunity.

TYPOGRAPHY: KITCHING/STOTHARD THE TYPOGRAPHY WORKSHOP 2009


2/4

2 The Guardian | Thursday 21 May 2009

Written constitution

The great goal

TimothyGarton Ash

We need a written constitution. That is

the largest conclusion we should draw

from a crisis that is also an opportunity.

Our legislature has compromised itself.

Our executive has long been over-mighty.

Our judiciary remains largely credible, but

its independence needs to be reinforced.

In 10 years time, I wish to walk round

Westminster and show a visitor three great

uildings housing three separate powers of

a renewed democracy. Every schoolchild

should know what each does, by what

explicit rules, and how they relate to each

other. And how our individual rights and

liberties are secured within this constitu-

tion. Nothing less will do.

This need not be a revolution. Most ele-

ments of a constitution are there already.

Unlike many countries after wars or dic-

tatorships, we wont have to rebuild from

rubble. Many British institutions function

well, and even many aspects of our parlia-

ment. We should beware the hyperbole of

crisis. But we do need to put together these

elements as we never have before, add a

few, reform some, and make the whole

thing explicit, clear and transparent.

The question is how we go about this.

We will need a government ready to pro-

pose to parliament a new great reform bill.

We must build a constitution by constitu-

tional means. But before we reach that

point, we need a great debate. That can

start right now, and right here.

Local government

Restore power and

accountability

SimonJenkins

At the root of this scandal has been a

transformation in the role of a member of

parliament: MPs have become the leading

citizens of their municipalities. They are

the first port of call for citizen complaints.

Their surgeries deal almost entirely with

local matters requiring complex nego-

tiation with councils and agencies. They

have become what in any other European

democracy would be the local mayor, the

best-known elected person in town.

The result has been a steadily more

shrill demand for them to live in the

constituency, unheard of 50 years ago.The erosion of localism has sucked MPs

into the vacuum, and they are now paying

the price. An MPs job is hopelessly con-

fused, as a party hack in London and as

a prominent civic leader back home. The

consequence is two homes, two lives, two

expenses rackets and misery.

This will only stop when locally elected

offi cials I am convin ced this means ma y-

ors as in most other countries are intro-

duced to relieve MPs of their local duties

and thus of some of their pre-eminence.

Their present agony is entirely the result

of their resistance to local democracy.

Political Britain needs a whole new cast

list of local mayors, governors, parochial

and municipal leaders to return status and

political accountability to the local level.

House of Lords

We must be able tochoose our rulers

JonathanFreedland

You would think it was a sine qua non of a

democracy that those who write the laws of

the land would be chosen by its people .

Imagine if MPs were not elected but

emerged through some other cloudy proc-

ess because they were one of 92 people

with aristocratic blood, one of 26 bishops

affi liated with the state-appr oved version

of Christianity, or picked by the prime

minister.

If anyone suggested that be the process

by which we pick members of the British

legislature there would be howls of laugh-

ter and outrage. It would be an affront to

democrac y. Yet, that is how one half of our

legislature is chosen. The House of Lords is

often presented as some ceremonial body

of sleeping old gents who add to the dig-

nity of national life. But the upper house

shares in the writing of our laws.The principle that, in a democracy,

the people elect those who govern them

should trump all others. Electing mem-

bers of the second chamber creates com-

plications in our constitutional set-up

(wouldnt an elected Lords threaten the

primacy of the Commons?) have held back

reform for at least a century.

It is not impossible to devise an election

method that would preserve what people

admire, ensuring the new second chamber

does not comprise party hacks, and still has

access to the wisdom of elders. But what

comes first in a democracy is the right to

elect and remove those who govern us. It

is long past time that we demanded it.

The monarchy

A corrosive symbol

GaryYounge

Thanks to hanging chads and the supreme

court, the left could poke fun at the credi-

ility of George Bushs first term. But when

it comes to Britain, there can really be no

debate about the democratic credentials

of our head of state. She has none.

For all the fetishisation of modernity,

there is one glaring omission the abo-

lition of the monarchy. Power has been

devolved to Scotland and Wales; there

will soon be a supreme court. But when

it comes to the little things like declaring

war, dissolving parliament and ratifying

treaties, all power lies with the monarch.

