Sir Peter Hall, Bartlett professor of planning and regeneration at University College London, wrote this week about ‘the Games’ that “despite the torch-bearing preliminaries across the land, and apart from Olympic and Paralympic events that were scattered around south-east England, this was a London event and a London triumph.”
“This,” he continued, “can only intensify the division, familiar from the daily drip-feed of news items, between London and its wider South East hinterland, and the rest of the national economy. Two recent samples: house prices are falling everywhere, except in London; and the world’s top ten universities include four from the UK – two in London, plus Oxford and Cambridge. As Boris Johnson is fond of saying, London’s global pre-eminence isn’t simply based on the bankers: the city also includes top universities, top hospitals, top TV producers, top theatre, top almost everything in every league.”
Sir Peter’s conclusion? “It doesn’t have to be that way. Berlin is the capital of Germany, but is far from its most successful city. Germany is the land of great provincial cities: larger ones such as Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich, and smaller ones like Freiburg. But to achieve that in the UK, you need to rescue the dreaded r-word from the dustbin, and reconstruct the national economy around strong regions, which no British government has dared seriously to contemplate.”
The implication seems to be that if only we had a British government that would “dare” seriously contemplate the demotion of London then all would be well. Indeed it would. London didn’t get where it is today by its own efforts. It got there by using, across ten centuries, the spending power of the taxpayer-funded institutions of a certain unitary state whose capital it happens to be. Those are institutions it has learned how to manipulate to maintain that position. And having done so, it has gone on to create a climate of public opinion that defers to their role in arbitrating what can and cannot be done locally and regionally. To hear the great and the good pontificate on a lack of talent in the provinces to trust with decision-making does beg the question of who is qualified to judge talent and why.
The reason why Germany is more to Sir Peter Hall’s liking is that its development was not directed from the capital but by a strong tradition of provincial self-rule. So expecting the British government seriously to contemplate what it has never seriously contemplated before is the triumph of hope over experience. It won’t happen. Power isn’t surrendered; it is taken.
That is why those who call upon the London regime to mend its ways, or who suggest we should work within the Labour Party to put some backbone into its regional policy, are bound to be disappointed. We have no true allies on the inside. The only sure way forward is to build the world we wish to see from the bottom up. Working to strengthen our coherence as a region. Learning from other historic regions and small nations with whom we stand in solidarity. Wishing the London regime as much ill-will as it visits upon us. You don’t have to be a separatist to recognise that nothing succeeds like secession.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Responsibility Without Power
We are grateful to an MK blogger in Penzance for a careful analysis of what the Coalition’s pseudo-localism means in practice. It amounts to devolving the running of services, and the making of cuts to them, without devolving the money that used to pay for them. Local politicians get the blame for the consequences, while central government lies back, puts its feet up, and passes the money saved to the bankers as interest on imaginary debts.
We can see this scenario developing as follows. Public services are increasingly channelled through local councils, co-operating sub-regionally for economies of scale. Safeguards will be put in place against communities interpreting localism literally. One is to privatise and outsource actual provision to the multi-nationals, to break any link between the services provided and a sense of local identity. (Welcome to McSchool.) Another is to prevent sub-regional co-operation going regional, that is to say, accumulating at a geographical scale large enough to threaten those in power. You do that by insisting that, while the Thames Valley or the South Coast Metropole may be real enough, ‘obviously’ Berkshire has nothing at all in common with Dorset. (But identifying with England is OK, despite it being five times bigger than Wessex, because TPTB have that one sewn up.)
Meanwhile, we continue to pay our taxes to London but get fewer and fewer services in return. In short, we prop up an insolvent regime. Until the happy day we choose to repudiate it and all its works.
