Dec 23 2009
What is the General Election about?
In the days before devolution a General Election was about all the main public services and everything to do with government. Today, as many of you have been pointing out, it is rather different.
Because Labour decided to drive through lop sided devolution, a General Election is still about all public services and main policies for England. It is very different in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The UK Parliament we will elect in a few months time has no power to decide schools, hospitals, law and order, planning and a whole range of other important issues for Scotland. It also has limited powers in the other parts of the UK with devolved Assemblies. If the Leaders of the three national parties appearing in the debates concentrate on schools, hospitals and police they are having a very English debate.
To make sense of the present Union, and to make the programmes of interest to the 10 million people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the debates should centre on Foreign Policy, war and peace, defence, the economy, banking and monetary policy, relations with the EU, benefits and unemployment. These are the principal Union matters. There is then a need for debate about English matters , as under both the Labour and the Conservative proposals these matters fall to be decided by the Union Parliament. In the case of the Conservatives they will be decided by English MPs only. This would be better in a different debate, perhaps involving the relevant Secretaries of State and their Shadows and Shadow Shadows. Otherwise it is best strictly limited in time in the main debates to keep the interest of the audience from the devolved parts of the Union.
As in all things, lop sided devolution has made it more difficult to frame a series of programmes that are balanced, make sense, and are relevant to all voters in a Union election. If the three main debates do spend too much time on schools, hospitals and police, the Nationalists and others will have more a of a case to demand representation. Maybe the answer is to have one debate entirely on the economy, unemployment, total spending and borrowing, banking and other financial and employment issues, and one debate entirely on defence, foreign affairs and constitutional affairs. These two programmes would be of equal relevance and interest wherever you live in the UK. This would leave just one mixed programme which might pay more attention to the problems of England.
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
This debate is, apparently, going to last 90 minutes. And there are going to be three of them! It is a long time. Question Time lasts just 60 minutes. That drags too. Ask yourself, will Mr Brown and Mr Cameron really tell us anything we do not already know?
The other thing is how different the parties actually are. Go onto Labour List and see how the assumptions there are quite different to how they are, for instance, here. (Over there, I am a troll!) But when you read the newspapers or listen to TV, you just see the same kind of people performing.
I am not sure, myself, whether interested people will not make – no!- have not already made up their minds from the Web! On here, I can see quite clearly what, for instance, the banned BNP stands for. I can see, also, what UKIP and its very sensible supporters are on about.
On TV, you simply cannot do this.
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Gabriel Reply:
December 24th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
I agree Mike.
Television, or those on it responsible for political coverage, offer no real information for the parties who don’t make up the main three. The internet is much more detailed and I’m sure those who bother to check out the policies of those fighting the next election *online* will be both of a more considered opinion and have a much broader understanding of those they choose not to support.
Either politics needs more coverage on television to give us a balanced picture or we need coverage we have to be of a higher standard.
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The Chairman would have a much trouble with the “contestants” stying on-topic as you have with blog comments!
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You mention “…Foreign Policy, war and peace, defence, the economy, banking and monetary policy…”
ALL of which are EU competencies, and therefore things the UK “government” can do nothing about.
You then mention “relations with the EU”.
We do not have “relations” with the EU, we are part of it.
The minor local bickerings of the regional assemblies are all that we have to do, now; it’s not like we are an independent country, or anything.
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Stuart Fairney Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 10:29 am
Yes, you beat me to it, when you take out the regional assemblies and the EU, you have a House of Commons which is an uber-county council with it’s own army and hospitals and extensive powers to ban stuff.
The question really does become “What is the election about”
I think it was Hague (apologies if I have it wrong) who mused that we maybe entering the twilight days of representative democracy some years ago. We still have a (seemingly ever expanding) group of talking heads, but they seem less acountable and competent (I mean in the judicial sense). Add that to the frankly insubstantial differences between the major parties* and our “choice” is very limited indeed
* i.e. both front benches believe in the Afghan war, a nationalised health and education service, spending around 40%+ of GDP, running deficits, bank bailouts etc they will scream blue murder that it ain’t so, but really?
