Discussion: Is reform required in our Government?

[edwin_m]

Without wishing to start a Brexit debate I think the result of the referendum showed exactly why we need referenda.

It shows exactly the opposite as far as I'm concerned. Those countries that rely on referenda have checks and balances in place that address the natural tendency of people to see what's wrong with the current system, without considering so much what is right and would be lost by changing it.

As it is we are saddled with a policy that is absolutely bonkers, because a campaign basically hoodwinked the public into voting for it. On a related note, sanctions against misleading advertising in all other fields that aim to prevent people making personal spending decisions based on bad information, but there is nothing equivalent in relation to deciding about the future of the country. We need some laws to address statements made when the person making them knows (or reasonably ought to know) they are false, and refuses to offer a correction of equal prominence.

 

[Meerkat]

Why is that? Because newspapers should be able to run the country, with the last three referenda going the way newspapers wanted?

That’s just a dislike of the result. The result and the turnout showed that the issue wasn’t being dealt with by the normal system - Leave didn’t have a voice as all main parties were Remain.

And yet when the chips are down, most simply fall into line.

Have they? The rebellions have blocked the leaders wishes and they have had to compromise

That's what constitutional protections do.
Just this one is composed of people.

The concept that the people have to be protected from themselves is pretty patronising. Th energy would be better spent improving the election process than blocking the results

 

[najaB]

The concept that the people have to be protected from themselves is pretty patronising.

I think you may have missed the point that @HSTEd was making. An upper house is supposed to act as a brake on an out-of-control lower house. In the normal course of things, the Lords will simply review and approve the legislation coming out of the Commons.

But, were we to have a situation where a party had a sizeable majority, and a leader who was intent on pursuing a course of action that would be detrimental to the country, the Lords would be able to slow the passage of legislation long enough for the populace to fully understand what was being proposed.

So the second house doesn't protect the people from themselves, it protects their best interests from duplicitous elected officials.

 

[ashkeba]

That’s just a dislike of the result. The result and the turnout showed that the issue wasn’t being dealt with by the normal system - Leave didn’t have a voice as all main parties were Remain.

No, it's a simple fact, not just the Brexit one, but the Scottish vote and the voting system vote. Referendums are won by newspapers (in reality, Remain didn't have a voice as the biggest newspapers were Leave) and that's a terrible way to run a county.

 

[SteveP29]

and there's a huge amount of fat that could be trimmed from the royal family's budget I'm sure. Not having so many hangers on with their noses in the trough would be a start.)

Also do you propose to allow all the Royal Palaces to crumble into dust?

I'm neither a Royalist or Republican, but my belief is that only the monarch and the two following in line should receive anything from 'the state', the rest should be doing something useful, like a job and not expecting the country to pick up the tab (yes Andrew, you and your daughter's wedding I'm on about)
If they want those palaces and want to retain exclusive use of them, let them pay for their upkeep, just like I have to pay for upkeep of my home

 

[najaB]

If they want those palaces and want to retain exclusive use of them, let them pay for their upkeep, just like I have to pay for upkeep of my home

How much was spent by the State on upkeep of royal residences last year?

 

[ashkeba]

How much was spent by the State on upkeep of royal residences last year?

Over £39m, according to https://www.royal.uk/financial-reports-2018-19

 

[Meerkat]

So the second house doesn't protect the people from themselves, it protects their best interests from duplicitous elected officials.

“Duplicitous elected officials”. ELECTED. So you are just patronisingly protecting the people from their own decisions. You could just have a system with higher majorities or referenda needed for significant changes. Do you have any examples of these things that the people need protecting from?

No, it's a simple fact, not just the Brexit one, but the Scottish vote and the voting system vote. Referendums are won by newspapers (in reality, Remain didn't have a voice as the biggest newspapers were Leave) and that's a terrible way to run a county.

Don’t want to get into Brexit, but you just sound like a sore loser. The Remain message came through loud and clear.
Seems odd that you are insistent on reforming the second chamber but assume referenda stay the same. There are plenty of ways of controlling access to the media if you really think it is an issue. And if referenda, which are just votes, are a broken concept then we may as well give up with elections and have technocrats you agree with running the country.

 

[najaB]

So you are just patronisingly protecting the people from their own decisions. You could just have a system with higher majorities or referenda needed for significant changes.