Those who insist the role is merely

symbolic miss the point. It symbolises

something extremely corrosive in our

history and culture: that your life chances

are determined not by what you can do,

ut to whom you were born. Moreover,

it enshrines the notion that power can be

unaccountable.

The tendency to point out the personal

deficiencies of the nations first family is

understandable, but flawed. Kings were

put to death long before 21 January 1793,

wrote Albert Camus, referring to Louis

XVIs execution. But regicides of earlier

times were interested in attacking the

person, not the principle, of the king.

The issue is not the individuals but the

institution, not personalities but politics.

A call to remove the Queens constitu-

tional powers may well attract broad sup-

port, leaving the ceremonial and symbolicand little else. That would be a start.

The Speaker

Redefine every partof the role

JackieAshley

If MPs, the press and the public are agreed

on one thing, its that the new Speaker

should be a reformer. That means a change

in each and every aspect of the Speakers

role. Its already clear that the new Speaker

will not be in charge of MPs pay and

expenses. Within hours of Michael Martin

announcing his decision to quit, the prime

minister made it clear that an independ-

ent commission will take over the day today administration of the Commons.

The Speakers main role will continue

to be chairing debates and keeping order.

But he must do much more that: dragging

parliament into the 21st century, he should

ensure that procedures and debates are

comprehensible to all, inside and outside

the chamber. No more remaining orders

that no one understands.

He would do well to put a total stop to

all that yah-booing, too. For years it has

put the public off Westminster not sur-

prisingly. The new Speaker can also take

a leaf from the Lord Speakers book. Since

2006, Lady Hayman, as Speaker of the

Lords, has made it clear that her job is to

act as an ambassador for the Lords, with a

full programme of speeches, conferences,

outreach events, charity work, engage-

ment with young people and foreign visi-

tors. Now, more than ever, the House of

Commons needs an ambassador.

Electoral reform

Our system is bust

JohnHarris

Above all others, there is one institutional

wrong that sits underneath the sickness

of our politics. It enables governments

to claim thumping mandates while they

attract the support of a small minority,

thereby facilitating rule-by-clique. It results

in focusing on marginal seats and scything

out whole swaths of voters, from residents

of the old Labour heartlands to suburban

middle-class liberals and, truth be told,rightwing Tories. It has led to too many

safe seats, creating the climate in which

MPs stretched or broke the rules, with little

thought of their constituencies.

Self-evidently, our first-past-the-post

model is as busted as the allowances sys-

tem, and now is the time for a new elec-

toral settlement. Id settle for a version of

alternative vote plus (but with the propor-

tional top-up share of MPs bigger) or the

additional member system of the S cottish

parliament, and the assemblies in London

and Wales, but the practice of closed party

lists should be binned.

Although David Cameron has made

most of the recent running on political

reform and a quick general election, the

Tories likely success would be based on

the usual grim mathematics a big Com-

mons majority on a minority of the vote,

and all the dysfunction that implies but

given that change would tear up so many

of their standard calculations, will either of

the main parties listen?

Parliamentary protocol

Earth callingPlanet Westminster

HughMuir

Who, designing a representative body for

the 21st century, would start from here?

Who would allow the House of Com-

mons to be run by the Speaker as we knowthe role, the candidate of least resistance,

Democracy

Reorchestrating thesecond chamber

WillHutton

Democracy is a process and an attitude of

mind. It understands that the to-and-fro

of argument is the best way communities

feel their way to good decisions and good

law. It holds executive power to account

day by day for its actions, and periodically

through elections. It protects liberty.

British democracy falls short of these

aspirations in many ways. It is a two-cham-

ber system that may genuflec t to the role of

deliberation and argument, but the House

of Commons is ruthlessly controlled by theexecutive while the Lords is a useful revis-

using the same principle under which we

organise the refereeing of football? Who

would have Black Rod, with his tights and

mace? Would anyone bother with thatblather about honourable and right

honourable gentlemen?

If it didnt seem ridiculous before,

it certainly does now. Why go on with

those interminable maiden speeches?

The pat questions to ministers planted

by the whips? The ritual investigation of

the prime minister on his engagements?

This is a body barely recognisable to most

people: Planet Westminster.

