Connecting Parliament with the Public

What concerns me most of all, is that some people, are being denied access to MPs as a result of being disabled, elderly, ill, housebound, or long term sick.

Say quite honestly: " folks, you can think or feel what you like but we ARE going to banish hunting, hereditary presence in the upper house, trial by jury, driving on "the Queen's highway" without further fees and fines, probably even the monarchy (though we are keeping this a secret for the time being and pretending otherwise) and of course we are going to go to war in Iraq - or wherever next; so do let us know that you agree or disagree to some extent, but dont think it is going to have any effect, because we have decided what to do".
This would be sincere and may well be respected as such; but to pretend otherwise is to cultivate a perception of insincerity which is likely to engineer an ultimate alienation, regardless of the e and web based gadgets and gizmos harnessed to dress up the proceedings as sincere.

Oh, it is wonderful to preach modernism, to rush to catch up - with something - but what is this modernism - other than perhaps the false syllogism put by (more than) one of the correspondents holding that inherited ways are somehow an obstruction to outward communication?
The priests of modernism should be reminded that a newer and almost certainly falser wave of 'post-modernism' has washed/silted? over the culture. If there is anything to 'postmodernism' (and there is, a little bit) it would celebrate oddness, departure from cold logicality - good heavens, something rather like what has been there already, before the modernisers came to sweep that away!

I am totally unimpressed by the drive toward 'modernism' if it mainly concentrates on replacing the old. Indeed, a recent piece in The Times suggests that the newer time rotas etc have led to a dilution of cohesion - not just within but across parties - within the Commons. What we are, and mostly what we wish to be, is strongly influenced by what and who we were; there is nothing but wreckage in denying this last element

Modernisation has included a drive to incease female membership - is this because male MPs are considered unable to represent the political standpoints of their female consitutents? Since Male (Labour) MPs are supposed to represent the ideas, feelings, etc of their Male Conservative, Lib Dem and other constituents, why should male MPs not also represent the ideas, feelings and interests of their female constituents? If it is thought that (is this a 'modern' notion?) that a MODERN parliament should contain 50/50 of each of the sexes, do we then have to have quotas by hair and skin colour? Quotas by ethnic group? Are we to shove forward for a minimum of ten Muslim MPs ('representing' around 1.6 million Muslims out of 59 million overall - between one and two per cent) and put a bar on not more than 1 Jewish MP? How might one go about this deselection notion, if there are already twenty Jewish MPs? Start by deselecting Michael Howard - or leave him till last?

I believe there could be a good parliament with 90% women members - provided they responsibly represent the ideas and interests of all their constituents, men included - that would be fine. Ability to do this representative job does not inhere in sex, but in other personal qualities. These may be exceedingly imperfectly harnessed in the selection processes, but that is a matter for refinement - which does not necessarily correspond with modernism - at parties-level.

This is NOT a false target just mentioned. It comes from much of what I have read about in defining a modern parliament as representing the population in the same way that a polling sample represents the public at large.

One of your correspondents did evoke this image of a 'toffs paradise' thus alien from a proles realm outside. They should recognise, I believe - and it should be one of the missions of a good communications package - that this has to be explained - that a body of people sophisticated and responsible enough to grasp and argue ideologies and policies will indeed have their heads above the general ruck.

No doubt, there is a long way to go, to get the huge number of messages from parliament, across; but I seriously doubt that energy spent on feeding babies on the benches, etc, all the apparatus of creches, hours of proceedings, etc, is energy well spent.

One e-xpression of 'modernism' is the notion that because the internet is the latest gadget, it could do good if properly harnessed. There is a process well known in communcations studies - it used to be called the 'communications gap' - basically, people who are ill-equipped to work the existing system are going to fall behind still further when the system goes into some new phase. Did Jesus say something of the sort - to them that hath, it shall be given ...? Thus putting in e-channels will be fine(r) for the e-competent; but will obstruct others.

It is perfectly obvious that there is and will continue to be a 'log-jam' problem; this will only be increased by opening up further e-routes. One utterly serious shortcoming of such a move would be to increase a sense of dislocation, hopelessness, futility, inasmuch as the increased input of ideas and demands willbe successively less likely to be taken account of; in the 'bad old days' when the idea simply did not go forward, one might not blame parliament; now, if ideas do go forward, it will be held against parliament if these demands are not fulfilled.