We can see this scenario developing as follows. Public services are increasingly channelled through local councils, co-operating sub-regionally for economies of scale. Safeguards will be put in place against communities interpreting localism literally. One is to privatise and outsource actual provision to the multi-nationals, to break any link between the services provided and a sense of local identity. (Welcome to McSchool.) Another is to prevent sub-regional co-operation going regional, that is to say, accumulating at a geographical scale large enough to threaten those in power. You do that by insisting that, while the Thames Valley or the South Coast Metropole may be real enough, ‘obviously’ Berkshire has nothing at all in common with Dorset. (But identifying with England is OK, despite it being five times bigger than Wessex, because TPTB have that one sewn up.)
Meanwhile, we continue to pay our taxes to London but get fewer and fewer services in return. In short, we prop up an insolvent regime. Until the happy day we choose to repudiate it and all its works.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Freedom to Fly!
We have explored earlier the unsatisfactory legal status of the Wyvern flag under London rule. We have noted the reluctance of the Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles to consider any deregulation that might permit ‘regional flags’ to be flown without express consent. We have also noted that, under pressure, Pickles floated the idea at the start of this year that the flags of ‘current or historic UK traditional regions’ might be flown after all.
Today his department announced plans to deregulate a strictly limited range of territorial flags. Has Pickles managed to reconcile the need to give ground with the need to avoid endorsing the virus of English regionalism, which poses a far more vital challenge to the regime than even the sum total of Celtic devolution? Can you have regional flags without setting the ball rolling towards a truly democratic, decentralised England?
The outcome, from our point of view, is a very good one indeed. The draft proposal to deregulate the flags of ‘traditional regions’ is gone, along with any ambiguity to which that phrase might have given rise. In its place is an explicit reference to ‘the flag of Wessex’, along with those of East Anglia and certain local areas. The ‘R’ word is avoided, but the ‘W’ word, we suggest, will prove to be a far more potent concession. The new regulations are planned to take effect on 12 October. Get your flag ready now! Coming just two days before we remember Harold Godwinesson’s stand at Senlac, against the vanquishers of old Wessex, that timing could hardly be better.
Spare a thought for other regions though. We and the East Anglians are recognised, not because we did everything by the book but because we defied the book. We have flown our flag to the point where it can no longer be ignored. As is so often the case, the law has had to be changed to keep up with reality, not to shape it. So if other regions wish to follow our lead, they too need to ignore London law. It seems that the only way to get the law on your side is to break it, on as big a scale as possible. It would be so much simpler to say that ‘the flag of any territory’ may be flown, regardless of whether that territory is local, regional or national, here or abroad, recognised or not. But no, control-freakery didn’t leave in Gordon Brown’s suitcase.
The change in the regulations makes no practical difference to any committed flag-flyer, beyond providing the assurance that no joyless neighbour will report them to the council and be heard. The real difference it makes is to recognise that Wessex is not some underground movement whose existence is to be officially denied. Little by little, the mantra shrieked from on high that ‘you do realise, don’t you, that there is no such place as Wessex’ is falling still. We exist, and very soon that fact will be law.
Today his department announced plans to deregulate a strictly limited range of territorial flags. Has Pickles managed to reconcile the need to give ground with the need to avoid endorsing the virus of English regionalism, which poses a far more vital challenge to the regime than even the sum total of Celtic devolution? Can you have regional flags without setting the ball rolling towards a truly democratic, decentralised England?
The outcome, from our point of view, is a very good one indeed. The draft proposal to deregulate the flags of ‘traditional regions’ is gone, along with any ambiguity to which that phrase might have given rise. In its place is an explicit reference to ‘the flag of Wessex’, along with those of East Anglia and certain local areas. The ‘R’ word is avoided, but the ‘W’ word, we suggest, will prove to be a far more potent concession. The new regulations are planned to take effect on 12 October. Get your flag ready now! Coming just two days before we remember Harold Godwinesson’s stand at Senlac, against the vanquishers of old Wessex, that timing could hardly be better.