There is a modernisation of the house

select committee system under way proof

that the wheels turn slowly. Our courts can

hardly be held up as an example but they

have recognised that arcane practices and

language can cut ordinary people off. Have

our courts been rendered less effective by

the shift away from wigs and gowns, or by

allowing solicitors directly to represent cli-

ents? People will leave court unhappy, but

few complain they didnt understand it.Let the honourable member for Black-

burn become plain Mr Straw, let the

Speaker be independent of the parties

and lets have members of both houses

discussing the issues inside parliament

in the terms they might use outside it. As

for Black Rod and those tights what a gift

to cabaret.

ing chamber, but essentially a democratic

cipher. That must change.

The British will always site the govern-

ment of the day in the Commons. As aresult, its capacity to revise, deliber ate and

argue will always be weak. The role must

fall to the House of Lords. Its standi ng must

be raised to become the co-determiner of

British law. The Commons must lose its

power always to trump the Lords.

That will require that the Lords is com-

posed through democratic mandate. But

to avoid relative party strengths predeter-

mining outcomes so that it becomes a mere

simulacrum of the Commons, there need to

be substantive innovations. The first is that

a critical mass of Lords say, a third must

be elected as independent crossbenchers

so that the government must win assent for

its legislation through force of argument

and not political arm-twisting.

The second is that each nation and

region of the UK must be represented, so

larger interests are considered. The third

is that its select and working committeesshould be able to co-opt external experts as

members. Britain would then have a 21st-

century democratic chamber of which it

could be proud.

MP numbers

Slash the head-count to 400

PollyToynbee

In the sea of faces on the green benches,

how many of those 647 MPs can you rec-

ognise? Most will never be ministers. We

have so many, they say, because of the

sacred link between MP and constituency,

one to roughly every 60,000 voters. Butthat mystical bond is mostly the wishful

Here, Guardian and Observerwriters launch a majordebate on renewing British

politics. With your help, wehope to build a blueprint forreform. Join the discussionon each of these topics atguardian.co.uk/anewpolitics and tell us what weve missed.Well keep you informedof progress


3/4

The Guardian | Thursday 21 May 2009 3

MPs pay

Boost salaries andabolish allowances

JenniRussell

Its not a popular moment to suggest such

a thing, but MPs headline salary should be

raised and allowances cut. Theres nothing

honest about the current system, in which

most MPs treat second home allowances

as an integral part of salary, in effect rais-

ing their income to 104,000 before tax.The danger is that representing people

in parliament will now look so tarnished

that talented potential candidates will

be put off being an MP should attract

people of the same calibre as those who

work at high levels in public service: sen-

ior civil servants, judges, headteachers

of large schools. Consider this: the civil

serva nt who ran the fees offi ce was earn-

ing 125,000 a year, nearly twice as much

as the MPs whose expenses he oversaw.

The heads of large London schools get

107,000. Judges and senior doctors get

more than 100,000 a year.

If we pretend that pay shouldnt matter

to MPs, well end up with a high propor-

tion of low-calibre candidates, or those

who have suffi cient private incomes not

to care. Dont forget that Lloyd George

introduced payments for MPs in 1911 pre-

cisely so that the pool of politicians could

extend beyond the privileged class.

Let us be brave now. Remove the second

home allowanc e, and make offi ce travel as

transparent as it is in any company. Link

MPs pay to those of civil servants grades,

or those of judges, and fix them some-

where in the region of 85,000-95,000 a

year. Take that issue out of the political

realm and free us from the demeaning

spectacle of MPs arguing that bathplugs,

antique rugs and 8,000 TV sets are a nec-

essary requirement for doing their jobs.

The executive

Let MPs reclaim

control in the house

MartinKettle

Parliament exists to sustain a govern-

ment by passing its bills and approving its

actions. But it also exists to hold a govern-

ment and its ministers to account. Modern

parliaments have been infinitely better at

the former than the latter think of Iraq,

think of some anti-terror laws, and think,

in particular, about the needless prolifera-

tion of laws and regulations.

MPs need to stop being sheep and start

being watchdogs. The rest of us, the media

in particular, need to assist them.

Parliament should draw up its own

bill of parliamentary rights to control theexecutive. It should limit the power of

the prime minister to alter Whitehall. It

could restrict the number of ministers.

Select committees could sit many more

days and ministers could be required to

account them more regularly.

MPs should reclaim control of parlia-

mentary business, giving the Speaker more

routine power to set the Commons agenda.

MPs should remove the governments

patronage over who sits on and chairs

committees. In the end, we should go the

whole hog and move towards a more com-

plete separation, along US lines, in which

MPs are no longer ministers. That would

remove a lot of the current conflicts.

