Once upon a time Parliament was a brilliant and wonderful place. The members were independently minded fellows, the Whip didn't exist and whilst there were notional party allegiances they were transient. It was the issues that mattered, not the party whip and the career that the MP so desired. In fact, the career was often mapped out by virtue of the MPs independent mind to argue, and crucially win their point. Then one day, it was all lost.The Party system, the Whip and the Executive then took control and unless you'd been around for donkeys years, or you had played the game for a while and built a profile that let you be independent minded you were/are nothing. The result is a system which now has trust from the public so low that they're more likely to trust a burglar's word than an MPs. Apart from at a General Election, if your MP turns out to be a liar there is nothing you can do, and, if they're lucky they might even get away with it thanks to the speed with which news changes, and the "right rosette on a donkey" principle.
Until now that is. The other day I posted about the Ministry of Truth. They have just had a documentary on BBC2 interviewing many MPs and asking them to support a Private Members Bill to make it unlawful for politicians to lie which would result in them being banned from seeking office ever again. Now some may say such a Bill is unnecessary, what we really need to do is scrap the whipping system and go back to the early 19th Century Parliament where MPs were not the puppets of the respective party. But is such a change easily achievable in the day of the career politician? I think not.
On October 17th, the Plaid MP, Adam Price, will introduce such a Private Members Bill. What are the chances of MPs voting a bill through that effectively makes their actions subject to legal recourse from us, the people that elected them into their position? Pretty slim I imagine, but it will certainly be fun to watch them argue against being subject to the law.
As with their recent assault on Freedom of Information, my guess is that they will collectively take the bad PR hit in the short term and hope that in long term the question will go away. Something tells me though that as long as Ministers resign and get new jobs within a few months the question and concern will not disappear. The bottom line is this though, Adam Price MP has got balls to promote the Bill.
29 comments:
Oops. Just read the last bit about Adam Price - well done that man!
Auntie Flo'
Something in the Tory water? We both have spherical objects on the brain tonight!
This is O level/GCSE politics. The whole point of the HoC system is that our MPS are free to say what they choose - lies, exaggeration, hyperbole, polemic, whatever. The moment you try to shackle that freedom, is the moment you shackle our freedom.
As Jack Straw - and I am no fan of the man - pointed out in the film, there are no examples of politicians lying and getting away with it. Fact. You may try to suggest that 'misleading' language is lying, but it isn't. You may think someone mounting a pretty weak case for a course of action you disapprove of is 'lying' but she isn't.
Get over yourselves, guys. Politicians have to put themselves in the firing line every day in a way that the rest of us simply cannot imagine. Catch one lying and they are finished. That's why they don't.
The one day, it was all lost
f they're lucky they might get away wit thanks
The other I posted about the Ministry of Truth.
BUtis such a change easily achievable in the day of the career politician? I think not.
get new jobs within in months it won't though.
Start by not posting whilst drunk Dizzy, then people might take you half way seriously. Spelling and punctuation does matter.
You're kidding about wanting to get rid of the Whips, I hope?
The fact is, one votes primarily for a party and a party's manifesto. And the Whips are there to ensure that the MPs, elected on that basis, are faithful to it. I'd be far more annoyed by MPs going off and acting with contempt for their constituents - and the basis upon which they were elected - than about the odd lie. Both are wrong, but the situation you want is far worse; at least in other cases they retain the pretense of representing our will. You'd get rid of that, in getting rid of the Whips, and would see that there is no mechanism for keeping MPs honest to the manifesto and party upon which they were elected.
WTF.
You've lost your mind. The problem isn't that the MPs aren't independent enough. They simply aren't honest enough. How it makes them more honest, or improves voter engagement, to allow MPs to do what the fuck they want without anyone being able to stop them till the next election, I do not know. If you think it likely that every MP you vote in will go off and ignore the reasons you voted for them, or even possible that this could happen even once, you will be far more thunderstruck with apathy.
The answer isn't giving MPs more disconnection from their party: for their party is their voters. In the days when 10% of people could vote, and most MPs were Christians and had a set of morals, and were well-educated, it was fine, and didn't matter.
In the Internet Age, a vast Athenian-isation of democracy is inevitable and desirable.