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Iain Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 11:46 am
Yes after our politicians have signed away our sovereignty to UN Conventions, EU treaties, avoid accountability by making Quango’s run everything so ‘its nothing to do with us Guv’ when it goes wrong, and prostrated themselves before party whips, so its no surprise the electorate treat them with contempt, especially as they prefer to honor the obligations they have signed up to with foreign institutions (that we didn’t want) rather than honor their obligations to us and stand full square with us.
Dogs can sense who is the leader of the pack, here the electorate can sense our politicians are just a bunch of puppets whose strings are being pulled elsewhere. As such I believe the expenses scandal is a symptom of this, where our politicians have no self respect, they couldn’t even summon up the courage to refuse the expenses system/deceit being brought in. If they don’t have the integrity to stand up for their own interests, what chance is there they would stand up and do what is right by the country?
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Derek W. Buxton Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 3:49 pm
I agree Iain, we are no longer a sovereign Country but also the three main parties like it that way. They also, I think, will go along the road of “world government”, it is only an extension of the EU after all. “Global warming” is for them a beneficial crisis, a myth though it is.
So much has been given away without the consent of the people by this self serving “elite”, that elections are pure farce, just changing faces or which side of the Chamber they sit on. Unfortunately, this leaves them free to harras all of us, the law abiding majority. But still the expenses are no doubt rolling in, they really do not understand shielded as they are.
They havn’t yet noticed the antics of the IPCC chairidiot raking it in from all the companies he touts for with the scam.
Number 6 Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Agreed, what difference does it really make who we vote in now? We are governed by the EU. We do not have a relationship, well alright perhaps we do but that relationship is one of master and servant.
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A.Sedgwick Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I agree with comments, my previously stated view is the most important legacy for future generations is the restoration/improvement of democracy. Manifesto pledges are unreliable to say the least and once elected governments think they have a mandate to implement whatever takes the fancy of the cabal in charge. One of many alarming revelations of late is how there was an orchestrated policy of uncontrolled immigration to multiculturise Britain – who agreed this? Then there is the massive increase in state jobs and the creation of a client state – East Germany rejuvenated. These are the type of questions for the three wise men of politics.
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As you correctly outline, this is already becoming all rather complicated.
Why is it that whenever Politicians become involved in almost any decision be it. Tax, Benefits, Health Service, Care for the Elderly, passing of Laws, Europe, etc, etc. it then always becomes even more complicated and expensive than before.
Face up to the facts.
Devolution has added to the complication of governing the United Kingdom, and screwed us in so many different ways, which were perhaps never thought of at the time.
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Kevin Peat Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 10:57 am
Complexity, esotericism … muddied waters …
Boom time for government – all those consultants and quangos needed to run it. Britain now serves its politicians and not the other way around.
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alan jutson Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Kevin
Agreed
That certainly is how it seems.
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Gabriel Reply:
December 24th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Ditto.
…
I would like 2010 to be the year Referenda is no longer a dirty word associated with stunting development. Socialists don’t like it because it throws a spanner in the works of big government. The collective wisdom of the people is greater than any government.
Would it be too much to hope that the Conservative manifesto will address the lop sided devolution settlement? I am not sure that the genie can be put back in the bottle, but if the union is to survive in the long term the English boil has to be lanced. I don’t want another English Parliament – simply that Scots and Welsh MPs cannot vote on matters where they are devolved to their own Parliaments: an English committee of Parliament.
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Iain Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 11:01 am
I am afraid it is with Cameron leading the Conservative party.
He has called us ‘Sour faced little Englanders’
He has boasted about all the Scottish blood flowing in his veins.
He hasn’t bothered to raise the issue of the constitutional discrimination of English people. He has a problem of even admitting there are such a people. The perfect response to Brown goading him about his polices being dreamt up on the playing fields of Eton was to retort that …is right that Brown’s policies for England were dreamt up on the playing fields of Scotland? But that requires him to believe there is an English people , and that we have had a raw deal form Labour’s devolution, which he doesn’t.