A change of political culture is needed,

too. Everybody knows ministers and MPs

have differing views on most issues. So be

more grown-up about allowing those views

to be heard in public. Why not modify the

doctrine of collective responsibility so that

ministers and MPs can speak their minds

more freely without losing their posts?

The current system stifles debate and

public engagement. A new system would

throw the windows open.

Party whips

A devilish discipline

DavidHencke

The whips are essential to the running of

an effi cient political process in the sense

that elected governments need to push

policies through parliament. However,

they have too much power and too much

say over what happens to MPs.

Whips have myriad ways of taking

revenge on or rewarding people. An accom-

modation whip, for example, can decide

which MP gets what room a suite for the

helpfully toadying member or a hole-in-the-

corner offi ce for a troubl emaker. Though

not the root of the current malaise, the

power of the whip unrecognised as a par-

liamentary post rules s upreme, inhibits

democracy and encourages a herd instinctand mindlessly partisan behaviour.

A major reform is essential to bring

back meaningful debate to parliament. At

present, both government and opposition

chief whips who, incidentally, receive

additional salaries from the taxpayer are

creatures of the political party. They have

a stranglehold over the committee system

in the House of Commons influencing

who sits on committees and having some

say over who becomes chairman. They are

also good at arm-twisting MPs to follow

the party leader on motions, which means

debates in the Commons as opposed to

the Lords, where there are more cross-

benchers are often stilted events, where

real issues are ignored.

Those perks that presently lie within

the gift of the whips offi ce rooms, travel,

committee places should be apportioned

by an independent parliamentary body,

not by party apparatchiks. Party discipline

should be enforced by appeal and persua-

sion, rather than by patronage and the

granting or withholding of favours.

Representation

The House shouldreflect those it serves

MadeleineBunting

We need a House of Commons that reflects

the people it is designated to represent and

serve. Voters need to see in this institution

a closer reflection of themselves, instead

of the anachronisms of a macho, predomi-

nantly white culture that still owes many

of its characteristics to the English tradi-

tions of public school and Oxbridge.

We need many more women in the

place and a much wider variety of back-

grounds. Its not that they will be made of

better moral fibre, but that such an influx

will disrupt the cosy, self-referentialism

that has done so much damage.

All parties should sign up to a quota for

female candidates it could be for a lim-

ited period of, say, 10 years. Over the past

25 years, Norway, Sweden and Denmark

have all achieved high representation of

women through quotas of 40% on candi-

date lists.

The UK parliament is currently 58th out

of 187 democratic countries in the world

for its meagre 18% female representation

in the Commons. Only quotas will bring

the big breakthrough. Alongside morewomen, concerted action is needed to

improve the paltry 2.1% of MPs from eth-

nic minorities just 15. All-black shortlists

in key areas is the kind of measure that

could crack this long-running issue.

Direct democracy

Use the jury systemas a model

JulianGlover

Bill Clinton put it most snappily: If you

want to change the world, he said, join

a focus group. He had something in com-

mon with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who

commented: The people of England

think they are free. They are gravely mis-

taken. They are free only during the elec-

tion of members of parliament.

Both were getting at the same thing :

the people are asked to pick other people

to take decisions for them. While their

choice Britains parliament implodes

under the strain of the expenses scandal,

the public can only watch and howl.

Constitutionalists propose all sorts

of fixes: proportional representation;

devolved assemblies; an elected Lords; a

smaller parliament or a bigger one. But in

every case they still ask voters to choose

someone else to do the governing.

Think of that revered constitutional

linchpin, the jury system. We are happy

for randomly picked, untrained membersof the public to weigh the evidence and the

MPs pay

Link to averageearnings

AdityaChakrabortty

Easily the most galling aspect of the

expenses debacle is the way MPs defend

their abuse. Our politicians really mean

it when they say these outlandish claims

were only to top up inadequate wages.

Hang on, MPs not paid properly? The

64,766 salary puts them comfortably

into the top 5% of all single earners. The

median salary in the UK is 25,100; take

into account pensioners and others living

off benefits, and the average person lives

on less than 16,000.