"This is O level/GCSE politics."
Nonsense, it's just an impeachment act.
Start by not posting whilst drunk Dizzy, then people might take you half way seriously. Spelling and punctuation does matter.
Wasn't drunk. Was a combination of fat fingers, mobile phone keyboard, and an irritating form of dyslexia which means I sometimes think words but leave them out, or worse put the wrong down. Yesterday I wrote "permission" whilst I was thinking "petition"
You're kidding about wanting to get rid of the Whips, I hope?
No I'm deadly serious, whips, and parties, together have created the career politician and party automatons. That's half the problem.
You really are serious?
I thought you knew what a parliamentary democracy was. Er, perhaps you don't, after all. The party system has obvious boons - aggregating genuine divides and movements in the country into practicable bodies, and bodies, most of all, that can effect such change. To get rid of it, and have, in effect 500 or so individual parties and thousands of informal coalitions, with every MP being a party unto themselves in effect, would sunder once and for all the MP from the plebs.
I'm sick of people saying "this is O level/GCSE politics" as if that is a substitute for independent thought.
The reason that Mr Price has the balls to introduce this feeble and meaningless bill (I assume that the text is as per the programme makers website, in which case any halfway competant lawyer could successfully defend a prosecution under the act) is that Plaid will never have any power at Westminster. Let's see if his party colleagues are keen to introduce in into the Assembly shall we?
No, the answer is not this bill, nor particularly is it an end to the party system (though that would not be a bad thing - it is clearly undemocratic), but simply that the executive function must be separated from the legislative function. Then the latter can be more rigourous in holding the former to account, as their career prospects will not rest with the people they are exposing as liars.
I thought you knew what a parliamentary democracy was. Er, perhaps you don't, after all.
I do not what Parliamentary Democracy is, you seem to be labouring under the illussion though that the party system is a fundamental part of it and always has been. It hasn't.
For me the question comes down to this. What is an MP and who is their responsibilty and loyalty too? In my view it is their constituents. The whipping system is the total opposite of that view. Hundreds of years ago the party was a notional allegience, it was not what made your career. That is not true anymore, as was noted by one MP in the documentary, many MPs today are people of no consequence outside of their own party heirachy.
The whipping system actively encourages MPs in how to make their careers. An MP should not have to do that, an MP should make their career themselves and have the independence to stand up for their constituents first and foremost. The US House of Representatives is very much like this, as whilst it has whips, if the congressman goes against his constituents then that is political death for him.
I also do not accept this position that says more independent minded MPs cannot exist because the voting populace is greater. It is simply not true and a danegrous assumption to be making. Again if you look at the US system, you have representatives who have a notional badge of repub or dem, but they act very much outside the party structure during their campaigns in localised politics.
Oh yes, one other thing, as a conservative (small c) the idea of ending the whips powers is very appealing indeed. More independent minded people will make change slower and far more measured.
"No, the answer is not this bill, nor particularly is it an end to the party system (though that would not be a bad thing - it is clearly undemocratic), but simply that the executive function must be separated from the legislative function."
I don;t necessarily disagree with that. Although it is a strange state of affairs that across the world such laws like this exist, and certainly in the real non-political world there is major recourse for lying.
....some may say such a Bill is unnecessary, what we really need to do is scrap the whipping system and go back to the early 19th Century Parliament where MPs were not the puppets of the respective party. But is such a change easily achievable in the day of the career politician? I think not.
Indeed not. 150 years of system refinement and entrenchment will require a revolution to shift - and the English don't do revolutions any more. WS Gilbert's observations of the matter back in the 1880's are as accurate today as ever (party fiefdoms and sycophancy having replaced Pocket Boroughs and riches):
I grew so rich that soon I was sent
By a pocket borough into Parliament
I always voted at my party's call
And I never thought of thinking for myself at all
(No he never thought of thinking for himself at all)
I thought so little, they rewarded me
By making me the Ruler of the Queen's Navy ...
(sounds a bit like Des Browne eh?)
Baskerville said;
"This is O level/GCSE politics. The whole point of the HoC system is that our MPS are free to say what they choose - lies, exaggeration, hyperbole, polemic, whatever. The moment you try to shackle that freedom, is the moment you shackle our freedom."
