One of my family's favourite sayings is that only person to enter the Houses of Parliament with honest intentions was Guy Fawkes.
With the public perception of modern Politics this could be argued to be true.
The big problem is that the public don't vote for people, they vote for parties. You could be the best candidate in the world but if you aren't in the right party you won't stand a chance. For example of Jesus was standing for the Liberal Democrats - (I know, I'm going to hell anyway...), Adolf Hitler was standing for the Conservative party and Stalin was standing for Labour party in say in an urban constituency like Liverpool and let's be honest Labour would get in.
If it was a seat in an area like Eton, or a Rural area then generally it would be Hitler arriving in Westminster as MP.
At no point would Jesus get voted in to these constituencies because; who wants to throw their vote away on a third party?
I'll give you that there are marginal seats where the vote swings wildly but between the big two. Take Chatham and Aylesford which has swapped sides and has had two good MPs. Now when 2015 comes along there is a good chance, despite how well Tracey has done in representing her constituency, that she will lose many votes from swing voters who are unhappy with the Coalition/Conservatives in Government (despite what she may or may have rebelled against.)
It is sad that many good candidates, who care deeply about their constituents will never get voted in because they are in the wrong party. Even Independents, who are not tied to the Party mast and policies will very rarely get in without the backing of money and party activists and are considered a wasted vote to the public. Indeed the Libdems are often seen as wasted vote.
Even if there are good MPs, and I really think there are some fantastic ones in Parliament, mostly back benchers but they are tarred with the same brush as those who have caused such public uproar. Ed Balls' time at the treasury that helped the current crisis, the Cross party MPs who were part of the expenses scandal, tuition fee Lib dems... it is a big brush that paints corruption and double standards across the whole house no matter what your Party affiliation or position. The grand standing for the benefits of the TV cameras and the pithy sound bites that ultimately don't solve problems such as the exchange about power companies between Ed Balls and George Osborne yesterday, I find it hard to imagine that Salisbury and Wellington or Asquith and Bonar Law behaved in this manner, so why do our current MPs think it is ok?
Sadly, should Guido sneak under the Palace of Westminster and blew the lot up, I'm sure that there would not be that much public outcry and the notion that well, we're probably better off without them!
The mother parliament of many others around the World and the Commonwealth needs reform, it needs to generate interest from the people and represent them properly. Think of all the centuries of struggle that has gone on to get people the vote and a say in how they are ruled and now the apathy that has set in and the lack of engagement this centuries old institution has caused would make people like Fergus O'Conner, Emiline Pankerhurst and the others wonder why they bothered in the first place.
We need change and better democracy.
No comments:
Post a Comment