Friday rant: democracy on the cheap
If there’s one thing that annoys me, it is when the same people who defend the first past the post system then go on to argue that we need less MPs.
I’ve ranted on the blog before about this, and i’m afrad i’m going to have to do it again.
Deep breath.
WHY OH WHY OH WHY OH WHY?
Of all the ways to save taxpayers money, who is it that really thinks that having less MPs – and so by definition having them further away from the public – is the best way of restoring trust between politicians and the public?
Lack of trust and engagement between politicians is a massive problem – and is something that Demos is dicussing all three party conferences this year. But surely there is a less penny-pinching, short-sighted way of making progress than this. Some of the work (pdf) done by the Design Council, for example, on constitutency offices.
I like a lot of the suggestions made by David Cameron today.
• Creating an independent mechanism to investigate breaches of the Ministerial Code would be no bad thing
• Introducing tighter caps on the number of paid and unpaid ministers would help cut down the payroll vote
• Ending the practice of MPs setting their own salaries would get MPs out of a very difficult position
But i really do hope that those people who want to maintain first-past-the-post realise that saving a miniscule amount of money by slashing the number of MPs just isn’t the answer.
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The thing that makes me want to tear out all the hair on my back and use it to stuff toy dragons is when people use "less" when they mean "fewer." Aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh
Sorry Duncan, I've missed the point, haven't I?
I completely agree with the spirit of your rant, if not the grammar. I'm currently writing something about experts in government, where the solution is seen as having more of them, without really asking how they're doing their job. That's similar, somehow...
My point was that if you think first-past-the-post is great because it gives people a local MP, then why cut the number of MPs..making them less local than before?