I'll have some of what you're smoking please!!
Z
Dizzy and friends,
I challenge anyone on this thread to show me a parliamentary democracy anywhere in the world that does not contain political parties. They are a function of democratic systems, people who agree with each other come together in an attempt to ensure that what they believe in is delivered.
Let's take a scenario.
It is May 2009. Political Parties have been abolished by the great father's of the nation, Dizzy and Adam. The country, in turn outs approaching 130% such is the enthusiasm for the brave new world of electing independently minded individuals, each standing on their own with just their families campaigning on their behalf, elects 650 bright shiny new MPs. Only John McDonnell, Jeremy Corbyn, Andrew Robathan and Mark Field survive the cull of the party machines.
When they all roll up at Westminster they spend several months sitting in rooms trying to cobble together an agreement about who should be Prime Minister and which of the PM's mates should fill the other Executive positions. Civil Servants run the country in the interim.
Finally they find 326 MPs to agree on a Prime Minister, and from those 326 the other ministers are appointed/elected. So sets sail the great ship Independence for a term of government.
Then, eight months later it is realised that all of these independents can't all deliver their individual manifestoes and the Prime Minister cannot deliver a majority in the Commons for very much at all because it was part of the election manifestos of enough of the MPs.
So, the PM and his 325 mates decide their should be an election. This time the PM teams up with a couple of hundred of his mates who agree on most things and they help each other out in the election. Some other people who agree with the Prime Minister and his mates also decide to run of their own volition. And loe and behold the country elects 345 MPs who broadly agree with each other.
They decide that as they are all in this together now, they should have a name, something to identify themselves to each other and their supporters. The We Won Group is formed.
But then some bright spark works out that they may have been elected but with all that constituency business and other things they do, how can they make sure there are enough votes in the House to pass legislation they were elected on. They decide that a group of the We Won Group should have responsibility for ensuring there are enough supporters around to win votes, they call these people the Make Sure We Can Deliver What We Promised Team.
Then Dizzy and Adam look down from their High Morale Throwns. They are displeased. The MPs have created political parties, they have appointed whips, they have worked out for themselves what every other democracy in the world knows, that is how democracy works.
And, I end with the most obvious truth, you Dizzy want this Government to be defeated, therefore you will vote for the Tories at the next election whoever they decide to stand, because you want your political party to beat the one that is currently in Government. You really then advocate that MP going to the House and doing whatever they feel like?
Grow up.
All interesting accept I didn't say that party's should be got rid of. What I said was that the party system was not good and in the past we have had party's but not the party system of whipping.
Yes Dizzy we did, we also did not allow women to vote, we did not allow those who did not own property to vote, we did not allow anyone who was not "of money" to vote, so really the need for party discipline was slightly less important. Now, with 24 hours news, blogs on everything, and scrutiny like never before, oh and universal suffrage, times have changed. Whips ensure that when you vote Conservative the person you elect will go to the House of Commons and act like an err, Conservative.
You cannot have political parties without people who ensure parties deliver what they promise the electorate. These people are called Whips.
So, if you abolish Whips, you abolish political parties in any meaningful sense and we are back to my little scenario.
On the other hand, no women voters, nobody who does not own property, nobody who is not from the "monied classes"? You know Cameron and Osborne may have hit upon an election winning strategy there.
What a complete piling of steaming bollocks. Reducing the power of whips does not abolish political parties at all. And I;m afraid that whilst you might think you vote for a party you don't, you vote a constituency MP to represent the views of the constituency.
You're little scenario is simply a straw man, and the argument that you;re putting forward on what would happen is predicated on inaccurate assumptions about what you actually vote for. Also this idea that without whips women would be disenfranchised and only land owenrs would vote is, frankly, fucking pathetic.
You really then advocate that MP going to the House and doing whatever they feel like?
I advocate my MP going to the House and repesenting his constituency.
As you ouight to know, Dizzy, it'll be a bill introduced under the Ten Minute Rule, which means, as they say on "Yesterday in Parliament", that it "has absolutely no chance of becoming law".