No, it's not about protecting people from their decisions, but rather slowing down the process down a bit to ensure that people have time to fully engage. People only get to "make a decision" once every five years on average. The result of a general election shouldn't and mustn't be treated as a green light for the government to do whatever they want for the next half a decade.

Referenda work but only if the questions are clearly defined.

Do you have any examples of these things that the people need protecting from?

In recent years, no. But using examples from history there's a reason that Messrs. Hitler, Stalin and Bonaparte* (among others) all favoured [edit: effectively] unicameral parliaments.

*Notionally the 1st French Empire had a bi-cameral parliament, but in practice the Senate was directly appointed rather than elected so, unsurprisingly, tended to go along with the Emperor.

 

[najaB]

Over £39m, according to https://www.royal.uk/financial-reports-2018-19

Which also says:

The Queen’s official expenditure is met from public funds in exchange for the surrender by The Queen of the revenue from the Crown Estate.

So it's not quite so straightforward.

 

[ashkeba]

Don’t want to get into Brexit, but you just sound like a sore loser. The Remain message came through loud and clear.
Seems odd that you are insistent on reforming the second chamber but assume referenda stay the same. There are plenty of ways of controlling access to the media if you really think it is an issue. And if referenda, which are just votes, are a broken concept then we may as well give up with elections and have technocrats you agree with running the country.

It seems like you do want to get into Brexit because you keep dragging it back to that one and ignoring the other two recent referenda which were also basically won by lying, that Scotland voting No would let it stay in the EU and that voting reform would result in less stable government: but now Scotland is being dragged out of the EU and the last two governments have been unstable and staggered around like a drunk toddler at a wedding breakfast and bribing a minor party to prop them up and let them keep drinking that sweet nectar.

With that experience, it seems referenda are not compatible with the British system. They maybe if there is reform first. Maybe rules like Switzerland's. But to have more referenda like the 2010s would be to let the newspapers rule. It is a fool who does the same thing again and expects a different result.

 

[ashkeba]

Which also says: So it's not quite so straightforward.

I never said it was straightforward but the answer is the public spent £39+m on palaces. Please do not ask people to waste time looking things up if you are going to dispute the answer!

 

[Daz28]

Whilst it can be argued that politics over the past three years is broken, it is hard to argue that the Lords or the Monarch have been the cause of any of the Brexit shambles, or that replacing them would have led to a different outcome.
It can also be argued that politics over the past three years has faced the biggest challenge in our political history, and the checks and balances inherent in our system have largely worked as intended.
The cause of many of the challenges has been a minority government, who have not even managed to get all of their own MPs onside, behaving as if they had a majority. Instead of working to build a coalition on the major topic of the day, through consultation and compromise, both the current and former Prime Ministers have tried to force through their chosen policy against overwhelming opposition. It was a choice that was bound to fail, and our system was robust enough to ensure it did.
The fundamental dilemma facing MPs is that they are elected to represent the people, and there has been a conflict between what members believe to be in the best interests of the people and what the people voted for in a referendum. This is complicated by the question they were asked being ambiguous, the information they were presented with being incomplete, or in some cases factually incorrect, and overhanging this is the allegations that electoral law was broken during said referendum. Throw in the fact that the result was fairly close and some believe that the people have changed their minds, and you have the position we are now in.
I’m not sure that reforming the House Of Lords or removing the monarchy would make any difference.

 

[najaB]

I never said it was straightforward but the answer is the public spent £39+m on palaces. Please do not ask people to waste time looking things up if you are going to dispute the answer!

I'm not disputing the answer that £39M was spent on palaces. However, given that my question was in reply to:

If they want those palaces and want to retain exclusive use of them, let them pay for their upkeep, just like I have to pay for upkeep of my home

Then we have to consider:

The Queen’s official expenditure is met from public funds in exchange for the surrender by The Queen of the revenue from the Crown Estate. The Core Sovereign Grant is calculated based on 15% of the income account net surplus of the Crown Estate for the financial year two years previous. The Crown Estate surplus for the financial year 2016-17 amounted to £328.8 million, thereby producing a Core Sovereign Grant of £49.3 million for 2018-19

The Crown Estate generates around £330M a year, which goes into the public purse and then c. £50M of that is allocated to the Sovereign. So they more than pay for the upkeep of the palaces with what was, effectively, their money to start with.

