We can all heave a sigh of relief as this morning’s election results from the United States indicate that they may be moving to a more enlightened future. Fingers crossed.
Here in the UK Andy Burnham promised us a different kind of politics with a move away from point scoring to an emphasis on solving problems.
There was sadly no sign of this new deal at Prime Minister’s questions today. With Mr Burnham in the Caribbean for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference his place was taken by the Deputy Prime Minister Louise Haigh. The Conservative Deputy turned out to be an Alex Burghart. This was the first time I’d heard of him. He hammered away with all his six questions on the size of what he called the Welfare Bill and what was the government doing to bring it down.
M/s Haigh put in a feisty response, pointing out that the bill had grown very large under the previous administration and the government would do its best to reduce it by helping people back into work.
The ding-dong lasted a full ten minutes or so, with some humour and cheers and jeers from the respective back benches.
Happily I have never had need for what I prefer to think of a “social security” which has more feeling of well-being secured by social insurance rather than "welfare " which has the air of help at the whim of a lady bountiful.
Be that as it may , if I were one of the six million or so (I pluck the figure out of the air: more accurate and detailed figures are easily available) who for one reason or another are unable to participate in a normal lifestyle without help, and watching this, I would be distressed.
I/we are not a joke, we are not an object for point-scoring, quips and jeers, but men and women, part of the “poorest hes (and shes) who have a right to live as the richest hes (and shes”
No wonders many of them feel that “ the system doesn’t work for us” so don’t vote.
Rather than a display of verbal dexterity, this “Leaders’” part of Question Time should be reformed so that each leader of an opposition party must give advance notice of a question, seeking genuine information, to the PM, then allowed a given number of “supplementaries” to the answer.
This could just provoke some serious discussion rather than a display of presentation skills. (To adapt quotation from the Brexit debate era: “This country has had enough of presentation skills.”)
There was some indication of this approach when later questions came from back bench MPs, a very large number of whom were Liberal Democrats. Unless she is astonishingly well-informed, M/s Haigh had obviously been informed of their content and was able to give constructive answers.
Thus backbench MPs were given the opportunity to show to their constituents that the government was being made aware of and challenged to deal with their problems. That is what “ holding to account” is all about and one of the reasons parliament exists (though a lot of these issues should be dealt with by local councillors with genuine devolution.)
If I am right and Liberal Democrats and Labour are indeed co-operating in this a to improve the government’s performance and the relationship between government, parliament and the electors that is good news.
