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Sunday 27 May 2012

Is There a Real Desire for Change at Westminster?

Saturday, 27th June 2009

This may seem a peculiar thing to say after weeks of anger from the public and self-laceration among MPs, but I'm not talking about the fall-out from the expenses scandal.

I was in Westminster for the first time in ages the other day to attend a meeting about Bangladesh in the Lords. I can't remember the number of the committee room now and I could certainly never locate it again. The Commons (or was it Lords?) staff were very helpful in helping me find it, although stricltly speaking they allowed me down a stretch of corrridor and down a staircase that was out-of-bounds. At the end of it I felt like a little boy on my first day at school. This sort of thing often happens to me when I venture into parliament. Why is it, for instance, that whenever I show a group of people round the place I always end up outside Ian Paisley's office?

The whole Palace of Westminster is designed to make you feel alienated. And if I feel like that, what must it be like for a member of the public coming to parliament for the first time to meet their MP or attend a committee hearing.

For a long time I felt alone in this and didn't think it was right for an experienced journalist to admit feeling a weeny bit lost in a big scary institution. But a few weeks ago I was having a coffee with Jon Snow who said he feels exactly the same way every time he goes into parliament.

We agreed that there needed to be some serious reform, not just tinkering around the edges by strengthening the odd committee here or appointing a new speaker there. Ideally Jon would cloe down the old Houses of Parliament altogether and start from scratch with a modern institution. The existing building (a kitsch Victorian faux-traditional folly after all) could be used as a museum.

I'm beginning to think he's right. It's certainly the case that the formal and informal parliamentary business that takes place in Portcullis House has a completely different feel to it. I always prefer meeting people there.

Is there a groundswell of support for genuine reform? I don't know. But there could not be a better moment.

Filed under: Commons (2 more articles) , Lords (3 more articles) , MPs' expenses (115 more articles) , Parliament (255 more articles) , Westminster (186 more articles)

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Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

June 27th, 2009 4:55pm Report this comment

A meeting about Bangladesh?

Are there not pressing concerns a little closer to home, over which our Lords and your good self might pore?

Or is the decimation of our own working people too humdrum a subject for discussion?

Rhoda Klapp

June 27th, 2009 5:00pm Report this comment

Right, Martin. This is a baby. This is the bathwater.

You don't need to change the building, or the robes, or the wigs and the old-fashioned speech patterns.

You DO need to change the people who sit there. Both houses, all parties until there are no cheats left.

Then let the new people follow the rules in the way the electorate wishes.

Oh, and a changing of the guard in political journalism wouldn't go amiss.

Tom Willis

June 27th, 2009 5:06pm Report this comment

And how about it being away from London? Say Winchester or York, or better yet somewhere thoroughly dowdy and practical like Milton Keynes or even better Telford.

Get the UK talking shop out of its comfort zone, make MPs more subjected to the real world and move it all closer to the other countries involved.

We could then start talking about a parliament for England, any suggestions?

This might all sound a bit like 'sending the miscreants to Coventry', and it is meant to.

Hugh

June 27th, 2009 5:24pm Report this comment

I agree, we need to get rid of that faux-Gothic folly and replace it with a giant concrete and glass cube. We should take inspiration from the London city hall - glass buildings are synonymous with transparent politics.

Edward

June 27th, 2009 6:40pm Report this comment

Tom Willis, June 27th 5:06 pm

How about Brussels ? Is that far enough away ?

Edward

June 27th, 2009 6:44pm Report this comment

"I felt like a little boy on my first day at school".
Your article captured your mood nicely, Martin.

Edward

June 27th, 2009 6:52pm Report this comment

Rhoda : 5:00 pm
Well said !

Why don't you write the articles in future.
Common sense is in such short supply it seems.

john

June 27th, 2009 9:42pm Report this comment

American politians are busy turning their economy into a basket case over non-existant global warming. If ever there was a cause that hightlights the distance between the civil servant and the public it is this issue. Yet in this country there is hardly a voice of dissent, either from politicians or the media. Why should this be a special issue ? Surely we can extrapolate to any other issue and say is the quality of decision making any better ? Prove it then. I say "it is too risky, I don't trust you" , let me spend my own money - small state

hadrian

June 27th, 2009 10:18pm Report this comment

It seems to me the further the politicians move from all the traditions and rituals, the more corrupt they get. After all, it was Speaker Martin who began ditching the robes of Office and look where it took us! These riruals and pomp are not there to make the office bearers look big but quite the opposite- to remind them of how small they really are.

JohnAnt

June 28th, 2009 2:04am Report this comment

No, Martin, it's not a peculiar question at all.
And the answer is 'No.' There is no real desire, nor any will, intention, insight or perception, appetite or instinct for change.
Understanding is lacking, so is self-knowledge, a set of moral values, a sense of proportion, any selfless motivation, any real political convictions, an historical grasp of the institutions or anything beyond personal talents and a general bland 'here-because-we're-here' air of entitlement.
There'll be no 'genuine reform' until they're all swept away with the cleansing Flood of a general Election.

Simon Stephenson

June 30th, 2009 8:22am Report this comment

I wonder, Martin, if the feeling of discomfort you and Jon Snow get in the Houses of Parliament is down to you and your prejudices, your hopes and expectations, rather than there being much intrinsically wrong with the buildings and surroundings themselves? Are you feeling let down by the people, but taking it out on the buildings instead?

We've become very lax in recent years in allowing the people in important positions to spend their lives dealing with red herrings. There's much kudos to be gained from making a lot of noise about things that don't matter, and there will always be people who will mistake this recognition for achievement. The mistake we've made is in allowing/encouraging these people to migrate from being soap-box bores into positions of power and influence - positions for which they have very little aptitude.

I think you would find that if Parliament became once again the vanguard of reason and intellect, where even clever-clogs have to be on their toes just to keep up, you and I and others would find it a more hospitable place. We're perhaps allowing a grand old building to be tainted by the bunch of blissfully unaware mediocrities and incompetents who reside there, charged with addressing the hard realities of a nation of sixty million people, but instead playing out a farce on the periphery.

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