It seems to me that the ordinary person in the street, when making contact with the great and good in Westminster (almost any political party) is viewed in one of four ways by Parliament:
· Someone from a pressure group - must be political in our responses to him or her;
· A one off complaint - probably could ignore this person or sent a patronising response;
· A comment from a minority group – must get the response right here and be PC;
· A letter from a Christian – assume before reading that they are bigoted and without an ounce of compassion or ability to be reasonable and rational, and respond with the aim of suggesting that they really ought to move with the times and live and let live.

OK so I acknowledge that the above is perhaps a little hyperbolic. But believe me there is a substantial amount of truth in it!

No wonder parliament is out of touch with the public when MPs treat it like a theme park.

Surely what is important is what goes on in the House of Commons, not what facilities are available for family outings.

We need to lower the voting age to 16, let us vote online and create a new parliament for England.

I note that the USA manages its democracy with 104 Senators and 250 Members of its House of Representatives. These serve the federal needs of a population of 280 Million - nearly five times our population. At State level, many Houses meet only a few times a year. In the UK we have a great many more national Parliamentarians relative to numbers of electors than across most of Europe.

Shouldn't we seek ways of limiting the numbers who represent us too?

One way could be to really delegate more politics to regional assemblies, councils and to our MEPs. This might lead our MPs to become negotiators of national issues and to concentrate their expertise at that level.

I'd rather there were fewer and more expert Parliamentarians, backed with adequately funded researchers, than the present muddle that has grown up over time.

Interactions of electorate with parliament and government; the effects of direct participation of citizens.

We are referring to procedures such as:

Optional (facultative) referendum with which a large number of citizens can call a ballot on a bill going through parliament, assembly or local council (which can lead to a veto of the bill),

Obligatory referendum which must be held on matters of extreme importance to the country such as
constitution and some international treaties,

Citizens' proposal ("initiative") which can put an issue on the public agenda and take it to parliament for debate. If parliament rejects the proposal then it may go forward to referendum of the whole electorate.

Some who have noticed my contributions about direct democracy in this forum (in the section Does Parliament adequately reflect the concerns of ordinary people? www.tellparliament.net/modernisation/node/view/19) may have thought that this is of minor or zero relevance to a debate about improving the way parliament works. I will try to show that the opposite is true.

Having elements of direct democracy such as those outlined above would improve the relationship of electorate with parliament and government in a number of ways. There has been quite a lot written about this in the academic literature. Here I will mention only a few points.

- The citizens' initiative allows a new quality of interaction between electorate and parliament. A proposal, supported by many citizens and having emerged in a competition of reforming ideas, goes before parliament for scrutiny and debate. At this stage there can be active negotiation between the ruling party or parties and the proposing group. MPs and public get to know each other better and can earn mutual respect. Political apathy of the electorate can be reduced.

- The optional referendum may be seen as a card in the hand of the electorate, a way to "check" (as in "checks and balances" of democracy) the parliament in the period between elections, on a particular issue which has generated a lot of public interest. Having this instrument available has effects on the way policy is formulated and laws are written. Politicians become more attentive to the will of the electorate, perhaps become less susceptible to lobbying "interests" and less likely to "forget" election promises.

- Significant benefits are to be expected on how people, young and older, relate to politics and to the management of public affairs. These can seen in countries, polities where elements of
direct democracy are already in use. Such benefits are connected with sense of efficacy, self-respect, being able to contribute to the community (or "commons" with small c), in short, taking part in a meaningful and responsible way. Political involvement of citizens increases. Equipped with the right and the real chance to vote on important issues and even to make a proposal one's self, the person becomes more ready to inform her/himself, more open to challenging debate and more interested in at least some fields of politics. People become less spectator and more citizen. In short, our political culture would be improved. All of this would change in positive ways the complex nature of interaction between parliament and electorate.

Regards,

Michael Macpherson

Citizens' Initiative and Referendum I&R
http://www.iniref.org