Spare a thought for other regions though. We and the East Anglians are recognised, not because we did everything by the book but because we defied the book. We have flown our flag to the point where it can no longer be ignored. As is so often the case, the law has had to be changed to keep up with reality, not to shape it. So if other regions wish to follow our lead, they too need to ignore London law. It seems that the only way to get the law on your side is to break it, on as big a scale as possible. It would be so much simpler to say that ‘the flag of any territory’ may be flown, regardless of whether that territory is local, regional or national, here or abroad, recognised or not. But no, control-freakery didn’t leave in Gordon Brown’s suitcase.
The change in the regulations makes no practical difference to any committed flag-flyer, beyond providing the assurance that no joyless neighbour will report them to the council and be heard. The real difference it makes is to recognise that Wessex is not some underground movement whose existence is to be officially denied. Little by little, the mantra shrieked from on high that ‘you do realise, don’t you, that there is no such place as Wessex’ is falling still. We exist, and very soon that fact will be law.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Hailing Change
Did you know that Plymouth is the only part of England outside London to have its own set of laws on taxi licensing?
We have today responded to the recent review by the Law Commission of the legislation relating to taxis and private hire vehicles. Here’s what we said:
“We note that a key issue with which the Commission is grappling is the emerging transition from a world in which laissez-faire is the dominant political philosophy to one where localism takes its place. We welcome that transition, which promises a world much more respectful of local democratic judgement and much less willing to overturn it for reasons of ideological diktat.
We are therefore disappointed that some of the Commission’s provisional proposals represent a move in the opposite direction. In particular, abolition of the long-established right to limit the number of taxi licences issued, taking account of local circumstances, would signal a continuation of the ‘Whitehall knows best’ mentality. Local discretion over policy should not, in any way, be restricted.”
That the Law Commission has its finger on the pulse to the extent that this tension is evident in its thinking is an interesting development. The London regime knows what needs to be done. Power needs to be passed to local communities, with democratic accountability through the municipal ballot box and regions, like Wessex, then acting to co-ordinate local efforts, without centralist compulsion. The parties talk the talk, but mostly fail to walk the walk. Most of the time – and this applies equally to “Labour” – they would rather hand power to global corporations, accountable only to bankers. Time, however, is running against them. A post-oil world will necessarily be a more decentralised world. And the taxis may even be horse-drawn.
We have today responded to the recent review by the Law Commission of the legislation relating to taxis and private hire vehicles. Here’s what we said:
“We note that a key issue with which the Commission is grappling is the emerging transition from a world in which laissez-faire is the dominant political philosophy to one where localism takes its place. We welcome that transition, which promises a world much more respectful of local democratic judgement and much less willing to overturn it for reasons of ideological diktat.
We are therefore disappointed that some of the Commission’s provisional proposals represent a move in the opposite direction. In particular, abolition of the long-established right to limit the number of taxi licences issued, taking account of local circumstances, would signal a continuation of the ‘Whitehall knows best’ mentality. Local discretion over policy should not, in any way, be restricted.”
That the Law Commission has its finger on the pulse to the extent that this tension is evident in its thinking is an interesting development. The London regime knows what needs to be done. Power needs to be passed to local communities, with democratic accountability through the municipal ballot box and regions, like Wessex, then acting to co-ordinate local efforts, without centralist compulsion. The parties talk the talk, but mostly fail to walk the walk. Most of the time – and this applies equally to “Labour” – they would rather hand power to global corporations, accountable only to bankers. Time, however, is running against them. A post-oil world will necessarily be a more decentralised world. And the taxis may even be horse-drawn.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Circuses & Bread
The euphoria will pass. And then what?
Today, as the Olympic Games draw to a close, David Cameron hosts a two-hour summit meeting on hunger. It’s an excellent opportunity to talk about everything but the real issue. No doubt there’ll be much condemnation of barriers to global free enterprise (like communal land rights), a little token hand-wringing about over-consumption by the rich developed world, and no mention of exploding population. It will end with agreement to give money to the Third World, and with appeals to private corporations' consciences, all with no clear aim in mind about what good any of it will do.