The one crumb he did cast in our direction was to have Ken Clarke review and make constitutional recommendations, which is the same as not wanting to do anything, for Ken Clarke was never going to look kindly on England or recognise and English identity, for he is an EU fanatic , the very same EU who want to balkanise England.
So don’t hold your breath that Cameron will do anything for England.
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Terry Reply:
December 24th, 2009 at 8:28 am
“I don’t want another English Parliament…”
“Another” one? I know Scotland has one. I know Wales has an Assembly. I know N. Ireland have Stormont. I didn’t know England already had one.
Tell me where the first one is and I’ll join your campaign to stop them building “another” one!
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John,
I am surprised; you have allowed the media to channel your thought process. What the general election shouldn’t be about is some contrived party leader “debates”. Why should the election become a political kind of ‘X- Factor’? They’ll be asking us to phone in for our favourite performance on the night at this rate! For democracy to really flourish we need far more than three appearances on television by the three main party leaders in what are loosely termed debates. Or perhaps, as I have noted before, we are just witnessing the death throes of what little is left of democracy in this country.
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“There is then a need for debate about English matters , as under both the Labour and the Conservative proposals these matters fall to be decided by the Union Parliament. In the case of the Conservatives they will be decided by English MPs only.”
I’m not sure about that. I was under the impression that Scottish MPs would still be perfectly entitled to amend and debate English laws but would simply be denied a vote at the very end – or am I wide of the mark?!
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John Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 10:39 am
I can not see why the Scottish MPs would still be perfectly entitled to amend and debate English laws.
If they will not be voting on English Laws, why should they debate it?.
This means that Scottish MPs will not be spending so much time at Westminster, so will we need so many of them there as there are at present?
I think for only English MPs to vote on English laws will be a big vote winner.
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I would have thought that this election should be mainly about getting public expenditure under control, restoring a dynamic economy, and recovering a vast range of powers from the EU.
We do not have to accept Labour’s devolution scheme in toto for all time. There are a couple of useful reforms that could usefully be implemented:
(1) Cancel Holyrood’s tax raising powers, thus converting Holyrood to an assembly, mirroring the Welsh and Northern ireland assemblies.
(2) Introduce a system whereby members of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies are not directly elected, but rather appointed by the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Westminster MPs.
These two simple measures would restore the Union and remove the West Lothian question. In case anyone raises the objection that a Scottish referendum would not approve these changes, there is a simple remedy: don’t give them one. There is after all a precedent. We have been denied a referendum on the Lisbon “Treaty” and I don’t recall the Scottish Nationalists protesting too much.
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Riddi of England Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:48 pm
recovering …. powers from EUssr.
Would you care to elaborate a little further on methodology?
Now that we are all fully fluent in the EU constitution I must have missed the “optionality and repatriation” clause that you infer exists.
The two simple measures you outline are laudable but too simple.
The strategic direction you advocate is the rebinding of the UK under a westminster parliament in England.
Such constitutional considerations and realignments are no longer a Competence of the westmister regional assembly.
Futher This rebinding would be in direct conflict with the European Commissions spatial development aims that will dissolve nations to be replaced by already created administrative EU regions.
If you think you live in England think again you do not.
If you live in Tier 3 region south west(England as was) and tier 3 region south east(England as was) you reside administratively in tier 2 region ARC MANCHE together with your neighbours across the English channel region Pas de Calais etc.
Scotland (north britain ) for all its avowed independence is subsumed into tier 2 region NORDIQUE.
I sympathise entirely your sentiments but forsee a difficulty or two.
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Stuart Fairney Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 8:06 pm
This is a counsel of despair, let us remember we are serious net contributors to these (moderator won’t allow me to use the word). Simply withdraw from the clauses by sovereign vote of parliament and damn their eyes to do somehting about it.
