24 hours after the Derek Conway report was published David Cameron took decisive action against the disgraced MP and he has kept up the momentum over the last week with welcome requirements for greater openness from his frontbenchers with regard to their taxpayer-funded expenses.
It's also fair to say that Mr Cameron, with considerable support from Ken Clarke and Andrew Tyrie, has been working on many other proposals that aim to restore the public standing of politicians. At the start of last month he signalled the abolition of the new (and abused) communications allowance, the closure of the parliamentary pension scheme to new MPs and tougher investigation of breaches of the ministerial code.
Much greater boldness is still needed, however.
We've argued before that the Conservative Party should fashion itself as an anti-establishment party: standing up for the little guy - not big government, not big business, not big charities and certainly not big political elites. Finding ways of delivering more power to people is the fourth theme of our 'Agenda 2008'...
We recommend that the Conservative Party stands for the following pro-democracy principles at the next General Election:
No more taxpayer funding of political parties. This would require David Cameron to change position somewhat but voters don't mind politicians who change their minds after listening to the public. Mr Cameron could quite reasonably say that there is currently such an anti-politician mood that further state funding of politics would be wrong (at least until politicians put their wider house in order). He could make a pledge not to increase state funding of incumbent politicians for the whole of the next parliament. We would prefer a principled rather than a pragmatic opposition to state funding of politics - based on the idea that politicians should have to raise funds by appealing to free citizens, not compelled taxpayers - but a temporary pragmatism would be a very acceptable stop-gap.
Powers to control failing politicians. The very first idea on 100policies.com (which btw we are determined to revive in 2008) was Andrew Boff's proposal that London's voters should have the power to recall a failing Mayor. It was a good idea that won overwhelming backing from ConservativeHome readers. David Cameron has proposed that local voters have the power to reject large increases in council tax. We need similar ideas to control underperforming politicians between elections.
Reform of PMQs. Prime Minister's Question Time is becoming a national joke. It's not a search for truth, it's all about political point-scoring. The Prime Minister doesn't answer questions. David Cameron routinely bests Gordon Brown at their weekly encounters and he would, therefore, be able to suggest reform from a position of strength. It may be that PMQs is unreformable but we should look for options. We could consider a PMQs where some questions come direct from the public - the Tories could collect them at roadshow events of the kind promoted by Theresa May. Mr Brown might be less contemptuous of real peoples' questions. We could also move to the Australian model of parliamentary accountability. Any minister can be called to the despatch box during their more regular ministerial question times.
The political-job-for-life mentality must end. Too many MPs selected for a safe seat have come to think they have a job for life. Over on the Platform John Strafford advocates the return of Association Adoption Meetings. Welcome though that may be, we don't think that even that goes far enough. Stronger mechanisms for ensuring that MPs do not become lazy or remote are necessary. Unfortunately the Tory leadership are currently going in the wrong direction on incumbency. All sitting MEPs who wanted to stand again have been 'toplisted' - placed at the top of regional selection lists. This 'toplisting' hasn't been agreed by all members. Grassroots members have been excluded from the process of ranking incumbent MPs. The centre has also imposed heavy restrictions on candidates' ability to inform members of their views. What results is short-term peace and quiet for the party leadership but the medium-term perpetuation of an MEP grouping that is at odds with mainstream opinion in the party and nation. Every step that protects incumbent parliamentarians from democratic accountability only adds to the low standing of politicians.
What other things would you suggest to increase the accountability of politicians?
We could consider a PMQs where some questions come direct from the public
Well that's fine, but who's going to ask them in Parliament? The MPs? Technically, that is already their job; to ask questions on behalf of their constituents.
PMQs is half and hour out of a Parliamentary week. It's no big deal.
Posted by: Josh | February 07, 2008 at 07:46
Sorry, but what exactly is 'Conservative' about all this event-driven messing about with the constitution?
Posted by: Drusilla | February 07, 2008 at 08:12
Totally agree with everything in this editorial.
