Anthony Barnett (London, OK): You can tell what Jack Straw thinks of constitutional reform, Trevor Smith told me, from the way he reintroduced walking backwards from the monarch after handing her the Queen's speech. I suspect Trevor was there, as a member of the House of Lords. His scathing remark reminded me of Benjamin's angel of history, propelled backwards into the future, longing to pause and make good what has been done (see comment below). Today, Straw tells Guardian readers that Britain is a much better country thanks to Labour's progressive reforms since 1997. Indeed it is. Many of what some have called Charter 88's demands have been met, and he is right to list them: The Human Rights Act, Freedom of Information, self government in Scotland, Wales and London. Now, the most pressing problem is not the need for the remaining reforms which still await us: a fair electoral system, a representative second chamber, a democratic constitution. It is the nature of the centralising British state that delivered reform despite itself. Its impulse is dangerous for liberty and anti-pluralist and it seems to be getting worse under Brown. In his article Straw endorses the idea that a "quiet revolution" has taken place in "the way we are governed". Really? Just over a month ago he sung a different tune. He gave evidence to the House of Lords Committee on the constitution and told them (opens as pdf),
it is for ministers to propose and for Parliament to dispose – that is called democracy.
Well thanks. Can you think of anything better? The only alternative Jack Straw suggests is on offer is an extreme form of direct democracy,
We should not pretend that we are subcontracting out our decision-making to some kind of Athenian democracy because that cannot work.
In other words we should know what is good for us and continue to walk backwards.
Comments
For newcomers to Walter Benjamin here is the famous passage:
"This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress."
Anthony
[...] view of our democracy - the executive proposes, parliament disposes and no nonsense about Athens - in December. Re-reading the full transcript read it here as a pdf I thought it was worth reproducing this [...]
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