Desertification in Africa’s Sahel is a disaster for those who live there, but it’s no good blaming man-made climate change and feeling fashionably awful about it. Niger, one of the countries worst affected, has the highest rate of population growth in the world. Already unable to feed half its 16 million folk, it is projected to have 55 million by 2050. Between 2010 and 2110 the Democratic Republic of Congo’s population is set to grow from 68 million to 149 million, Ethiopia from 85 million to 174 million and Nigeria from 158 million to 433 million. Bob Geldof will need rather more than a sticking plaster next time famine takes its toll.
Population experts Anne H. Ehrlich and Paul R. Ehrlich, of Stanford University in the USA, have written about the problem as being principally one of perception (or wilful lack of it), as the following extracts from their work explain:
“To a large extent, refusal to recognize that continued population growth is a serious threat to the future of civilization can be blamed on the failure of educational systems to bridge key parts of the culture gap, the growing chasm between what we each know as individuals and all of the knowledge society possesses corporately. That gap leaves many well-educated people ignorant of today’s crucial environmental problems.
Misunderstanding of how demographic and environmental connections interact is common even among people who are interested in population problems. For instance, [many are] convinced that over-consumption is a much larger contributor to environmental deterioration than over-population. This is roughly like being convinced that the length of a rectangle is a much larger contributor to its area than its width.
This entire situation is made worse by ‘non-linearities’ in the population-consumption growth picture. Being clever, human beings use the easiest, most accessible resources first. This means that the richest farmland was ploughed first and the richest ores mined first. Now each additional person must be fed from more marginal land and use metals won from poorer ores. Thus, on average, each person added to the population disproportionately increases the destruction of environmental systems. The non-linearities involved in resource extraction were dramatically underlined by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. The first commercial oil well in the United States was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859. It started at the ground surface and struck oil at 69.5 feet. The Deepwater Horizon drill rig, 150 years later, started a well in the Gulf of Mexico. Drilling began under almost a mile of water and had penetrated almost three miles below the sea floor when the explosion occurred. Such diminishing returns are now evident everywhere, affecting virtually all the resources civilization needs to persist.
In addition, as the population grows, efforts to keep people supplied with consumer goods release more toxic compounds into the global environment. The toxification of Earth may be an even more dangerous trend than climate disruption or the extinction crisis, but it is increasingly clear that the scientific community has not even begun to address it properly.
People also should understand that population size is a major factor in the deterioration of the human epidemiological environment. The larger the human population (and the more hungry and thus immune-compromised people there are), the greater the chance of vast epidemics.
The history of claims that technological innovation will save us is instructive. When The Population Bomb (P.R. Ehrlich 1971) was published, the global population was 3.5 billion people, and we were assured that technological innovation would allow society to give rich, fulfilling lives to 5 billion or more people. They would be fed by algae grown on sewage, whales herded into atolls, leaf protein, or the production from nuclear agro-industrial complexes. That, of course, never happened. The population now exceeds 7 billion, and the number of hungry and malnourished people today is roughly equivalent to Earth’s entire population when we were born in the 1930s. Clueless European politicians, demographers, and pundits fear the ageing of the population that inevitably occurs when population growth ends. But all one really needs to appreciate the silliness of fearing an ageing population is realizing that the only way to avoid it is to keep the population growing forever.”
Africa’s problems may seem remote to us here in Wessex. We should reappraise, and do it fast. We live off food imports from countries that will one day stop sending us their food. Their young and growing populations will demand it and the political clout those growing populations will provide will ensure that there will be no negotiation over this. We have nothing vital to offer in return that they cannot get for themselves. Yet we gladly suffer fools like Jon Snow who would build four million new homes in England, as if farmland does nothing else besides look pretty. Joined-up thinking? We wish!