I didn't have a chance to watch PMQ's until late last night. From a purely partisan point of view it was a great success. David Cameron made Brown look a fool (again) and a pretty wooden one at that. And yet I was left feeling that it was all a bit of theatre that would not have looked out of place at a junior debating society at school.
Andrew Tyrie's plans to update parliamentary practice cannot come too soon.
Posted by: Malcolm Dunn | February 07, 2008 at 09:42
DC should be making noises about a return to old fashioned values and un-doing much of the legislative dross that NuLab has inflicted on this country.
As for PMQ's, not much needs to be done. Firstly we need a decent and un-biased Speaker, who will ensure that the protagonists respond properly and correctly. As we know, the PM always has an advantage, the issue is, that that is not abused.
As regards voting for MEP's in the EU Parliamentary elections, surely the present arrangements are undemocratic, as we would think them, as they are PR and you vote for the party list.
As for the party of the people and against big government, that's novel.! That will take some selling and convincing, as NuLab will immediately scream job cuts in the public sector and welfare cuts for all.
Posted by: George Hinton | February 07, 2008 at 09:50
The question is, what are political parties for?
Are they there to support like-minded representatives of the people, providing a mechanism for them to work to together for the benefit of constituents?
Or are they clubs, providing a route to privilege and power for those who uphold the club rules and protect the interests of their fellow members?
We need some real leadership to show the Conservative Party is "fit for purpose".
Posted by: deb | February 07, 2008 at 10:41
Why stop at MPs ? Every civil servant whether national or council should be accountable for his/her expenditure of our money.
Posted by: Harry Flashman | February 07, 2008 at 11:03
Ministers are regularly questioned in the house.
I'm fine with the existing structure of PMQs.
It would be hard to find a good mechanism for Theresa May's idea. Its a laudable ambition though.
Maybe we could go back to first principles. David Cameron is an MP, he could start by asking the people of Witney what they'd like to ask Brown. It would start the move away from the Presidential style of things. I like the fact that in terms of the US our most powerful politicians are really just bods from the House of Representatives.
I do want to ban tax payer funding of political parties. If you can't generate enough interest to raise money then sorry, try something else plumbing or sparking or something. You would however have to bring in strict donation & spending limits too.
Posted by: eurosceptic left wing liberal tory toff punk | February 07, 2008 at 11:48
eurosceptic left wing liberal tory toff punk | February 07, 2008 at 11:48
Agreed No public funding of political parties, it is a licence to be a dictator.
I generally follow the Tory proposals
Maximum donation per year per person or organisation should br 50k
No to state funding
A maximum spend per year for each party centrally and another per seat
Clear transparancy of who is donating what.
Posted by: Bexie | February 07, 2008 at 13:07
We've argued before that the Conservative Party should fashion itself as an anti-establishment party: standing up for the little guy - not big government, not big business, not big charities and certainly not big political elite
Well, you'd have to close your party down and start again if you want to go against its entire history and principles. "The Tory party, fighting for the little guy against big business." Yeah, right.
Posted by: passing leftie | February 07, 2008 at 13:31
You know, switching the House of Commons elections to a London Mayor supplementary vote system or a French two-round system would do a lot to alleviate the curse of safe seats and complacent MPs.
We currently have a system where virtually no MP has or needs the support of 50% of their voting constituents. This contributes directly to their feeling of entitlement.
If they needed to fight tooth and claw to get 50% support, either in a second round, or with redistributed voting from eliminated candidates, we'd end up with an all-round less loathsome bunch of MPs.
Posted by: Martin Coxall | February 07, 2008 at 13:36
@Passing leftie:
You seem to assume that all us Tories think alike. There certainly were, in the bad old days, many Tories who used to sup blindly at the evil big corporate teat. That said, these days that seems to be an almost exclusively a Labour pursuit.
You see, Tories understand big business whilst realising its limitations, whereas Labour is utterly entranced by its aura of wealth, and sees it as some cure-all. Because they are idiots. Especially the Clucking Fist.
Small business is *exactly* what this party should be about in these enlightened times. Screw the corporate welfare whiners, the pigopolists and their corrupt lobbyists, and show some love to the small businesswoman. They are the lifeblood of this country, and we must never lose sight of that (again?).