Price will speak for 10 minutes on a motion that he should have leave to introduce his bill. Another backbencher may oppose him with a speech of 10 minutes. Then there is a call for a division, and, if it is contested, a vote -- in which, by convention, the "payroll" (i.e. Ministers and shadows etc) do not participate. If the motion is carried, Mr Price has leave tointroduce his bill - which, since all PMBs are cilled at the end of the session (probably on 1 November) means it will not even reach Second Reading.
Was this the Adam Price who tabled the Impeach Blair motion?
Also, have you considered the consequences of allowing judges and lawyers to interfere in parliamentary proceedings and to decide what is truth and what is falsehood? The fact that the courts cannot do that at the momenmt is one of the cornerstones of the Bill of Rights. (Although you will occasionally find the odd dozy judge who forgets).
(BTW, that, Praguetory, is the first shot in the "reasoned argument" -- since we recognise you may not have done GCSE Politics, or may have been away from school that day.)
Of coruse I know it's not going to become law or get very far. It does though raise an interesting question about how protected politicians are from recourse by their *notional* employers.
Also, have you considered the consequences of allowing judges and lawyers to interfere in parliamentary proceedings and to decide what is truth and what is falsehood?
In fainress the bill is not quite so vague as that if, by some sort of miracle, it ever got anywhere.
Oh yes, and I don't think thetre is a GCSE politics.
excuse fat fingers
FFS, the Bill is "quite so vague as that". Unless a clause were inserted to provide that nothing in the Bill should be taken as applying to proceedings in Parliament.
You havn't read it then?
What is an offence
1. Publish a statement, promise or forecast which he knows to be misleading, false or deceptive in a material particular, or
2. Dishonestly conceal any material facts whether in connection with a statement, promise or forecast published by him, or
3. Recklessly publish (dishonestly or otherwise) a statement, promise or forecast which is misleading, false or deceptive in a material manner.
What can be a defence?
1. did not know, or could not have been reasonably expected to know that his act or conduct would create an impression that was false or misleading, or
2. had no part in causing or permitting the publication of the statement or any part thereof, or
3. could not reasonably be expected to have known that the statement to which the charge relates was inaccurate or misleading, or
4. took all due care to ensure the accuracy of the statement, or
5. acted in the interest of National Security.
Basically it is not a big deal at all really, it doesn't mean the end of democracy as we know it.
OK.
Bear in mind that a good deal of the alleged offences might occur in the context of Parliamentary debates etc, and other activity generally termed "proceedings in Parliament".
Here is Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1689 -- still in force, despite the arcane language:
"The said Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons [ . . . ] Declare [ . . . ] That the Freedome of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parlyament."
The freedom of our elected representatives to say whatever they like in Parliament is a big deal, and it should not take very long to work out why.
The system does of course rely on concepts of honour and self-regulation, and this "Parliamentary privilege" is naturally open to abuse.
But think about the occasions when Robert Maxwell was denounced in the House before his death. Would an MP have been able to do that in the knowledge that he could be prosecuted on an allegation of "recklessly publishing (dishonestly or otherwise) a statement, promise or forecast which is misleading, false or deceptive in a material manner"? Whatever defences he or she might be able to cite in law, could s/he really rely upon them in the face of a cross rich unprincipled oligarch with deep pockets and threatening lawyers?
Totally agree with Dizzy, the whip system is corrupting of individuals and the parliamentary system as a whole. Another wacky idea to kill it off is to have parliamentary votes by secret ballot, so that the whips don't know who to bully or bribe. If it's good enough for gthe elctorate, surely it's good enough for MPs
@Steve Roberts -
Top idea. All votes by secret ballot - so the electorate have no idea how their representatives have voted on any given issue. Class.
The only provision at present for a secret ballot in the Commons is for the election of the Speaker -- exactly to minimise the influence of the Whips and to make sure that the new Speaker didn't know who had opposed him/her -- and there was a fearsome row to get that through. (It was brought in in 2001 and hasn't yet been used, as Speaker Martin remains in post).
The argument agains the secret bllot was that it was profoundly undemocratic for the electorate not to know how their representatives were voting.
But if it's good enough for you, fair enough.
"The fact is, one votes primarily for a party and a party's manifesto."
The manifesto, a collection of a large number of the lies in one easy to handle document.
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