Today, as the Olympic Games draw to a close, David Cameron hosts a two-hour summit meeting on hunger. It’s an excellent opportunity to talk about everything but the real issue. No doubt there’ll be much condemnation of barriers to global free enterprise (like communal land rights), a little token hand-wringing about over-consumption by the rich developed world, and no mention of exploding population. It will end with agreement to give money to the Third World, and with appeals to private corporations' consciences, all with no clear aim in mind about what good any of it will do.
Desertification in Africa’s Sahel is a disaster for those who live there, but it’s no good blaming man-made climate change and feeling fashionably awful about it. Niger, one of the countries worst affected, has the highest rate of population growth in the world. Already unable to feed half its 16 million folk, it is projected to have 55 million by 2050. Between 2010 and 2110 the Democratic Republic of Congo’s population is set to grow from 68 million to 149 million, Ethiopia from 85 million to 174 million and Nigeria from 158 million to 433 million. Bob Geldof will need rather more than a sticking plaster next time famine takes its toll.
Population experts Anne H. Ehrlich and Paul R. Ehrlich, of Stanford University in the USA, have written about the problem as being principally one of perception (or wilful lack of it), as the following extracts from their work explain:
“To a large extent, refusal to recognize that continued population growth is a serious threat to the future of civilization can be blamed on the failure of educational systems to bridge key parts of the culture gap, the growing chasm between what we each know as individuals and all of the knowledge society possesses corporately. That gap leaves many well-educated people ignorant of today’s crucial environmental problems.
Misunderstanding of how demographic and environmental connections interact is common even among people who are interested in population problems. For instance, [many are] convinced that over-consumption is a much larger contributor to environmental deterioration than over-population. This is roughly like being convinced that the length of a rectangle is a much larger contributor to its area than its width.
This entire situation is made worse by ‘non-linearities’ in the population-consumption growth picture. Being clever, human beings use the easiest, most accessible resources first. This means that the richest farmland was ploughed first and the richest ores mined first. Now each additional person must be fed from more marginal land and use metals won from poorer ores. Thus, on average, each person added to the population disproportionately increases the destruction of environmental systems. The non-linearities involved in resource extraction were dramatically underlined by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. The first commercial oil well in the United States was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859. It started at the ground surface and struck oil at 69.5 feet. The Deepwater Horizon drill rig, 150 years later, started a well in the Gulf of Mexico. Drilling began under almost a mile of water and had penetrated almost three miles below the sea floor when the explosion occurred. Such diminishing returns are now evident everywhere, affecting virtually all the resources civilization needs to persist.
In addition, as the population grows, efforts to keep people supplied with consumer goods release more toxic compounds into the global environment. The toxification of Earth may be an even more dangerous trend than climate disruption or the extinction crisis, but it is increasingly clear that the scientific community has not even begun to address it properly.
People also should understand that population size is a major factor in the deterioration of the human epidemiological environment. The larger the human population (and the more hungry and thus immune-compromised people there are), the greater the chance of vast epidemics.
The history of claims that technological innovation will save us is instructive. When The Population Bomb (P.R. Ehrlich 1971) was published, the global population was 3.5 billion people, and we were assured that technological innovation would allow society to give rich, fulfilling lives to 5 billion or more people. They would be fed by algae grown on sewage, whales herded into atolls, leaf protein, or the production from nuclear agro-industrial complexes. That, of course, never happened. The population now exceeds 7 billion, and the number of hungry and malnourished people today is roughly equivalent to Earth’s entire population when we were born in the 1930s. Clueless European politicians, demographers, and pundits fear the ageing of the population that inevitably occurs when population growth ends. But all one really needs to appreciate the silliness of fearing an ageing population is realizing that the only way to avoid it is to keep the population growing forever.”
Africa’s problems may seem remote to us here in Wessex. We should reappraise, and do it fast. We live off food imports from countries that will one day stop sending us their food. Their young and growing populations will demand it and the political clout those growing populations will provide will ensure that there will be no negotiation over this. We have nothing vital to offer in return that they cannot get for themselves. Yet we gladly suffer fools like Jon Snow who would build four million new homes in England, as if farmland does nothing else besides look pretty. Joined-up thinking? We wish!
