How the new government can prove it is progressive.
I am not and never have been a football fan, but I’m pleased that, at the moment, we are still in the competition. Staying there will bring a lot of happiness to a lot of people (and a lot of business to struggling pubs.)
As it happens I did watch the closing stages of the 1966 final from the back of a bar in northern Italy, where I was on a camping trip with a Scout Group. We were wearing our Scout Uniforms, with our little Union Flags over our left breast pockets, and were a bit disconcerted to discover the Italians in the crowded bar seemed to favour the Germans (their allies in the war?) over us. An early drip in the realisation that not everyone loved the British, as we’d been brought up to suppose.
I’ve read that in the first three rounds of the football World Cup England did not take part because “the Rest of the World weren’t good enough.” Then, when we did deign to take part in 1950, we were drawn against the USA, who thrashed us 6-3, even though our line-up included the legendary Stanley Matthews, Alf Ramsey and Billy Wright. In the next competition we lost by a devastating 7-1 to Hungary in Budapest.
There could have been no clearer signal that the idea of “British exceptionalism” is a complete myth, however “glorious” some like to think our past has been. We are “run of the mill,” much like similar medium-sized economies, pretty good at some things (the BBC and impartial communications, the Arts, higher education and research, pharmaceuticals, financial services) but with many imperfections and plenty to learn from others.
But, 70 years later, we still talk of being “world leaders,” the “best in the world and the envy of the world.” It’s not just Boris Johnson and his bluster. In yesterday’s Guardian the front page headline says that Ed Miliband claims “Labour would take global lead on climate.” In today’s Gordon Brown writes that if we leave European bodies such as the ECHR “we would concede that we can never be a leader in Europe again.”
Why do we so hanker for leadership? Why not be content to be a willing and co-operative partner with the others? I hope the new government will forget about these fantasises and just concentrate on our becoming moderately efficient.
This is especially true of the way we are governed. It may have created and run an empire which covered a third of the globe, but it is no longer fit for purpose. Here are three things the new government could do to put matters right, all of which should be announced and some even implemented in the first 100 days.
1. 1. Restore a “Fixed Term Parliament” Act. It is a nonsense that the existing prime minister has the power to choose to go to the country when she/he thinks there is the best chance of winning (even if they can get this spectacularly wrong.)
2. 2. Implement urgent reforms to procedures so that parliament controls the executive, and not vice versa as at present. Ian Dunt’s book “How Westminster works. . . and why it doesn’t” gives detailed of how this can be achieved. At the moment governments are not subject to effective scrutiny and that is one reason why they have been so inefficient.
3. 3. Set up “citizens’ assemblies” to examine our constitution and covering such as the powers of the devolved administrations and their relationships with Westminster, the government of England, the entrenchment of the powers of local government, the various electoral systems, the separation of powers, our international relationships, especially respecting human rights. This should be a long term process probably designed to cover at least two parliaments.
If the new government dares to implement something the lines of the above it will be truly progressive: it will have gained power in order to give it way, and thus empower the nations. If we continue with “the mixture as before” then nothing much will change.
We get it, you hate Britain.
ReplyDeleteRestore a “Fixed Term Parliament” Act. It is a nonsense that the existing prime minister has the power to choose to go to the country when she/he thinks there is the best chance of winning (even if they can get this spectacularly wrong.)
No, what would be a nonsense would be for a government that hs lost the confidence of Parliament to be locked into office but without power for up for four years. Have you not seen the awful mess the USA gets into when the executive and the legislature are at war, with gridlocks and government shutdowns and nothing able to be dne until the next scheduled election date? How could you want to import that over here?
Implement urgent reforms to procedures so that parliament controls the executive, and not vice versa as at present.
Parliament must not control the executive. You cannot run a country with a committee of 650 members. You can't run a company with a committee of ten. What you need is to delegate the day-to-day running to a single person (who can then delegate farther as needs be) and have a board which can appoint and sack hat person, but which cannot directly interfere in the day-to-day decisions.
That is what we have, with Parliament as the board, and it is the only workable system. Having 650 committee members all wanting an equal say over every little action of the executive is just an insane idea.
Set up “citizens’ assemblies” to examine our constitution and covering such as the powers of the devolved administrations and their relationships with Westminster, the government of England, the entrenchment of the powers of local government, the various electoral systems, the separation of powers, our international relationships, especially respecting human rights.
As long as I can vote for who represents me on these 'citizens' assemblies', because otherwise you are talking about completely disenfranchising me and depriving me of having any say over the constitutional arrangements of my country.
