Posted by Dr John Parkinson
In the wake of the expenses scandal, every political party is trying to pitch itself as the solution, not the cause, of our allegedly-broken politics. Each party is proposing constitutional reforms. How do the ideas of ‘the Big Three’ measure up?
Much of the detail in the proposals is like shuffling the deck-chairs on the Titanic. Take the Labour proposal of the Alternative Vote. This is not a step towards ‘democratic renewal’, it’s a relatively minor reform to what will remain a constituency-based, party-controlled, first-past-the-post seat allocation system. Australia has AV, yet I don’t see anyone holding up Australia as a model of democratic virtue and public probity. Why? Because just like in Britain, two parties have a lock on the Australian House of Representatives and thus on government. Their party-system is driven by internal factional allegiances and external links with business or unions, not constitutency demands. AV might allow voters to vent spleen at a particularly nasty candidate, but most voters choose not to exercise that choice, and follow party-issued ‘how to vote’ cards anyway. Even if they all thought things through, AV does nothing to alter the fundamentals of FPP power politics.
Take further devolution or local control policies. The Conservative and Lib Dem manifestos are full of this stuff, and the Labour manifesto (rightly, in my view) attacks that as a ‘free for all’ in which local elites grab control of public services. But Labour’s ‘Total Place’ agenda does precisely the same thing, and continues a decade-long trend of overloading localities with responsibilities that they neither want nor need. What people want is a local hospital that is clean, accessible, and provides a good service; they want to know that their local school is delivering pretty much the same quality as the one down the road. They don’t want to have to move down the road, or pretend to be good Anglicans to get their kids educated C of E, or set up their own neighbourhood school. All three parties pursue a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow called ‘Choice’, and keep failing to notice that they deliver only pseudo-choices, or that choice fails to deliver what people want. They are not getting any closer to the rainbow, and never will.
Other ideas are equally weak. Lowering the voting age to 16 will not magically increase the system’s legitimacy; indeed, it might lower it in the eyes of older voters. Creating local referendums will simply hamstring local councils, and one wonders why, if referendums are good enough at the local level, are they not good enough at the national? What’s good for the goose appears not to be good for the gander. Electing the Lords will not magically remove a major source of unfairness if it continues to be subservient to the Commons; and either way will introduce a new field for party politics.
Big change needs major shifts in the institutional architecture. Proportional representation; perhaps equal representation in the upper house; more coalition government; an elected Lords but only with greatly enhanced scrutiny and review powers, not the lapdog presently proposed; regional and local government with proper legislative and tax-raising powers. What is being offered is portrayed as if it’s going to make those big changes. Rot. They are new coats of paint on an increasingly-dilapidated house.
In the wake of the expenses scandal, every political party is trying to pitch itself as the solution, not the cause, of our allegedly-broken politics. Each party is proposing constitutional reforms. How do the ideas of ‘the Big Three’ measure up?
Much of the detail in the proposals is like shuffling the deck-chairs on the Titanic. Take the Labour proposal of the Alternative Vote. This is not a step towards ‘democratic renewal’, it’s a relatively minor reform to what will remain a constituency-based, party-controlled, first-past-the-post seat allocation system. Australia has AV, yet I don’t see anyone holding up Australia as a model of democratic virtue and public probity. Why? Because just like in Britain, two parties have a lock on the Australian House of Representatives and thus on government. Their party-system is driven by internal factional allegiances and external links with business or unions, not constitutency demands. AV might allow voters to vent spleen at a particularly nasty candidate, but most voters choose not to exercise that choice, and follow party-issued ‘how to vote’ cards anyway. Even if they all thought things through, AV does nothing to alter the fundamentals of FPP power politics.
Take further devolution or local control policies. The Conservative and Lib Dem manifestos are full of this stuff, and the Labour manifesto (rightly, in my view) attacks that as a ‘free for all’ in which local elites grab control of public services. But Labour’s ‘Total Place’ agenda does precisely the same thing, and continues a decade-long trend of overloading localities with responsibilities that they neither want nor need. What people want is a local hospital that is clean, accessible, and provides a good service; they want to know that their local school is delivering pretty much the same quality as the one down the road. They don’t want to have to move down the road, or pretend to be good Anglicans to get their kids educated C of E, or set up their own neighbourhood school. All three parties pursue a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow called ‘Choice’, and keep failing to notice that they deliver only pseudo-choices, or that choice fails to deliver what people want. They are not getting any closer to the rainbow, and never will.
Other ideas are equally weak. Lowering the voting age to 16 will not magically increase the system’s legitimacy; indeed, it might lower it in the eyes of older voters. Creating local referendums will simply hamstring local councils, and one wonders why, if referendums are good enough at the local level, are they not good enough at the national? What’s good for the goose appears not to be good for the gander. Electing the Lords will not magically remove a major source of unfairness if it continues to be subservient to the Commons; and either way will introduce a new field for party politics.
Big change needs major shifts in the institutional architecture. Proportional representation; perhaps equal representation in the upper house; more coalition government; an elected Lords but only with greatly enhanced scrutiny and review powers, not the lapdog presently proposed; regional and local government with proper legislative and tax-raising powers. What is being offered is portrayed as if it’s going to make those big changes. Rot. They are new coats of paint on an increasingly-dilapidated house.