Knowing Your Boundaries
“I pay respect to wisdom not to strength.”
The quote is from C.S. Lewis in Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life; the words are those of Loki, the Norse trickster god. In this part-autobiography Lewis described his experiences at Wyvern College, a pseudonym for Malvern College, the boys’ public school in Mercia. School sports were something he always found difficult to explain. “If sport is so popular,” he once enquired, “why is it compulsory?”
It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, school. It can be remembered as fun and delight. Or as misery and trauma. Often the difference comes down to the legacy left by individual teachers. To micro-manage outcomes from the centre may meet targets, but it is unlikely to produce well-rounded citizens.
Yet London politicians, hyper-ventilating after a fortnight of Olympic triumphs and vanities, do indeed believe they know best. Britain’s top toffs, Dave and Boris, have been trying to out-run each other on the political playing field. Cameron has promised a führer directive that all primary schools in England (& Cornwall) shall teach competitive sports (excluding only the free schools and academies, which are now way beyond any meaningful accountability for their mis-use of public money). There are two things wrong with this. One is the solution itself and the other is the way the solution is being imposed.
Solution to what? That is the question. Why do schools need to teach competitive sports? Physical activity is good for health, that’s true, Indian dancing more so than boxing. But competition, taken to its extreme where concern for the welfare of others is eliminated, has historically been the root of all evil. The Tories love it because it undermines the co-operative instinct, creating a climate of dehumanising aggression that’s good for a state of permanent war, whether military or economic. The sporting ideal of excellence coupled with respect is routinely abused from that source. Fortunately, co-operation always has its rebels who rise above such nonsense. They can be seen in any school football match, standing idly around the edges of a muddy field, cold and bored, while the biggest boys in the year fight over the ball. Competitive sports have nothing to offer them. It isn’t that they have failed physical education; it’s that physical education has failed them. Pouring public money into school sports might produce Olympic gold in 20 years' time but it will not produce a nation of 50 million Olympians. That the needs of the sporting elite and the needs of most others are radically different is a point that London politicians are happy to ignore. Sport for all is a wonderful idea; elite sport for all is an oxymoron.
As decentralists we are still more passionately involved in the other question: of why Cameron should have the power that he does to decree the curriculum in English community schools. He doesn’t own them. He doesn’t manage them: that’s the job of head teachers and their boards of governors, drawn from the local community to which they are accountable. It isn’t properly the job of the local education authority, unless schools were to agree voluntarily to pool curriculum development. It isn’t the job of the Education Secretary either; indeed, his entire department could be abolished with no ill effects, and many positive ones. And it certainly isn’t the job of the Prime Minister to confuse leadership with arrogant interference in the jobs of others. Use the rhetoric of localism if you really mean it, and if you don’t, then stop imagining we’ll think you a decent bloke for cherry-picking whatever issues play best in the tabloid press.
The quote is from C.S. Lewis in Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life; the words are those of Loki, the Norse trickster god. In this part-autobiography Lewis described his experiences at Wyvern College, a pseudonym for Malvern College, the boys’ public school in Mercia. School sports were something he always found difficult to explain. “If sport is so popular,” he once enquired, “why is it compulsory?”
It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, school. It can be remembered as fun and delight. Or as misery and trauma. Often the difference comes down to the legacy left by individual teachers. To micro-manage outcomes from the centre may meet targets, but it is unlikely to produce well-rounded citizens.
Yet London politicians, hyper-ventilating after a fortnight of Olympic triumphs and vanities, do indeed believe they know best. Britain’s top toffs, Dave and Boris, have been trying to out-run each other on the political playing field. Cameron has promised a führer directive that all primary schools in England (& Cornwall) shall teach competitive sports (excluding only the free schools and academies, which are now way beyond any meaningful accountability for their mis-use of public money). There are two things wrong with this. One is the solution itself and the other is the way the solution is being imposed.