As for parliamentary pay lagging behind

other industries, that is a canard. MPs pay

rises between 1990 and the end of 2006 far

outstripped increases in inflation, average

earnings and public-sector pay. If parlia-

mentarians want to claim, as the late Tony

Banks did, that they are a sort of high-

powered social worker, they should note

that a social workers position in Camden

(a borough that neighbours Westminster)

is advertised on the Guardians jobs web-

site for between 30,045 and 39,228.

If MPs complain about constituency

work, they should be given more case-

workers. If the Westminster working day

is antisocial), then it should be changed,

by shortening recesses. True, the life of

an elected representative is an uncertain

one, but that is compensated for by one of

those increasingly rare creatures, a gener-

ous final-salary pension scheme.

A pay regime for parliamentarians

should reflect the work carried out, and

be democratic ally justifiable. The solu-

tion is to link MPs wages to average earn-ings. Put backbenchers on, say, two times

MPs hours

Shorten the holidays

AnnePerkins

One of the better parliamentary reforms

of the past 10 years has been changing the

hours to reflect a normal working week,

rather than the traditional arrangement of

the day around 18th-century gentlemens

clubs and society hostesses drawing

rooms, slightly modified in the 20th cen-

tury to allow lawyers to get in a days work

before turning up in the late afternoon.

The reforms (take a bow, Harriet Har-

man) removed a hurdle for people with

young families taking part in Westmin-

ster politics, either as MPs or as offi cials, or

even journalists. Along with other reforms,

of which easily the most important has

been the dramatic if still ins uffi cient

increase in the number of women, this

change has slowly softened the culture of

the place.

But it came at a high cost. The change

to the working day removed probably the

most powerful weapon an ordinary back-

bencher had the power to delay, some-

times to derail, the governments busi-

ness. The balance is now heavily weighted

against the ordinary backbencher and in

favour of the executive. No longer could

a Michael Foot talk for hours in order to

preventa half-baked plan for reform of the

Lords going through. In fact, half-baked

plans speed through nowadays, with

ministers often redrafting important bits

of legislation in the final stages. So much

for better s crutiny.

Dont make MPs days longer. Cut the

holidays, change procedure and give MPs

back the chance to get right up the execu-tives nose.

the average wage and increase their salary

in line with average earnings. That would

remind politicians that their job is to repre-

sent their constituents and give them a ninterest in improving the lot of voters.

Select committees

Backbenchers needto wrest control

MichaelWhite

Congressional committees in Washing-

ton have sweeping powers to tackle the

executive. But the US constitution restson a separate executive, judiciary and leg-

islature, whereas Britains remains inte-

grated, a medieval legacy the Americans

rejected in 1787.

MPs are paid, of course, to represent

their constituents, to vet the governments

legislation and hold the government of the

day to account. If necessa ry, they do that by

turning off the tax revenues. Charles I even-

tually discovered that hard fact when he

tried to manage without them. The basics

of politics never change. But it needs a John

Pym or an Oliver Cromwell once in a while

to give the system a well-aimed kick.

All models have problems, but parlia-

ments select committees could benefit

from the conviction among backbench-

ers that being a committee chairman is

at least as useful a public career as being

a junior minister in charge of paperclips.

Ministerialitis is a curse.

MPs have the power to summon wit-

nesses as they demonstrated with the

errant bankers and issue s evere reports.

But committee membership is still con-

trolled on all but rare occasions by the

party whips. Labours chief whip, Nick

Brown, explicitly argues that serial rebels

should be denied a committee place. Tory

governments have removed troublemak-

ers such as Nicholas Winterton.

Reform will require backbenchers to

take control of committee membership

and the appointment of chairmen away

from the party whips and hand it to their

own committee of selection.

Its small constitutional beer compared

with sweeping proposals such as demands

for proportional representation voting at

Westminster, but modest changes often

matter more than dramatic ones. Thatcoupled with changing attitudes.

thinking of self-deluding MPs. Both the

good and the useless are swept in and out

of offi ce on their partys coat-tail s. We need

fewer, representing larger areas, to makethem more powerful national figures.

If there were, say, 400, most would have

a valuable role to play in party and parlia-

ment. Their business should be governing

the country: too much time is spent now

as advocates for individual local cases on

housing, benefits and vast numbers of

immigration pleas, often queue-jumping

existing appeals and complaints proce-

dures, to the aggravat ion of offi cials. Some

casework should go to councillors, if more

power is to be devolved. Good MPs say they

need some casework, to see at first hand

where government departments are fail-

ing, but the balance is out of kilter.