Posted by: Martin Coxall | February 07, 2008 at 13:43
I think the problem with modern politics isn't to do with who gets how many votes or funding of parties or expenses. These are actually sideshows to the great big problem staring at us, engagement. Westminster is no more than a few hundred miles from anyone in the country but often it feels like it is located on a totally different planet. In fact local government is the same with politicians amateur and professional seeming to inhabit a different world.
We need to encourage MP's candidates, councillors, council candidates to do small scale meetings in church halls, to debate their opponents and their rivals frequently to submit to effective scrutiny from their electors or potential electors and to actually engage. Too often the only engagement between politicians and the electorate is to pitch up on a doorstep demanding votes or when in office to provide a contracted service to attempt an end-run round the system. That simply is no longer acceptable if it ever was. The modern world works on word of mouth, bands gain popularity because they appear on the internet and one person emails another and soon the whole thing snowballs. Politics can work in a similar way but it has to be from the ground up, small town hall meetings or even inviting neighbours to turn up at a house for coffee with a candidate. Engaging with half a dozen people may lead to word of mouth reccomendations to whole networks. It would be a sea-change in the type of engagement that British politics is used to.
Posted by: James Burdett | February 07, 2008 at 13:59
CAMERON & HIS TORIES MUST BE BOLD
Cameron's success in bringing the Tories back into the mainstream of politics has been a tremendous achievement.
However the momentum forward has slowed considerably, people are listening to the Tories now, but we need to hear some bold and radical policies, if these are not forthcoming then they will not win a working majority at the the next election.
PUBLIC SPENDING CUTS & TAX REDUCTIONS
First we need a comprehensive public spending policy, detailing precisely those areas that the Tories will reduce / abolish government spending, and alongside this policy precise details of the taxes that will be handed back to the people.
Tax reductions must primarily be aimed at those earning under 15K p.a. and then those under 25K, a flat tax beckons to make a real differnce as Osborne suggested 2 years ago. Reductions in the cost of buying property must allow for the huge price inflation that we have experienced in the last 10 years. No stamp duty for properties under 500K to help those young people who wish to buy for the first time and those who wish to move on to the second home when the family comes along.
Cameron has had 2 years now and it is time to present radical alternatives to the Socialist state that we now live in, if he fails to grasp the nettle he will be duly punished in 2009 / 10 by the electorate
Posted by: Richard Calhoun | February 07, 2008 at 14:11
CAMERON & HIS TORIES MUST BE BOLD
Cameron's success in bringing the Tories back into the mainstream of politics has been a tremendous achievement.
However the momentum forward has slowed considerably, people are listening to the Tories now, but we need to hear some bold and radical policies, if these are not forthcoming then they will not win a working majority at the the next election.
PUBLIC SPENDING CUTS & TAX REDUCTIONS
First we need a comprehensive public spending policy, detailing precisely those areas that the Tories will reduce / abolish government spending, and alongside this policy precise details of the taxes that will be handed back to the people.
Tax reductions must primarily be aimed at those earning under 15K p.a. and then those under 25K, a flat tax beckons to make a real differnce as Osborne suggested 2 years ago. Reductions in the cost of buying property must allow for the huge price inflation that we have experienced in the last 10 years. No stamp duty for properties under 500K to help those young people who wish to buy for the first time and those who wish to move on to the second home when the family comes along.
Cameron has had 2 years now and it is time to present radical alternatives to the Socialist state that we now live in, if he fails to grasp the nettle he will be duly punished in 2009 / 10 by the electorate
Posted by: Richard Calhoun | February 07, 2008 at 14:13
@James Burdett:
How do we achieve this participatory democracy incrementally?
It sounds like you're in favour of root-and-branch constitutional rebuilding from the ground up. I like that idea, but I'm sure it would scare the willies out of the grassroots!
Have you been watching the US Presidential primaries? They're absolutely brilliant. The kind of inspiring, nail-biting exercise in participatory democracy that puts our morbid political system and class to shame.