 

[Meerkat]

It seems like you do want to get into Brexit because you keep dragging it back to that one and ignoring the other two recent referenda which were also basically won by lying, that Scotland voting No would let it stay in the EU and that voting reform would result in less stable government: but now Scotland is being dragged out of the EU and the last two governments have been unstable and staggered around like a drunk toddler at a wedding breakfast and bribing a minor party to prop them up and let them keep drinking that sweet nectar.

With that experience, it seems referenda are not compatible with the British system. They maybe if there is reform first. Maybe rules like Switzerland's. But to have more referenda like the 2010s would be to let the newspapers rule. It is a fool who does the same thing again and expects a different result.

Again you just sound like someone wanting a system to give your ‘right’ results.
Brexit and the Indy ref both had vigorous public debates (and all sides stretched the truth a lot)
The argument that Scotland would struggle with rejoining the EU still stands, and the reaction to coalition and the deal with the DUP shows that people won’t accept the realities of PR created coalition government (much as I would like a more PR system personally).
Referenda are needed where the party system doesn’t give a choice on major issues.
We need better control of campaigning for all voting (I would state fund official multi party leaflets/websites and have compulsory rebuttal for all media coverage).
Electing the HoL just adds to the problem and who wants more politicians? An unelected HoL is just a travesty of a democracy aimed at maintaining the establishment.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

An unelected HoL is just a travesty of a democracy aimed at maintaining the establishment.

Well, that depends on what the House of Lords is for, doesn't it. If its purpose was to fundamentally steer the course of politics, then yes, being unelected would arguably be a travesty of democracy.

But that isn't really its purpose. I would say it's purpose is (or ought to be) to scrutinise legislation and hold the Government to account, from the perspective of a more considered, 'professional' stance than you typically get from party politics. And also to delay/make it harder to pass legislation that, from an expert/professional perspective, appears to be badly thought out, or to infringe on some people's rights. Given that purpose, I don't see any obvious need for it to be elected. And I'd imagine that being elected would make it harder for the House of Lords to fulfill it's purpose - since it would just result it being dominated by the 'we-are-right-about-everything, you-lot-are-wrong-about-everything kind of party politics that dominates the Commons.

Or do you think that it's a travesty of democracy that - for example - the judiciary, or the civil service aren't elected?

 

[ashkeba]

Again you just sound like someone wanting a system to give your ‘right’ results.
Brexit and the Indy ref both had vigorous public debates (and all sides stretched the truth a lot)
The argument that Scotland would struggle with rejoining the EU still stands, and the reaction to coalition and the deal with the DUP shows that people won’t accept the realities of PR created coalition government (much as I would like a more PR system personally).
Referenda are needed where the party system doesn’t give a choice on major issues.

I think it is obvious that I am not on the "right".

They had vigorous public debates but they were debates dominated by lies so were unlikely to result in a consensus that any result was worth respecting.

The deal with the DUP was not created by PR. It could not work under PR: 42.4% + 0.9% vote shares do not equal a majority in a PR system - or in any fair system, IMO.

You say referenda are needed where the party system doesn’t give a choice on major issues, but on all of voting reform, Scottish independence and Brexit, there were parties supporting each option. Referenda were used for cynical reasons in each case and the negative answer backed by the media establishment won in all three.

We need better control of campaigning for all voting

I agree with that (where is that report on Russian interference?) but I think referenda also must be required to be a choice between real actions, else "we should not do X" will almost always win if it is not required to say what it will do instead and then required to do it.

 

[Geezertronic]

No, it's a simple fact, not just the Brexit one, but the Scottish vote and the voting system vote. Referendums are won by newspapers (in reality, Remain didn't have a voice as the biggest newspapers were Leave) and that's a terrible way to run a county.

Remain had the biggest voices of all - Government (and Parliament I presume). The leaflet that came through every door in the UK emphasised that. PM Cameron and Chancellor Osbourne at the time had their views aired via TV & newspapers as to why people should vote Remain and what would allegedly happen in the event of a Leave vote. It was pretty clear what way Government wanted the vote to go

 

[ashkeba]

Remain had the biggest voices of all - Government (and Parliament I presume). The leaflet that came through every door in the UK emphasised that. PM Cameron and Chancellor Osbourne at the time had their views aired via TV & newspapers as to why people should vote Remain and what would allegedly happen in the event of a Leave vote. It was pretty clear what way Government wanted the vote to go

That leaflet was only one of many most doors received and it was stodgy, dodgy and not exactly the Remain campaign message. Whenever the Government got a Remain view aired via TV & newspapers, it was at least balanced by a Leave view.