A proportional representation system,

such as the Jenkins plan, means grouping

MPs together in clumps of six, in larger

constituencies, so that voters are repre-

sented by someone they voted for. N o

system is perfect, but fewer MPs groupedin larger constituencies would better rep-

resent more people.

argument, and imprison someone for life.

It works. Why not for goverment, too?

Gordon Brown did once talk of what he

called citizens juries, but they turned out

to be nothing more than state-funded party

political focus groups. A bad start, though,

should not ruin a good idea. We could give

such juries real power if not to swing deci-

sions, at least to contribute to them.

In a democracy, ruling and being ruled

should be part of the same thing.

Comment is free The debate continuesPut your mark on the blueprintguardian.co.uk/anewpolitics


4/4

4 The Guardian | Thursday 21 May 2009

Secondary legislation

Cancel ministers

blank cheques

HenryPorter

Any reform of parliament should urgently

include means to restrict the use of second-

ary legislation usually statutory instru-

ments (SIs) and provide better ways of

scrutinising what are essentially minis-

terial edicts. Most bills contain clauses

that allow for secondary legislation to be

drafted in certain vaguely specified areas

at a later stage a blank cheque, if you like.

Eventually these refined measures are pre-

sented to parliament and made law with

almost no debate. Research shows that

in the last two decades SIs have doubled,

with a noticeable spike at the beginningof the Blair era. In 2005, there were an

incredible 14,580 pages of legislation, of

which nearly 12,000 were SIs.

Much of this amounts to harmless

regulation but increasingly we are seeing

criminal offences created by unscrutinised

measures that ride into the law on the bac k

of primary legislation. The general point

about SIs is that they greatly increase the

power of the executive and allow minis-

ters to avoid unfavourable publicity and

critical examination.

A statutory instrument should be pub-

lished in draft form giving MPs the chance

to look at the measure on its merits and

describe in simple terms what it means.

A sifting committee should apply a sys-

tematic scrutiny and decide whether the

measure should be debated.

To restore power and respect to MPs,

SIs should be amendable by either house

and both houses should have the power to

refer back to the ministry concerned with

precise suggestions. Once the measure

ecomes law there should be opportuni-

ties for post legislative scrutiny to see how

it is working in practice.

Lobbying

Full disclosure andscrutiny

PeterPreston

There are constant themes to any West-

minster reform: transparency, rigour, out-

side independent monitoring and enforce-

ment. And that, in turn, means members

interests and lobbying rules require few

key changes. Much of the work was done 14

years ago by the committee on standards i n

public life (set up after the Guardians cash-

for-questions revelations in 1994).

Still, some holes need filling: post inter-

ests on the net within a week, not a month;

declare gifts under 1% of a parliamentary

salary (you can buy lots of bath plugs and

toilet seats for 640); inspect lobbying

firms prior to access to the Commons and

withdraw access if they transgress; make

it impossible to pay lobbyists and also con-

tribute to political party funds.

But then most crucial of all comes

the need for independent outside con-

trol. The Parliamentary Commissioner

for Standards is just another servant of

the House chosen by the House itself. But

blow away their rotten expenses system

and, in grim logic, members interests

have to be policed by outsiders as well.

So, bring in servants of the public andpublish every ruling they give. G ive com-

missioners job security: no more ditching

Elizabeth Filkin if she makes too many

waves, no more neutering of high-profile

heads of the committee on standards

(such as Sir Alistair Graham).

Oh, and no more politicians on the

standards committee either. Theyre our

watchdogs now. Not poodles playing on

College Green.

The press

The vanishing

reporter

IanAitken

A factor in the present collapse of public

respect for parliament that is rarely dis-

cussed is the shrinking almost vanishing

of the coverage of parliamentary debates

in national newspapers. Defenders of the

press argue this is down to MPs lack of

interest in day-to-day business, demon-

strated by the chambers emptiness during

debates and the generally poor speeches.

They are simply not worth reporting.

This is partly true, but it is a two-way

process. Many MPs dont bother to par-

ticipate in debates they know will not

be reported. Why spend hours preparingspeeches to appear only in Hansard?