We are a people who have stood up to Spanish bullying in 1588, French aggression in the 1800’s and German nationalism twice in the twentieth century ~ we beat them all and I for one am damned if I will go meekly into a Euro dictatorship.
Don’t despair they are paper tigers ~ nothing more.
If I may,
No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
etc
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Derek Buxton Reply:
December 24th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Well said Mr. Fairney, I agree. The problem is finding enough politicians in our “parliament” to stand up and say “no more, we are a sovereign Nation. We rule ourselves, the single European Act is hereby repealed”.
Trouble is finding those with a spine.
Lindsay McDougall Reply:
December 25th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Yes, indeed there will be difficulties. I suspect that we not get what we want without a bit of a bust-up, whatever the current leader of the Conservative Party may say. It is all to play for, but only after we have won that large majority in Parliament.
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The election should be about getting our country back and making it a better place.
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Stuart Turner Reply:
December 24th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Here here, I quite agree.
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Yes Mr Redwood, it becomes difficult to frame programmes that will interest all UK voters, when most of the areas of government are also influenced by the EU and other international bodies. You have posed a lopsided question by only referring to the powers lost to the regional assemblies in Scotland and Wales, (themselves an EU construct) perhaps the real debate that would be of interest to the whole of the UK is the worth of a Westminster parliament in this post democratic era.
What we do know is whoever the participants from the three main parties in these programmes are, they will be only pretending that these elections are meaningful or that those we elect will have any power to decide on most of the laws which affect us. As such they will be taking part in a charade because all of the bread and butter issues are no longer decided by those we elect to Westminster. All we will be doing is to elect the party that will then select who our representatives will be in our real government and as that is socialist to the core one is left wondering what place Conservatism has in the future of this EU subsidiary state.
In all honesty the problem all you MPs have is to make yourselves appear relevant when we all know you are increasingly becoming superfluous to the running of this country and that, more than anything else is what you stand to gain from a televised debate between three leaders, all of whom are quite happy to be nothing more than EU front men. The problem of the parties is to make themselves appear different when in reality they are all offering exactly the same polices, as these are no longer determined by what is best for this sovereign nation state, but what can be fitted into a predetermined EU framework.
Gisela Stuart
“If the Treaty of Lisbon is ratified and devolution…continues apace, in fifteen to twenty years this House of Commons will have only two functions…to raise taxes and…to authorise war”.
Lord Tebbit
The Conservative party of today is trying to find a place for itself within a basically socialist structure.
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[...] Mr Redwood, it becomes difficult to frame programmes that will interest all UK voters, when most of the areas [...]
What an excellent idea! In fact, having a series of “lesser” debates, perhaps on channels such as BBC/SKY news, between each cabinet members and their shadows.
Not only would it mean more issues being covered, but might help halt the trend to presidential general elections- there would be less room for weak cabinet appointees.
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Stuart Fairney Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Great idea, I would love to see Bob Ainsworth held to account
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Aren’t there televised debates already ? PM’s Question Time for example ?
One thing seems apparent. The very obvious manifesto that the British public want will never be offered to them.
Hence the low poll ratings.
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What we need is a referendum on England seceeding from the United Kingdom. If this got a positive voter, and that seems likely, there would rapidly follow one on seceeding from Europe and we could leave Scotland, Wales and NI to continue as members of the EUSSR.
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As a result of lop-sided devolution and the intrusion of the EU into more and areas of what used to be national decisions the debate will be largely irrelevant to voters in England and only slightly less so to those in the other countries of the UK as has been mentioned in several other comments.
If nothing else this debate highlights the need to remove ourselves from the EU so that decision-making on key policy areas (e.g economic, defence and diplomatic) can be returned to the control of UK voters.
If Cameron could be persuaded to “grow a pair” and announce this in one of his responses during the debate he would a) derail the carefully stage-managed format – to his advantage, b) win it hands down and c) carry the country with him whenever Brown could summon up the courage to hold the General Election.
