WRITTEN ON March 9th, 2007 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Political engagement, What do we want?
I’d just like to reassure friends and colleagues who heard “yesterday in Parliament” that Ruth and I do not NOT, as was suggested by Chas Walker MP, form a conspiracy to undermine Parliamentary democracy. Au contraire, we love it and want it to be as effective as possible.
And we don’t mean, in Kelvin Hopkins MP’s words, to sound “patronising, manipulative and sinister…”
I think the strength of Members’ feelings reflects the fears MPs have of direct democracy and the “Presidential style”. They dont like things like e-petitions which bypass them and are wary of the effects of crudely automated systems which give their constituents problems. There is apprehension of how power is now exercised compounded by a fear of the unknown “new mediaworld” which I think they understood Ruth and me to exemplify (if only they knew…)
We accepted a last-minute invitation from the Committe Clerk (who knows us through Ideal Goverment) to give evidence the Public Admin Select Committee. The theme was citizen feedback (such as the recent e-petitions system). We had a terrific time, the Clerk and the Chair, Tony Wright, were brilliant, and we had a good old ding dong. Tom Steinberg (MySoc) and Ross Ferguson from Hansard Society gave evidence also.
We said MySoc was exemplary, and that told them e-services generally should be better designed, based on a foundation of trust, and the role of MPs was to bring empathy and common sense into the process of computerising public services.
Today in Parliament is here
(18 mins 24seconds in, I’m told)
2 Responses to “How do you deny being a conspiracy? William and Ruth attend the Public Admin Select Committee”
The uncorrected oral evidence transcript is online at:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmpubadm/uc251-iii/uc25102.htm
The astonishing questions from
Kelvin Hopkins (Labour, Luton North) Q179 – Q183
“patronising, manipulative and even sinister.”
and1
and Charles Walker (Conservative, Broxbourne, Hertfordshire) Q184 – Q188
“You do not have to respect us, and I do not care what you think of us.”
deserve to be widely circulated amongst their internet using constituents, who they will no doubt soon be email spamming for votes or for party political funding.
These MPs appear to be blaming people who use the internet for their own multiple failures to independently scrutinise, in detail, and to amend or reject the wretched policies and legislation which are being inflicted on us by the Executive branch of Government.
For Hopkins to claim that the Internet must be controlled as a communications medium, in case it might be abused by some right wing Hitler figure, is playing into the hands of the equally repressive Stalinist or Maoist or Careerist media control freaks, so evident amongst his own Labour Cabinet.
“Q185 Mr Walker: I think that there is a mood among the intelligentsia, the media and the new media, which would be classed as yourselves, to denigrate the parliamentary democracy that we have had for the past 250 years basically by saying that Members of Parliament are totally useless and are paper-sifters”
For Walker to imply that he and his fellow MPs are collectively somehow doing a good job and are upholding 250 years of Parliamentary democracy, as they permit endless Government guillotine motions curtailing debate, leaving whole swathes of legislation unread, let alone amended or rejected as being repetitive or idiotic or evil, is insulting.
You are a very very bad man! A threat to democracy and personally responsible for voter numbers falling off a cliff. Nothing to do with the last three elections being:
a. foregone conclusions
b. a pisspoor Tory opposition
c. triangulation
d. voter apathy as we see that whoever we vote for the govt always wins.
Mr Hopkins should have a word with Ms Blears, who seems to think she only needs to keep away from a couple of dozen target seats for Labour to win the next election.
You were lucky you didn’t get the blame for the collapse in Labour Party membership too.
Wibbi (for it is the rules) MPs were capable of holding the executive to account and not simply lobby fodder. It was, I think, Stephen Pound who said during the smoking debate that the danger of actually participating was that you changed your mind. That is how it’s supposed to work.
In fact, wibbi there were no political parties at Westminster, and all MPs were true independents who did the job they were elected to do. Then we as electors might engage bit more. All I’ve ever got from my MP is the party line, even on local controversial issues.
Also, wibbi local councils had more autonomy over policy and funding. Then we might engage more.
The power is in the hands of MPs if they’re willing to use it.
(I listened to the whole thing by the way)