There is solid factual evidence for this

assertion. In the 50s a strike in Fleet Streets

print shops closed down the national press

for nearly three weeks. During that time

there was a noticeable fall in the attendance

of MPs, with an even sharper fall in ques-

tions tabled for ministers. In those days,

even the popular newspapers maintained

one or (in the case of the Mail and Express)

two gallery correspondents. The Times

and the Telegraph had teams of shorthand

reporters. The Manchester Guardian had

the incomparable Norman Shrapnel.

Today the gallery correspondent is vir-

tually extinct. Instead, there are sketch

writers whose job is to be funny about par-

liament. I have no objection to sketch writ-

ers. But if a paper is going to make fun of

MPs, it owes it to parliament to re port what

actually happens which means rather

more than recording the twice-weekly

slapstick of prime ministers questions.

Most of the reforms must come from

MPs. But this is one that could come from

the press, and it is crucial not just to restor-

ing the perception of parliament but also

to reviving its function as the watchdog

of the nation. You cant be a successful

watchdog if no one can hear you bark.olitical parties

each out afresh tohe public

ndrewawnsley

parliament of independents: what anttractive idea. The Right Hon Martin Bell.

ooray! The Right Hon Esther Rantzen. Er,

ell, maybe. The Right Hon Russell Brand.

mm. Perhaps this idea needs a rethink.

Political parties are here to stay. An

ssembly of independents may be an Athe-

ian ideal, but even in ancient Greece it

asnt much put into practice. It isnt going

o work in a complex modern democracy.

We need parties to guide, lead and clar-

fy debate. When the talking stops, some-

ne has to take a decision whether to sign

hat treaty, change that tax level, increase

hat budget and decrease that one. The

rick is to reduce whats bad about them

nd accentuate whats good. All the parties

esperately need to modernise their rela-

ionship with the public, not least because

oosting membership is one way to reduce

ependency on funding by vested inter-

sts. Parties need empowering so that it is

orth being a member again.

We need parties to supply MPs who can

rovide a pool of talent to become minis-

ers and supply the Commons with quality

nvigilators of a powerful executive. The

eople the parties send to parliament

eed to be both more representative of

he country and of a higher calibre.

That means no more of MPs taking

oney in chandeliers, plasma screens,

assage chairs and all the scandalous rest

f it. It also means paying them a good sal-

ry. Would we like to see a Commons with

ewer party hacks and more people with

xperiences, skills and perspectives devel-

ped in other walks of life? Would we,

ay, like to make it more attractive for the

ccomplished head of a comprehensive to

ake the career switch into politics?

Then we should pay MPs that sortf salary.

Party funding

Beware shovellingstate money

SeumasMilne

Before it was cash for MPs moats and flat-

screen TVs, there was cash for questions

and cash for honours. The growing con-

viction that influence can be bought by

handouts from billionaires and corporate

donors has been at the heart of the collapse

in confidence in mainstream politics. Any

reform has to include action to bring party

funding and spending under control.

That means tighter caps on national and

local expenditure. The arms race between

parties is the main factor feeding demand

for dodgy donations. Closing it down

would also make it easier to limit funding:

you cant buy much influence if personal

donations are capped at, say, 1,000.

Larger-scale funding should depend on

transparency and accountability: share-holder endorsement, at least, in the cor-

porate world; democratic backing in the

voluntary sector. Which is already what

happens in the trade unions. The demand

to clamp down on union funding the only

clean money left in politics would be to

miss the point of the political crisis.

Union funding is already open, regulated

and accountable. Its also one of the few

factors kicking against the monopolisation

of parliament by the professional middle

class. Extending the model could help to

open up Westminsters magic circle.

Far better than extending the dead hand

of state funding, which tends to lock out

new entrants, freeze the existing setup and

make it less dependent on public participa-

tion. Quite apart from that, shovelling more

money into the parties after the events of

the past fortnight is surely a non-starter.

Communications

More transparency,new technology

AndrewSparrow

Democracy only works if voters can access

information that allows them to exercise

choice. The problem is that parliament

is institutionally hostile to scrutiny by

the media. In recent years, parliament

has become more open and the old lobby

system, involving collective, unattribut-

able briefings on a daily basis, has beenscrapped. Political correspondents can still

MPs staff

Dont hire relatives

CatherineBennett

Each day, as more names are added to the

villainy index, the reputations of the MPs

who disdained to join in the great fiddle rise

in public esteem. The Telegraph calls them

the saints. But is it possible to be both

virtuous and a specialist in nepotism?