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Devolution would be a good subject to be debated as G Brown is very vulnerable on this topic. He is a Scottish MP with no say on most domestic policies in his own constituency but talks as if he does and thinks there is nothing wrong in him and his fellow Scottish MPs voting on English domestic affairs. In addition to having their own devolved Government Scots will still go into the election with an inbuilt Labour advantage by having fewer voters per constituency than the English ones. The TV media have steadfastly ingored the impact of Devolution on English democracy. If David Cameron cannot make something of this then he deserves to lose all the arguments of the debates.
It was Peter Mandelson who said that the days of representative democracy were over – well he would say that wouldn’t he!
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Iain Reply:
December 23rd, 2009 at 2:17 pm
You might have thought so Liz, but Cameron has been leading the Conservative party for 4 years, and been facing Brown for 2 1/2 years but has never raised the issue, even when there has been pressing issues to do so.
Cameron will not raise England’s constitutional issues under any circumstance, he thinks it would be a demeaning role to be England’s Prime Minister, even though if he becomes PM most of his policies would only effect England. He seems to think that English people should pay any price to keep the Union, in his view the young people of England, sick, or old are all worth sacrificing for the Union. He doesn’t seem to understand that if the Union is to have any future it has to be on the basis of equals, or that a Union built on discrimination has no future at all.
Cameron’s from of Unionism is actually writing its death knell.
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Derek Buxton Reply:
December 24th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Iain, hear, hear. Sums up “Dave” to a tee.
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Terry Reply:
December 24th, 2009 at 8:41 am
I can’t understand Cameron’s refusal to stand up for England either.
Some say the Union is in the Conservative Party’s DNA, but Wales has always voted against them and Scoltand was only once tory controlled (in the 50s).
It is ironic that Cameron’s actions will ultimately bring down the Union (by ignoring England’s demands for equality) for the sake of nations that soundly reject him.
The Conservatives are known as the “English Party” in Wales and Scotland. I wish they were, I really do!
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Liz Reply:
December 24th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Yes I agree. You can’t put the clock back – the “Union” is half dead now and is unlikely to be revived in its old form. Scotland and Wales do not feel they need it so much now that the EU has taken over so much of British law making This is going to be a very dirty election and the Conservatives have to play to their strengths -one of which is England – to have any chance of winning.
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Iain Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 10:20 am
“Some say the Union is in the Conservative Party’s DNA”
And they would be wrong, for the Union was a Whig creation, the opposition to it came from the Tories.
The current lot of Tories have wrapped themselves so tightly in the Union flag that they have forgotten the history of it and their party’s misgivings of it, which have now been proven correct.
As one Tory said at the time of the inception of the Union, ‘when you lie with beggars you get flees’ , well England has been well a truly constitutionally beggared by the Union.
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speaking for all of the IT and Telco workers in the country the general election is about the indian outsourcers and the flood of their nationals in the country undercutting native europeans, and we are looking for a party to choose which will give a clear steer that they are going to address the associated issues, handing out work visas and intra company transfer visas in the wreckless way labour have been doing is ruining our country for many reasons
i want to see politicians who understand the issues and dont give bland meaningless statements like woolas and brown
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I predict David ‘Dave’ Cameron is going to get himself run over in any debate if Brown is on form with comments like tax policies being dreamed up on the playing fields of Eton. Probably not new, but what a pile-driver.
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So why bother? The EU could announce our general election is null and void if it did not like the outcome and nobody who is able to make any laws which affect us all is elected anyway but appointed by those faceless, dishonest, corrupt (hardly people) in Brussels. Why wont the tories gather up their guts and pool them altogether and say this country is no longer paying into the bottomless money traps of the EU and LEAVE? You are all spineless, weak, corrupt sheep. There isn’t a Statemen between you. I am reading “Ten Years On” by Dr Lee Rotherham which is written from the viewpoint of 2020 having left the EU in 2010 – Some hope!
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