Government is not the biggest voice. Say it published 30 million leaflets. Newspapers published many times more than that during the campaign. The Daily Mail alone will have done that roughly each month! Newspapers were clearly the biggest voice and presented Leave as some sort of anti-establishment way to give the shiny Cameron and slimey Osbourne bloody noses which would have no long term bad effects because Leave won't win because the system is all fixed to deliver the result Cameron wants.

I agree with @Meerkat that there must be much better control of campaigning. Too much dirt is thrown to try to distract people from what they are really voting on and the consequences of it.

 

[najaB]

Remain had the biggest voices of all - Government (and Parliament I presume). The leaflet that came through every door in the UK emphasised that.

If I remember correctly the leaflet cost £10M. What would it cost to have a message printed on the front page of the Mail,Express, et. al. on an almost daily basis for months?

 

[Meerkat]

I think it is obvious that I am not on the "right".

They had vigorous public debates but they were debates dominated by lies so were unlikely to result in a consensus that any result was worth respecting.

The deal with the DUP was not created by PR. It could not work under PR: 42.4% + 0.9% vote shares do not equal a majority in a PR system - or in any fair system, IMO.

You say referenda are needed where the party system doesn’t give a choice on major issues, but on all of voting reform, Scottish independence and Brexit, there were parties supporting each option. Referenda were used for cynical reasons in each case and the negative answer backed by the media establishment won in all three

i meant correct result, not the right wing result
i disagree that the campaign was dominated by lies, but we shall have to agree to disagree!
The deal with the DUP is exactly the kind of thing that happens in coalition building. The percentages are irrelevant, if the DUP had the MPs needed they would get their share/bribes (delete as per personal opinion)
On Brexit you could only vote for UKIP in a GE, which many Leavers wouldn’t wish to do as it would risk getting the wrong Remain government of red or blue hue (and UKIP were nutters on non Brexit stuff)
The close results in two of the three referenda prove they’re were needed, particularly the way the vote cut across the two main parties’ voters. Avoiding a referendum on European integration was the cynical political position IMO (don’t let the proles vote, they might get it wrong!)

 

[JamesT]

That leaflet was only one of many most doors received and it was stodgy, dodgy and not exactly the Remain campaign message. Whenever the Government got a Remain view aired via TV & newspapers, it was at least balanced by a Leave view.

Government is not the biggest voice. Say it published 30 million leaflets. Newspapers published many times more than that during the campaign. The Daily Mail alone will have done that roughly each month! Newspapers were clearly the biggest voice and presented Leave as some sort of anti-establishment way to give the shiny Cameron and slimey Osbourne bloody noses which would have no long term bad effects because Leave won't win because the system is all fixed to deliver the result Cameron wants.

I agree with @Meerkat that there must be much better control of campaigning. Too much dirt is thrown to try to distract people from what they are really voting on and the consequences of it.

Newspapers are far from the biggest voice, most people don’t read them as per https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/116529/news-consumption-2018.pdf

Newspapers are very visible as they don’t have the impartiality regulations the broadcasters do, but it’s not clear that they’re necessarily having an effect. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-of-the-last-general-election-is-1439286.html is a post-mortem on 1992 where famously 'It was The Sun wot won it', but the article says the press had very little effect.

 

[najaB]

Newspapers are far from the biggest voice, most people don’t read them...

That is true - readership is way down from decades past, but (a) that doesn't account for online readership (much of which is indirect); and (b) discounts the "water cooler effect" where the stories covered in papers are discussed widely, even by people who didn't buy a copy.

 

[Meerkat]

There is also the question of whether the readers follow the papers or the papers follow the readers, ie an element of the papers seeing the way the wind is blowing and wanting to end up on the right side.

 

[HSTEd]

There is also the question of whether the readers follow the papers or the papers follow the readers, ie an element of the papers seeing the way the wind is blowing and wanting to end up on the right side.

I think its both and neither at the same time.

It could very easily be a self fulfilling prophecy.