Posted by: Martin Coxall | February 07, 2008 at 14:16
Martin - Well starting wouldn't be a bad idea! I am very much in favour of a political rebuilding from the ground up. As for the political architecture well there are certainly things we need to do to settle Labours constitutional unsettlement. I think though we have the architecture of Directly elected Mayors without the political support structure to enable that to work properly.
Posted by: James Burdett | February 07, 2008 at 14:33
How about a few ideas, just thrown around. And I want to point out that I don't necessarily think we need to do all of these, or even that they are necessarily sensible, but are there for the sake of discussion.
1) Swiss-style plebiscites.
A petition with the signatures of 100,000 registered voters should require the government to lay before parliament plans to bring forward a *legally binding* referendum on the issue of the petition. A similar measure with a smaller numbers of signatures should bind the Scottish government, the Welsh executive, the Mayor of London, and every other executive body in the country.
2) STV for council elections.
To break the one-party strangleholds and pools of corruption that are local councils.
3) Directly elected police chiefs, transport chiefs (we should be able to express our great dislike of, say, TfL's transport commission, Sir Iain Blair, and his ilk)
4) Recall elections for all elected mayors, police chiefs, etc.
A significant proportion of the electorate should be able to trigger recall elections of any elected official after that person has been in office for a period of time. If the person is removed from office by the recall election, it does not reset the normal election timetable for that post.
5) FIXED four-year terms for the House of Commons and Prime Minister.
Self-explanatory.
6) *Non-proportional* electoral reform for the House of Commons. A system of one-member-per-constituency voting that requires the member to have the support of at least 50% of voters and (if we're feeling brave) allows the voters to chose no candidate, leaving no member returned and triggering a by election.
7) An upper house, equal in power to the House of Commons, that is chosen by lottery from the electoral register, once a year.
Just like jury service. What could be more representative than that? What could be less open to corruption by career politicans? And what could be more noble than being chosen to serve your country in this manner?
8) Require all elected officials to regularly attend open-access meetings and field questions from their electors.
9) PMQs to be a Constitutional Right. PM to be bound to answer all questions fully, truthfully and without elaboration or ommission.
10) A directly-elected one-member-one-vote Prime Minister. All major parties to choose their candidates via a county-by-county primary system SHAMELESSLY nicked from the US.
11) All British government nominees to EU positions (European Council president, European Commission president, Commissioner suggestions) to be approved *in advance* by the electorate in a referendum.
12) Immediate change of the European Parliament elections from closed to an open list system.
13) Immediate resolution of the West Lothian question. Reform of the Barnet formula.
I mean, I could go on. But that's enough to be getting on with.
Posted by: Martin Coxall | February 07, 2008 at 15:17
Martin - some of them are more workable than others. 8) could be done straight away by David Cameron as a Conservative initiative. If you have 10) then you probably have to reform Parliament into a legistlature only and strip out the executive into a separate body in the manener of the US. If so then it would probably be incompatible with 9). 7) I don't think is workable at all it would be hugely costly and disruptive to business to have members of staff seconded to Parliament for a year. Although I think we need a proper public debate about the nature of our democracy rather than doing things that are easy or give one or other side an advantage.
Posted by: James Burdett | February 07, 2008 at 15:36
7) I don't think is workable at all it would be hugely costly and disruptive to business to have members of staff seconded to Parliament for a year.
It would be expensive, but wouldn't it be a price worth paying for a genuinely representative legislature? We are, after all, only talking a few hundred people out of a workforce of millions.
Unlike jury service, it would also be acceptable to decline, if frowned upon.
Posted by: Martin Coxall | February 07, 2008 at 15:54
Martin - I think it wouldn't just be the remunerative cost, it would be the cost in experience and in aptitude as well. It would also not be a respected body as it would be justifiably considered as a Diet of amateurs.
Posted by: James Burdett | February 07, 2008 at 16:08
Martin Coxall | February 07, 2008 at 13:43:
Small business is *exactly* what this party should be about in these enlightened times. Screw the corporate welfare whiners, the pigopolists and their corrupt lobbyists, and show some love to the small businesswoman. They are the lifeblood of this country, and we must never lose sight of that (again?).