If the new government dares to implement something the lines of the above it will be truly progressive: it will have gained power in order to give it way,
I love the idea of Parliament gaining power in order to give it away; but I want power to be given away to individuals and for every one of us to be able to live our lives on our own responsibility, free from as much contact with the state as is humanly possible.
You clearly don't; you just want Parliament's powers to be given to ever more localised groups of busybodies to allow them to regulate their neighbours' lives, and for nanny state to play the role of helicopter parent, nudging us in the ways you think we should go, taxing us when we dare to want to do something you disapprove of, and always there with a cuddle and a cushion to make sure we never have to face the consequences of our own decisions.
If that's progressivism, you can shove progressivism where the sun does not shine; I, and the majority of the British public, want nothing to do with your progressivism.
Thanks as always for your comments, but you do have a vivid imagination.
ReplyDeleteNo, I don’t hate Britain. In fact I am in favour of the Union (though ambivalent about Northern Ireland) and just want us to be better governed. That means, among other things, expanded, clearly defined and entrenched devolution to the nations and something similar to the regions of England.
While it lasted the fixed Term Parliament Act actually worked very well. Every possible variation of the terms of our leaving the EU was devised, discussed and dismissed because it was clear that none of them were good for the UK. So the idea should have been dropped, or, at the very least, referred to another referendum with proper safeguards.
We should move away from the “elected dictatorship” into which our democracy has morphed, and which has resulted in the recent massive inefficiencies, and restore “government by discussion” in which the executive’s actions and proposals for changed legislation are subjected to proper scrutiny.
As for Citizens’’ Assemblies, I am not suggesting that they should have decision making powers: just that they should explore all the alternatives available for each area so that MPs, who would make the actually decisions, would have a clearer idea of what the public actually think once they have considered all the experts (sic) evidence.
No, I don’t hate Britain.
DeleteIf you didn’t hate Britain then you wouldn’t call it a ‘mediocre country’.
While it lasted the fixed Term Parliament Act actually worked very well. Every possible variation of the terms of our leaving the EU was devised, discussed and dismissed because it was clear that none of them were good for the UK.
No; it was clear none of them were acceptable to that Parliament. Very different thing. That’s why we needed a new Parliament that was actually prepared to carry out the wishes of the electorate, which we got when the people were allowed to have their say — about a year after they should have been. A year wasted.
So the idea should have been dropped, or, at the very least, referred to another referendum with proper safeguards.
Of course when it finally was referred back to the people they overwhelmingly told Parliament to bloody well get on with getting us out of the European Union.
We should […] restore “government by discussion” in which the executive’s actions and proposals for changed legislation are subjected to proper scrutiny.
Insane. You cannot run a country with a committee of 650 all arguing over every little decision.
so that MPs, who would make the actually decisions, would have a clearer idea of what the public actually think once they have considered all the experts (sic) evidence.
But the MPs wouldn’t have a clear idea what I think, would they? Not unless either I’m in the assembly (and I have a life, so I doing have time for that) or I can vote for somebody I can trust to represent what I think to be on the assembly in my place.
So either we elect the members of these assemblies, or you are proposing to disenfranchise me.
though ambivalent about Northern Ireland
DeleteOh, and what’s that supposed to mean? I am ambivalent about Islington, but I don’t propose to throw it to the wolves.
I don't recall ever having called the UK or England "mediocre." I think it is a lovely country, and, although I have lived and worked in two other continents and on in continental Europe I have always come back to the UK in-between times. I now live within 400 metres of where I was born and brought up so it is a nonsense to accuse me of "hating" the country." I merely want us to recognise our true place in the world, play a constructive part in its governance and be better governed.
ReplyDeleteRe- Ireland, I have no evidence, but an impression that whereas most of the Welsh and Scots have for most of the recent centuries been happy with membership of the Union, most of the Irish haven't, so I am "ambivalent" about whether or not Northern Ireland should remain in it. That seems a reasonable position to take.
I am away on holiday from tomorrow (in Wales) so will have to leave the discussion here.
DeleteI don't recall ever having called the UK or England "mediocre."
You will have to explain to me, then, the difference between ‘mediocre’ and ‘run of the mill’ because I don’t see it.
I merely want us to recognise our true place in the world
Our ‘true place in the world’, of course, is that the world would be unrecognisable without the role that Britain has played. Without Britain, no Industrial Revolution. Without Britain, African slaves still being shipped across the Atlantic to Spanish and Portuguese colonies. And those are just the top of the iceberg.
I have no evidence, but an impression that whereas most of the Welsh and Scots have for most of the recent centuries been happy with membership of the Union, most of the Irish haven't
Say that to the face of an Ulsterman, I dare you.