Democracy and government: all articles

I have just returned from a short visit to some of the (increasingly expensive) countries of the European Union. For much of the time I was in the enjoyable company of couples from the U.S. and had ample opportunity to overhear their conversations.

One such conversation between a wife who was a Democrat and her husband who was a Republican was brief and instantly amusing but as I pondered on it I was reminded that we need to be careful in wishing for what we want: we might get it.

The conversation ran thus:-

Wife. ‘The reason I like Obama is that he believes in what he says.'

Husband. ‘That is just what worries me.'

My first reaction was that the husband was simply reflecting a Republican view that Obama was both dangerous and seriously wrong in believing that the U.S. would be a more successful society if it embraced policies which were redistributive of wealth and ‘socialist'. I put ‘socialist' within quotation marks because, as another of my travelling companions explained to me, it is seen by many in the U.S. as a word connoting a political system based on the taking of money from those who work and giving it, in cash or kind  ( e.g. ‘excessive' access to education or health care), to those who don't  - ‘like in the U.K. and France'.

But on reflection I wondered if the husband also meant that, in an inherently selfish world, the interests of the U.S. would be served better by a leader who was more practised in the arts of deception and less inclined to honesty and openness.

On 10 June this year Gordon Brown, in the course of explaining to the Commons how he intended to respond to the MPs expenses crisis, said that ‘I personally favour a written constitution.' He thereby became the first sitting British Prime Minister publicly to express such a desire. An historic moment. But one which - like many other initially promising democratic reform proposals made since Brown moved into No.10 - has not been followed up.

The Ministry of Justice paper Review of the Executive Royal Prerogative Powers, published on Thursday, demonstrates that there is no serious commitment within government to realising the idea that Brown floated in June. At the heart of the ‘unwritten' - or as it might better be described, un-codified - UK constitution is a set of executive powers known as the ‘Royal Prerogative'. They feature strongly in the recent Democratic Audit pamphlet, The Unspoken Constitution, which sets out in tragi-comic form the existing UK settlement as it works in practice, but as no-one in official circles would like openly to admit.  

Though a relic of personal monarchical rule, the Royal Prerogative is now wielded largely by ministers (in particular the Prime Minister) and officials. These authorities have never been framed in statute by Parliament, nor is their any formal requirement for parliamentary consent to their exercise. The potential for judicial review of the use of these powers is circumscribed. Consequently, the government is constantly carrying out a wide range of significant activities without being subject to satisfactory democratic oversight. Though no-one, not even the government, is precisely sure of its exact extent, actions covered by the Royal Prerogative include deploying the Armed Forces; making and ratifying treaties; issuing and revoking passports; conducting diplomacy; organising the Civil Service; granting honours and peerages; and appointing ministers.

If there's a problem with the Unspoken Constitution its that it barely qualifies as satire. The shenanigans surrounding MPs' expenses, Carter-Ruck's single handed attempt to rewrite the UK constitution to favour their client Trafigura and this torrid little paper sneaked out by the Ministry of Justice today (which patiently explains why Royal Prerogative powers are, in fact, all wonderful and the only thing that stands between us and authoritarianism), all amply illustrate that Stuart Weir and co's attempt to write the famously unwritten constitution is more a reflection of reality than an exaggeration of it. A Modest Proposal is satire. Yes, Minister and The Thick of It are satires. The Unspoken Constitution is merely frank.

I have to admit to finding this week somewhat depressing in that it is clear that a great many MPs have returned from recess determined to shut down any further discussion about reform and that, to an extent, they are succeeding. The media itself has been very helpful in this respect, detailing the process almost moment-to-moment but almost entirely lacking in analysis. Let us not forget that the people who are now complaining about the unfairness of Sir Thomas Legg applying new rules to them retrospectively are for the most part the same people who attempted to keep this little scam of theirs shrouded in secrecy - in defiance of the law - for years. All the indications are that for the most part, they still haven't learned why that was an utterly stupid and damaging thing to do.

This letter appeared in Saturday's Guardian:

MPs returning to Parliament this week might like to think that the fury they faced earlier in the year due to the expenses scandal is now behind them. Yet the storm was as great as it was because of an underlying sense of alienation that has been developing for years.

Some of the ideas which emerged during the conference season aimed at closing this gulf between the political class and the public have been positive contributions, but none of them amount to the sort of fundamental change which we now desperately need. In particular, while Gordon Brown's support for holding a referendum on electoral reform is a welcome shift, the promise of a vote on an electoral system hand picked by the Prime Minister will be greeted by much cynicism.

The UK needs an independent citizens' convention to ensure that such decisions cannot be skewed by political self-interest. It is too late to complete such a convention before the general election, but it could be legislated for and begin its work in a matter of weeks. Its work could then progress regardless of which party goes on to form the next government.

The three UK party conferences have now passed and the parties laid out their stalls. The countdown to the election has begun with only seven months to the start of the formal campaign next spring.

Cameron, Brown and Clegg all stressed their character, vision and engaged in the sort of political cross-dressing that has become the fashion following on from Tony Blair.

What was more revealing than what they said was what they didn't say. We know Gordon Brown can't say ‘sorry', but Tony Blair never apologised for Iraq and sort of got away with it. David Cameron could not find it in himself to mention once ‘bankers', ‘markets' or the phrase ‘market failure'.

All three party leaders said little of substance on the domestic crisis which erupted a few months ago, namely the crisis of our political system begun by the expenses scandal. This should be natural territory for the reforming Lib Dems, but Clegg isn't bursting with rage. Brown commented in passing, while Cameron devoted the most words, but neither dwelt on it, or saw the all-encompassing nature of it.

Brown declared that ‘politics need morals' and made a series of proposals such as allowing voters to recall MPs and a referendum on the Alternative Vote, which may have begun a serious debate if he had made them when he first became Prime Minister, but look opportunist ‘window dressing' now.

Cameron talked in a more rhetorical style of the age of ‘political disillusionment' and his remedies, cutting MPs pay, pensions and their numbers, a clarion call even more threadbare than Brown's, but with populist sensibility.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The SNP may not yet have the votes to get their planned independence referendum through the Scottish Parliament next year, but the proposal is certainly creating waves among their political rivals.

The Liberal Democrats announced yesterday that MSP Ross Finnie is to review their opposition to a referendum and report back to a special session of the party's Scottish conference on 30 October. 

Scottish Lib Dem leader Tavish Scott has staunchly opposed a vote up till now, but there was notable pressure for a change of stance from some Scottish activists at the UK Lib Dem conference last month.