I'm not going to argue too much with this, but I don't hold out too much hope of the Tories sticking it to the Man.
Posted by: passing leftie | February 07, 2008 at 16:22
@Passing leftie:
I don't particularly want to 'stick it to the man'. Supporting small business doesn't automatically equate to the Tories suddenly walking around with large banners saying "Fire up the Class War, lad, we're all Trots now!".
To me, Gordon Brown and New Labour is a shining example of what happens when we allow big business to corrupt politics. I don't know about you, but I think every politician, libertarian or authoritarian, neoliberal or socialist, should aspire to Not Be Like Gordon Brown.
There's a lesson in there somewhere.
Posted by: Martin Coxall | February 07, 2008 at 16:28
Martin - some good ideas to temper political party power. I particularly like
2) STV for council elections to break the one-party strangleholds
Posted by: deb | February 07, 2008 at 17:24
For those who continue to drone on about STV and other dreadful PR options, we have seen two situations recently where STV has caused either an undemocratic outcome or resulted in a poor candidate being voted in.
The voting system is not the problem. Its the accountability of politicians that is the real problem. In spite of overwhelming evidence politicians continue ignore and dismiss the views of the people. That is why people are turning their backs on politics.
Changing the voting system won't change that and whatever variety of PR you propose is open to such abuse that it will further damage people's view of 'democracy'.
Just look at the West Virginia Republican Caucus in the US. One candidate manipulated the voting system to stop the first choice from winning for their own self interest.
In the Labour Deputy Leadership contest, Harriet Harman didn't have a chance of winning during the early rounds and then lo and behold she became the winner. She was not the first choice of the large majority.
STV is the voting system that favours a loser. It is the voting system of mediocrity and second best.
STV for council elections to break the one-party strangleholds
and strangle democracy itself instead!
We might as well just have a lottery and let any Tom, Dick or Harriet run the country. Oh dear someone suggested that too!
Mind- boggling!
Posted by: John Leonard | February 07, 2008 at 18:31
"Mr Cameron could quite reasonably say that there is currently such an anti-politician mood that further state funding of politics would be wrong (at least until politicians put their wider house in order). He could make a pledge not to increase state funding of incumbent politicians for the whole of the next parliament."
Or he could simply make a big noise about abolishing the communications allowance for media effect then claw it back via his now long-standing state funding proposals.
Posted by: Chad Noble | February 07, 2008 at 19:40
Martin - some good ideas to temper political party power. I particularly like
2) STV for council elections to break the one-party strangleholds
I thought that long-term hard work on the ground in individual wards did that too - and is probably far more rewarding...!
Posted by: Richard Carey | February 07, 2008 at 20:56
Richard Carey - I would contend that one party-strangleholds are bad whomever has it. I am against Proportional voting because it puts more power in the hands of the party machines and I think that that would be a huge problem.
Posted by: James Burdett | February 07, 2008 at 21:07
One of the greatest dangers is the way in which political power is being sucked away from communities to distant bureaucracies. This is alienating the public and making them either apathetic and unwilling to participate or intolerant and extreme. We have to return power to communities and families if we are going to have a healthy stable society. This requires real devolution not the pretence of devolution instigated to date.
Posted by: Matt Wright | February 07, 2008 at 22:41
"I thought that long-term hard work on the ground in individual wards did that too - and is probably far more rewarding...!"
Yes, but in an area of ingrained voting habits it is very, very hard to succeed through hard work on the ground alone - word of mouth only reaches so far.
The problem is that people assume the local Conservative Party has done the right thing and selected a good candidate. Alas, it doesn't always work that way - a candidate who just turns up occasionally to vote as instructed and doesn't ask too many questions can be more attractive to the local administration.
Incidentally, this is not sour grapes. I took that route of hard work on the ground and succeeded - but not many people have the time, energy and determination that it required. That's one reason why there are so many good lobby groups - people realise the democratic process is not democratic at all and, thoroughly disenchanted, they go off and do other things.
Posted by: deb | February 08, 2008 at 09:50