Solution to what? That is the question. Why do schools need to teach competitive sports? Physical activity is good for health, that’s true, Indian dancing more so than boxing. But competition, taken to its extreme where concern for the welfare of others is eliminated, has historically been the root of all evil. The Tories love it because it undermines the co-operative instinct, creating a climate of dehumanising aggression that’s good for a state of permanent war, whether military or economic. The sporting ideal of excellence coupled with respect is routinely abused from that source. Fortunately, co-operation always has its rebels who rise above such nonsense. They can be seen in any school football match, standing idly around the edges of a muddy field, cold and bored, while the biggest boys in the year fight over the ball. Competitive sports have nothing to offer them. It isn’t that they have failed physical education; it’s that physical education has failed them. Pouring public money into school sports might produce Olympic gold in 20 years' time but it will not produce a nation of 50 million Olympians. That the needs of the sporting elite and the needs of most others are radically different is a point that London politicians are happy to ignore. Sport for all is a wonderful idea; elite sport for all is an oxymoron.
As decentralists we are still more passionately involved in the other question: of why Cameron should have the power that he does to decree the curriculum in English community schools. He doesn’t own them. He doesn’t manage them: that’s the job of head teachers and their boards of governors, drawn from the local community to which they are accountable. It isn’t properly the job of the local education authority, unless schools were to agree voluntarily to pool curriculum development. It isn’t the job of the Education Secretary either; indeed, his entire department could be abolished with no ill effects, and many positive ones. And it certainly isn’t the job of the Prime Minister to confuse leadership with arrogant interference in the jobs of others. Use the rhetoric of localism if you really mean it, and if you don’t, then stop imagining we’ll think you a decent bloke for cherry-picking whatever issues play best in the tabloid press.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Changing Tack
It’s good news that Tory misgivings over half-baked proposals for Lords reform may now mean a LibDem veto over proposed changes to constituency boundaries. In our view, MPs, if we really have to have them, must represent the will of communities, not arbitrary blocks of territory filled with numbers.
The LibDem proposals for the Lords were so bad that one wonders where all that party’s brains have gone. It used to be home to clever, creative thinkers, who would never have suggested an elected chamber where the members are free to get up to whatever mischief they fancy for 15 years with no possibility of ever facing the electorate’s wrath. Elected, moreover, to represent those ghastly Prescott zones the Coalition pretends not to believe in.
We commend our own proposals for a Wessex Witan, first published in 1982, which were for a two-chamber regional legislature of Assembly and Senate. The balance of argument in favour of bi-cameralism in Wessex, we explained, is based on long-standing usage in British constitutional practice, on the extra manpower made available for committee work, and on the possibility it offers for the direct representation of local authorities, academic institutions and the professions. The devolved Parliament of Northern Ireland (1922-72) comprised a House of Commons and a Senate but its successor, the Northern Ireland Assembly, is uni-cameral. So too are the Scottish Parliament and the London and Welsh assemblies.
The idea that an elected second chamber at Westminster is ‘a good thing’ has taken off to the point where it’s now considered rude to ask why. Having more politicians must mean more democracy, mustn’t it? Well, no. It depends what they do, and especially whether they cancel each other out, so that all we get is noise. The first duty of a good legislature is to make good laws. And for that to happen, it needs to be composed of the best folk to make those laws. Quality matters. That is why campaigns to make our elected bodies more ‘representative’ in a purely statistical sense are so stupid. As well as being insulting to the voters by demanding the screening and filtering of the candidates for whom they’re allowed to vote. Let’s have more women, more minorities, more disadvantaged. Yes, if they’re the best candidates for public office. And if they’re not, then let’s not have them. Allow the voters to decide.
