The need for fixed-term parliaments has become ever more apparent as the game of feint and counterfeint has dominated political life over the past month. We all know that Gordon will go, we almost certainly know that it will be on 8 November, and yet the game goes on.
As a qualified cynic, I thoroughly understand that the governing party wants to do everything in its power to ensure victory. I suspect that if my job, my legacy and the history books were at stake, I’d want to be damned certain I would win. But there is a price to be paid for taking such a view of the public interest, and it’s a price that we’ll all be paying for years to come, regardless of Party affiliation, regardless even of membership of a political party.
Firstly, we almost certainly disenfranchise a significant chunk of the population. The students returning to college will probably not have registered. They may find time to do so in the run-up to polling day, but electoral registration officers are going to be sorely pressed to cope. To do so, they’ll probably have to draw on staff from other parts of the council in an unplanned way, causing interruption to other services. The fact that the electoral register doesn’t undergo publication between September and December will also potentially exclude those, like myself, who have moved house, or are less than entirely efficient with paperwork.
Secondly, the legislation currently passing through Parliament will either fall, or will be the victim of a rushed act of horsetrading. Some of it, quite frankly, is rubbish, or poorly drafted, or both. There will be pressure on the opposition parties to yield to the Government majority in the Commons, and legislation that needs more review and amendment will slip through without proper scrutiny. You and I will suffer from that, and the need to create more legislation to address the flaws that emerge later will snarl up both the Commons and the Lords even more than they already are (and how many people actually believe that legislation gets the scrutiny that it deserves?).
Thirdly, creating a programme for government takes time. Political parties need to develop ideas that can address the needs of the nation, and in the panic to get a manifesto ready for public scrutiny, there is a tendency to resort to the tried and tested (and, actually, normally pretty unsuccessful). The Conservatives were coming up with some interesting ideas, but are junking most of them in the absence of an opportunity to properly evaluate them for viability. Is that in our interest as a community, or merely advantageous for the Government, who are somewhat ill-equipped to fight a campaign on ideas (if they have any, presumably they’ve attempted to implement them by now). We are therefore offered a choice between two established parties with few new ideas and a record in government and a third with plenty of ideas developed over a lengthy period but no real record in national government. I’m sorry, but casting aside my Party allegiance, is this the best that is on offer?
Finally, the work of government has reached a state of paralysis. Do you take a decision now, or wait until you know who is running the country in a month’s time? How long have you waited already in anticipation of an announcement? Can you get buy-in from your Minister, or is he/she preoccupied with the impact on their campaign?
I can already hear the counter arguments, noting the likelihood of coalition governments, or the tradition of our Parliamentary system, or the need for flexibility in times of crisis, and you know something, they’re the cries of people who like the cosy consensus that exists and benefit from it. The idea of a open and just democratic process doesn’t appear to enter into it, although it’s good enough for every other tier of government.
We’ve accepted the notion that the economy needs transparency and stability in order to be a success, so why not our government? Or is it the case that politicians truly believe in Party before country? Gordon, over to you…
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