Enough, already

6 June 2009

The Spectator on the calls for constitutional reform

That so many Labour Cabinet ministers are now straining at the leash to reform the constitution sums up so much of what is wrong with our politics; their enthusiasm is, in most cases, sudden and self-evidently a moral flag of convenience. Harriet Harman was right — yes, you read that correctly — when she said that ‘trust has got to be rebuilt first, before people will engage in how we can use this moment to strengthen democracy’. That will not happen until voters have had a chance to purge the Commons in a general election. This Parliament lacks the moral authority to reform the stationery cupboard, let alone the voting system. In opposition, Labour promised a referendum on electoral reform in its first term in office. Nobody would believe it was delivering one in its last year in government from any motive other than naked self-interest.

Let us be precise about ‘reform’. As Fraser Nelson writes on page 10, transferring power from politicians to the people in the ways that Daniel Hannan MEP and Douglas Carswell MP suggest has much to recommend it. We also need a stronger House of Lords to act as a check on the Commons now that the Whips have come close to turning it into an arm of the executive. The only way that the Lords can have the legitimacy to fulfil this role is if most of its members are elected. They should, however, be voted in on a different cycle and for a much longer term than MPs: we do not need a structurally confrontational legislature. A small appointed element should be maintained: perhaps 20 per cent of the whole. The ability to appoint life peers provides a necessary way of bringing outside expertise into the government.

The authority of the Commons flows from the people it represents. Until the people have had a chance to hold its membership to account, talk of grandiose reform and rewriting of the rules is both preposterous and morally outrageous. Our constitution is too important to be tinkered with by this gang of discredited and exhausted spivs. Politician, heal thyself.

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Chris B

June 6th, 2009 1:11pm Report this comment

Separation of the executive and the legislative functions through an increase in number of independent members of parliament would help. The potential weaknesses of faction or party based politics have been well were identified by the framers of the US constitution - nothing much has changed. MP's moral failings are human - the constitution should seek to abrogate them, expecting MP's to suddenly become 'moral beings' is unrealistic idealism,

Chris B

June 6th, 2009 1:30pm Report this comment

Separation of legislative and executive functions is needed - would more independent MP's help? The framers of the US constitution recognized the potential pitfalls of factionalism - and nothing much has changed (although the dangers have become ever clearer in both the US and the UK). Constitutional reform is needed - MP's won't become 'moral' by wishing it so - the people need an ingrained suspicion of the motives of those who seek to govern and the protection of a suitably sceptical constitution.

Kered Ybretsae

June 7th, 2009 5:14pm Report this comment

Well the DisHonourable Delboys and Delgirls MP's are all a bit shaken. This will only be the end of a political era, when and if a new system of 'unfiddlable' expenses is drawn up. Not from these fiddlers on the rooftops of Parliament but from an Independant ungetatable, corruption-free group of men and women outside of politics. These people will have a huge responsibility to restore faith in a disgraced and rotten political system. It has been rotten and corrupt for years but only now we have (for how long) a free press that has published and damned and disgraced a whole generation of MP's.

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