Which, in broad terms, is fortunately how those responsible for executive decisions are still elected. But there is more to organisation than executive decisions. Just as in left/right brain theory, so organisation has its own executive/sensory nexus. Current decision-making needs to be shadowed by other thinking focused on monitoring and review, research and longer-term development. Short electoral cycles are notoriously poor at delivering that. They’re all about advantage and cover-up. Posterity doesn’t have the vote.
A non-elected second chamber can help redress the balance, provided that those who comprise it are there on merit and widely respected for their expert knowledge and experience. Its role isn’t to stop bad laws, but to query them. It isn’t to pick a fight with the first chamber, but to remind it of the bigger picture. It isn’t to govern, but to scan the horizon.
You can have politics. Or you can have wisdom. Ideally, if we can manage it, we need both. Clegg’s proposals guaranteed more of the first and less of the second. And all the while they reinforce the crazy idea that only by gathering folk up and taking them to London can good self-rule be achieved. Successful constitutional reform requires more searching questions about what the Lords is for. But first there must be an answer to the question of what Parliament itself adds to our quality of life in Wessex that we ourselves could not more satisfactorily achieve by other means.
The LibDem proposals for the Lords were so bad that one wonders where all that party’s brains have gone. It used to be home to clever, creative thinkers, who would never have suggested an elected chamber where the members are free to get up to whatever mischief they fancy for 15 years with no possibility of ever facing the electorate’s wrath. Elected, moreover, to represent those ghastly Prescott zones the Coalition pretends not to believe in.
We commend our own proposals for a Wessex Witan, first published in 1982, which were for a two-chamber regional legislature of Assembly and Senate. The balance of argument in favour of bi-cameralism in Wessex, we explained, is based on long-standing usage in British constitutional practice, on the extra manpower made available for committee work, and on the possibility it offers for the direct representation of local authorities, academic institutions and the professions. The devolved Parliament of Northern Ireland (1922-72) comprised a House of Commons and a Senate but its successor, the Northern Ireland Assembly, is uni-cameral. So too are the Scottish Parliament and the London and Welsh assemblies.
The idea that an elected second chamber at Westminster is ‘a good thing’ has taken off to the point where it’s now considered rude to ask why. Having more politicians must mean more democracy, mustn’t it? Well, no. It depends what they do, and especially whether they cancel each other out, so that all we get is noise. The first duty of a good legislature is to make good laws. And for that to happen, it needs to be composed of the best folk to make those laws. Quality matters. That is why campaigns to make our elected bodies more ‘representative’ in a purely statistical sense are so stupid. As well as being insulting to the voters by demanding the screening and filtering of the candidates for whom they’re allowed to vote. Let’s have more women, more minorities, more disadvantaged. Yes, if they’re the best candidates for public office. And if they’re not, then let’s not have them. Allow the voters to decide.
Which, in broad terms, is fortunately how those responsible for executive decisions are still elected. But there is more to organisation than executive decisions. Just as in left/right brain theory, so organisation has its own executive/sensory nexus. Current decision-making needs to be shadowed by other thinking focused on monitoring and review, research and longer-term development. Short electoral cycles are notoriously poor at delivering that. They’re all about advantage and cover-up. Posterity doesn’t have the vote.
A non-elected second chamber can help redress the balance, provided that those who comprise it are there on merit and widely respected for their expert knowledge and experience. Its role isn’t to stop bad laws, but to query them. It isn’t to pick a fight with the first chamber, but to remind it of the bigger picture. It isn’t to govern, but to scan the horizon.
You can have politics. Or you can have wisdom. Ideally, if we can manage it, we need both. Clegg’s proposals guaranteed more of the first and less of the second. And all the while they reinforce the crazy idea that only by gathering folk up and taking them to London can good self-rule be achieved. Successful constitutional reform requires more searching questions about what the Lords is for. But first there must be an answer to the question of what Parliament itself adds to our quality of life in Wessex that we ourselves could not more satisfactorily achieve by other means.
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