Hilary Benn, for instance, is one of

many MPs who couldnt think of a better

parliamentary assistant than the person

he had married. Not that one can deny the

economies that must come from key staff

sharing beds, free food and stimulating

DVDs with their line managers.

In fact, to listen to Margaret Beckett,

explaining what fabulous value her hus-

band, Leo, represents, being available to

the minister at all hours, even on caravan-

ning holidays, is to wonder why more pub-

lic servants arent encouraged to recruitwithin the home. Dont most have a spouse,

Attorney general

One law for all

TomClark

The outpouring of rage over MPs expenses

reflects the sense that there is one set ofrules for the people in charge, and another

for everyone else. To rebuild trust, politi-

cians must show that they understand that

legal processes will always apply without

fear or favour including to themselves.

The Iraq war and the pulled prosecu-

tion of BAE Systems are the two recent

instances where this principle has been

most egregiously breached. The attor-

ney general was at the heart of both, and

reformers would do well to start here. The

attorney has three traditional tasks to pro-

vide rigorous legal advice, to oversee pros-

ecutions in the public interest, and to serve

No 10 as a loyal minister. There is an urgent

need to split these jobs up, a task Gordon

Brown started but failed to finish.

The criminal probe into BAEs Saudi

dealings was dropped after Tony Blair

had personally written to the attorney. In

the case of Iraq, the attorney was called

into No 10 for talks on the eve of war, twice

changing his mind on the legal position

before finally giving the green light .

Strengthening the rule of law must be at

the heart of constitutional reform. A new

respect for the courts, and perhaps new

powers to strike down laws may eventu-

ally be part of the mix. But there is no bet-

ter starting point than completing the half-

finished reform of the attorney general.

ha

ve a cosy relationship with sources, but

thats inevitable anywhere where report-

ers are embedded with their contacts.

The solution is more transparency:Access Parliament should let virtually any

journalists in. If there arent enough desks,

there should be a press centre for bloggers

even Guido Fawkes.

Lobby Ditto lobby briefings. Officials

worry about single-issue obsessives, but

everyone would soon get used to them.

TV The rules on the use of footage from

the chamber should be abolished. Have I

Got News for You should be able to use the

pictures and it should be easy for MPs to

put footage on YouTube. The Tory MEP

Daniel Hannan could offer some advice.

Announcements Statements should be

published well before a minister speaks at

the dispatch box, so that MPs have time to

think up good questions.

Cameras and laptops MPs should be

allowed to send pictures from the green

benches. And journalists should be allowed

to blog from the press gallery overlookingthe chamber. Id love to be the first.

child, sibling, or even, like Peter Hain, an

elderly parent, who could use the money?

MPs patronage, under the guise of a

staffi ng allowance, is up there with theirexpenses as an insulting, salary-boosting

scam parading as baroque parliamentary

tradition. They should sack any relations

in their employment and replace them

with properly recruited staff, to be paid

directly by the House of Commons. And

that includes the saints.

Entertainment

Settle votes withswordplay

SimonHoggart

What parliament needs to reconnect with

the public is more fun and more entertain-

ment. The Commons is competing with a

host of other entertainments and, of course,

the internet. The public gallery usually has

half a dozen people in it listening to a bill

written in antique language being debated

according to antique procedures. So, my

suggestions are:

Britains Got Legislators An annual TV

series including tests for debating, com-

mittee work, expenses-claiming, etc. The

winner spends the next year as an MP, sit-

ting in the chamber, debating, asking ques-

tions, raising points of order and voting.

Better costumes Bring back wigs not

just for the Speaker, but for everyone. It

could resemble the start of the London

marathon, with MPs turning up in clown

costume, diving suits, baby nappies, etc.

MusicThere should be musical interludes

between debates.

Swords MPs already have hooks on which

to hang their swords, and the chamber

famously has red lines to keep members

two sword-lengths apart. Settling votes

with cold steel instead of ballots would

get the viewers in and, by reducing the

numbers of MPs, would s ave money.

Sponsorship This would bring in huge

sums, enough for any number of chande-

liers, flat-screen TVs, Christmas decora-

tions, etc. The Sainsburys Sunday open-

ing debate, for example, or the Boursin

cheese appropriations bill. The new

Speaker would say, Order, order. This

supply day is brought to you by Blossom

Hill, the wine for when old friends gettogether for good times. Mr Cameron ...

A New Politics

Documents