Jun 04 2007
Democracy - yes please
The Conservatives Democracy Task Force will be recommending fewer MPs, English votes for English issues, Cabinet control over?? major policy?? and Parliamentary scrutiny of big issues like war and peace. That’s all sensible. We need to add the abolition of unelected regional government, and ??a repatriation of powers from the EU.
??Meanwhile Gordon Brown has decided to pick his fight on anti terrorist measures. Presumably he wants to show he is tough and can move against his left wing when he wishes. He wants to demonstrate that he can get 90 days detention without charge through where Tony Blair could not.
Whilst Brown’s approach is better than Blair’s, as he does accept the need for regular independent scrutiny of the continuing detention, and the desirability of allowing intercept evidence, we should still be questioning?? the need for this diminution in civil liberties. Wouldn’t it be better to get proper contorl of our borders, to keep high risk people out of the UK? And if we are going to allow intercept evidence, doesn’t that make it easier to charge people in good time, rather than delaying for 3 months?
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
This is very good stuff from the ex Chancellor.
I’ve always been a fan of reducing the number of MPs to something along the lines of 1 MP per 100,000 population because if it can work for the Isle of Wight why not the rest of the UK.
Regional assemblies have got to go because week after week I read of highly paid positions at the East Midlands in Nottingham and they are nothing but a waste of taxpayers money.
And yes - what right have scots got to vote on English issues when they have their own parliament especially when we look like having a scot PM and Chancellor (Darling) in the next few weeks?
I’m all in favour of having special english sittings at Westminster.
Very good stuff - keep up the brilliant blog.
I agree with all of this apart from the “fixing” of the West Lothian question. I find this chopping up of the country ludicrous and dangerous, and I’d rather we instead waited for the Scots to get fed up of their parliament enough to let us abolish the cursed thing. Speaking as a half-Scot and an ardent unionist.
‘Presumably he wants to show he is tough and can move against his left wing when he wishes.’ (JR)
Is libertarian belief in innocent until proven guilty, or no punishment without trial, a leftist value? I just think it’s the opposite of authoritarianism, which is precisely what New Labout are. I’ never completely sure where I come down on the tricky issue of terrorism and detention without charge. I can see the merits in both sides of this debate, and both arguements seem to be supported equally from left-wing and right-wing people in the real world.
Making it easier to deport foreign nationals would be a big start, we had no problem telling Bakri he wasn’t welcome back after he ran off to Lebanon, I would imagine if we had tried to kick him out there would have been a two year process and very expensive.
It’s ludicrous if you put the shoe on the other foot. Imagine I went to France, stood on a soapbox and started preaching about killing the French. Would any of these bleeding hearts have any sympathy for me if the French authorities sent back over the channel and told me I wasn’t welcome anymore?
JR:
JR: “I do, however, wish to be in a position to help right the wrongs of the years of Blajorism, and the only way of doing that is to influence the Conservatives in the right direction.”
The subversion of democracy in the UK and wrongs of Blajorism are but two branches of the same tree. The overweaning strength of THE PARTY. Lord Hailsham recognised the problem.
You should not have to buy a ticket to democracy through party membership. If one really believed in democracy, reducing the influence of the Party to control MPs would be thought a good thing. So in addition to my list above I would add:
6. Reducing the number of elected MPs on the executive payroll, from the hundred or so outside the immediate cabinet, to perhaps zero.
7. Then reducing the size of the cabinet to ten or so MPs.
Our tragedy? There are good people in Westminster who believe the good of the party is paramount. They ought to recognise that the Party, has become a cancerous growth and root cause of our present predicament.
I just don’t understand the wish for fewer MP’s. In the overall scheme of things MP’s don’t cost the nation that much and if there were more, each with a lower case load of constituents work, then perhaps they would do a better job of holding the government to account and perhaps not letting it get away with going to war over weapons of mass destruction that did not exist.
“We need to add the abolition of unelected regional government, and a repatriation of powers from the EU”.
and how are you going to repatriate powers from the EU?
I’m intrigued.