Two analyses
Even next year, when we know more about the fallout, these two bits of journalistic analysis might be useful teaching tools when you're trying to help students understand representative government and parliamentary regimes.Retrieve these articles now. Put them in your teaching file for next year. Dig them out in September or January (or whenever it is that you're teaching about the UK) and see if they're still relevant and helpful. Then add a couple other articles to update things.
Beneath a British Scandal, Deeper Furies
To speak of a “political revolution” in Britain would seem chimerical were it not for the number of times the possibility has been raised these days... Suddenly, the talk is of a political system grown petrified, and in urgent need of a root-and-branch overhaul that restores the accountability of politicians — and of the government — to the people.
The alarm has been stirred by an upsurge in public anger over venality that seems to have run like a virus through the House of Commons...
[T]he mood of anger is palpable in every pub and on every bus and train. It concerns far more than the latest scandal, touching grievances that have been building gradually for at least 30 years — perhaps for nearly a century — about the growth of a self-serving political class, arrogant habits of rule and an inward-looking cadre of senior civil servants, for all of which the most appropriate adjective seems to be “high-handed.”
Now the popular resentment has reached proportions that are drawing comparisons to the situation 180 years ago, when the Great Reform Act of 1832 was speeded through Parliament by riots in several cities...
[C]ritics had also noted that the reforms that began in earnest in 1832 began to be rolled back as early as World War I, with governments claiming ever-widening statutory powers, and imposing their will roughshod through their control of pliant parliamentary majorities. The result, the critics say, has been an entrenchment of “parliamentary dictatorship,” with the only moment of meaningful accountability for governments coming at general elections that are held, in normal circumstances, every four or five years...
[P]ressure for change has been growing; that pressure feeds on public disaffection with the way unpopular policies have been pushed through with only a minimum of parliamentary scrutiny, and sometimes with debate cut short by the government. The watershed, historically, may prove to have been Britain’s decision to join the United States in the 2003 invasion of Iraq...
Political climate change
OVER the past century, the British have lost a lot—their empire, their military might, their economic leadership and even their sense of superiority. But they still reckoned that they had one of the best parliaments in the world...
That is why the revelations of the past two weeks—that MPs have been picking taxpayers’ pockets, pushing the rules to breaking point on second-home mortgage relief, massage chairs, moat-clearing and the like—have been such a shock. The public is apoplectic...
A vast array of solutions are being rushed forward. Broadly, they fit into three categories. There is an electoral solution: the opposition Tories want a general election to let the people sweep the cursed crooks from office (and themselves into it). There is a range of constitutional reforms, from fewer MPs to proportional representation. And there is institutional spring cleaning—changing the allowances system, improving MPs’ usefulness and getting rid of the most grievous offenders. This newspaper is not afraid of calling for elections or constitutional change, but in this particular situation the emphasis, especially now, should be on the last set of proposals. That is because this crisis—no matter how shameful the offences involved—is institutional, not constitutional...
Begin with the idea of an election. The prospect of a fresh start is certainly alluring...
If an election were called next week, Britain might well end up with a Parliament for the next five years that is defined entirely by its views on claiming for bath plugs, rather than on how to get the country out of the worst recession in 70 years.
The same yes-but-not-now logic applies to the calls for constitutional reform... You could re-engineer great swathes of Westminster—bring in an elected House of Lords, introduce a Bill of Rights, design open primaries for MPs, scrap the first-past-the-post electoral system—and it would not make a shred of difference if the people elected were left in charge of claiming their own expenses amid a “course-you-can-chum” culture...
So focus on making a misused organisation work. Finding a new speaker is the first task...
The second task is to deal with the most egregious envelope-pushers...
The third job is changing the way MPs’ finances are regulated...
Do these three things quickly and much of the sting will be drawn. That still leaves room to begin a broad review of the workings of Parliament and to tackle the constitutional issues.
One reason for Westminster’s longer-run woes is that the job of an MP has become less appealing to capable independent minds... A leaching of authority to the executive has left MPs too dependent for advancement on the goodwill of party higher-ups... That could be corrected by giving more, not less, power to MPs—for instance by setting up permanent committees with long-serving members, more expert staff and power to compel evidence.
As for an election, one is due within a year. Better to save that great accounting for a time when voters care about something bigger than the dodgy expenses of some errant MPs.
Labels: elections, politics, scandal, UK
posted by Ken Wedding @ 6:15 AM
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