The Madness of Parliament

How is one to explain the spiteful and capricious madness that seems to have infected honourable members since the EU Referendum?  As a well-established democracy, what has happened to the guiding principles of tolerance, cooperation and compromise? Rather, were those qualities ever only skin deep and that government of the people, by the people and for the people was only a myth?  Through recent history, the people have been content to accept the judgement of their betters. I take the medicine my doctor prescribes because I trust his professional competence. I respect the advice of my lawyer and bank manager or my child’s teacher.  And I trust my member of parliament to do his best to represent me within the constraints of the principle of majority rule. Not any longer; if I trip over a brick in the road my first reaction is to sue the Council and not book an appointment with the optician, if my investment falls I file a claim for mis-selling or if a child has problems at school we rage at the classroom door.  Similarly with politics the myth of a parliamentary democracy accepting the concept of majority rule, like the King’s new suit of clothes, has been exposed and supplanted by the primacy of minority interests, both real and, more sinisterly, imagined.  Written rules now regularly trump common sense.  As the Spectator leader puts it today, recent events show a trend for our pro-remain politicians to think of new ways to put the myth of democracy out of the reach of the people and into the hands of law.

When I observed in my last post that most MPs would be able to resume employment in the law following Mushroom’s summary purge of Parliament, I quoted the idea of PFI contracting as being a fruitful source of remuneration.  After I left the Royal Air Force I was proud to have worked for Serco in the days when it was the leader of creative outsourcing.  Serco operated on the principle that my word is my bond – if that’s what we said we would do then we will do it, and better.  Of course there was a written contract but the hope was that there would never be a need to consult it such being the trust between the client and the contractor.  But my eyes were opened during preliminary discussions with contract lawyers negotiating the terms of a huge PFI contract to supply air-to-air refuelling service to the Royal Air Force.  I was only a humble ex-pilot, untutored in the commercial law of the jungle but here I found the imperative to tie-down the contract with impenetrable legalese questioned one’s faith in human nature.  Worse, for the taxpayer, it would, clearly, lead to sub-optimal contract performance as both sides monitored each other for nit-picking compliance instead of doing their best to excel in service delivery. This was twenty years ago but perhaps that was a symptom of the more general mutual erosion of trust between the ordinary people and the professional class who, increasingly, owes its livelihood to the so-called establishment.  For me, in retrospect, this was a sign of the thin end of a wedge that now divides Parliament from the people it is supposed to represent.  Subsequently, and stemming from that break-down of trust, we now see a cowardly reluctance to take responsibility for action.  Those who should be making difficult decisions on our behalf now find it safer for their careers to hide behind third party advice and public enquiries.  Finally, as Douglas Murray points out, there is now the spectre of every corporate action being minutely scrutinised for possible offence, either real or imagined.  Why would anyone put their head above the parapet in such circumstances and how else can the failure to get Brexit done be explained?

Suggestion for the Chancellor

The long-suffering Conservative Policy Forum, that organisation of party members who are told they have a role in shaping Party policy have just been asked, with a one week deadline for a response, ahead of a Budget 2019 on Wednesday 6 November, to provide suggestions for the Chancellor.  Sajid Javid, apparently, would value receiving our best ideas and recommendations on measures to help "back taxpayers and grow the economy."  I’ll bet he does - with global trade and growth stagnating and domestic borrowing on the rise again I should imagine any cunning plans would be very welcome.  As it is, he will have to invent a new rule to keep him honest about borrowing and loading more debt on our successors. 

Sadly, given the partisan stalemate in Parliament, it is tempting to conclude that any submission to the Chancellor would be as symbolic as his proposed budget and that we should ignore the invitation to contribute because it is pointless.  But let us at least try?

Mushroom has a suggestion:  in round figures, the cost of running Parliament runs to about £550 million per year, roughly the equivalent of operating, for example, the Department of Education.  We may feel that the cost of running education is taxation well-spent.  On the other hand, we are reminded by the Institute for Government website that “there is much about Parliament’s role in democracy – representing citizens, enacting legislation, facilitating debate and scrutinising government – that cannot simply have a price tag attached to it.”  Quite so but in the current climate that cost benefit is somewhat opaque.  Delaying Brexit is, according to the BBC, costing UK plc £1 billion per month (gross) in contributions.  If businesses start losing money, those that will survive will cut costs quickly.    Shedding labour is an obvious starting point.  So how about we shed Parliament?  If each of 650 Honourable members earns at least £80,000 per year, not including expenses and the premiums for ministerial office etc, we could save the taxpayer at least £52 million per year at a stroke by dismissing the lot of them.  We should not be too concerned about adding to the unemployment budget since most honourable members seem to be qualified in law and should be able to turn their hand in conveyancing or contract law, particularly PFI, fairly readily.  With the proceeds, Mushroom recommends compensating small businesses for the time they have wasted consulting the Government website, “Get Ready for Brexit.” The advice today, by the way, is still:

“If the withdrawal agreement is not signed by the UK and the EU, the UK could still leave with no deal on 31 October 2019. Find out what you, your family, or your business need to do if the UK leaves the EU with no deal.”

Ladbrokes are offering 10 to 1 against a no deal departure on 31 October so I don’t think business will be taking the above advice too seriously.

Number Crunching

With full acknowledgement to Private Eye for this adaptation of their idea:

Britannia Waves the Rules

Friday’s musical euphoria gave way to despair as the meaning of the Letwin amendment sank in. Far from the advertised purpose of granting MPs more time for reflection, the amendment actually granted an enduring power to block and frustrate any Brexit enabling legislation in the secure knowledge that the threat of a WTO exit would be neutralised by a compliant EU granting the UK a sequence of rolling extensions. Despite having, hitherto, voted overwhelmingly for it, Parliament just voted itself the power to stop Brexit.  Letwin is either monumentally stupid, as only self-styled academics can sometime be, or a dangerous psychopath in thrall to those who seek to block the UK leaving the EU at any cost. I favour the latter explanation and we hear that his strings are being pulled by Gina Miller and her henchman Lord Pannick.  Thus, the remain attack could continue for the duration of Parliament, paralysing the Brexit process and during which time the increasingly militant Remainers will hope to sap the resistance of those and felt some obligation to do as they promised in the referendum prospectus. They will hope that collective fatigue will eventually replace, “let’s get Brexit done,” with “let’s forget about the whole thing.”

And so, with the exquisite irony of Brecht, honourable members sent an emphatic message to the electorate: you have forfeited our trust and we can no longer represent you. Parliament will now find a new electorate: we have been dismissed as misguided and troublesome. Pitifully, the same collection of honourable members did not divulge how or when their quest for a new constituency would be conducted.

Citizen of Somewhere

I watched the BBC transmission of the The Last Night of the Proms on television a few weeks back.  I was so affected by the coverage that I searched out the appropriate Twitter conversation and added my two-pennyworth to the extent that I had found the whole thing a vomit-inducing, self-indulgent, vicarious victim-fest.  In particular, the sea of spontaneous EU flag waving, the blue and gold-starred costumes and the rainbow flags in every camera shot seemed to indicate a production agenda rather than add anything to the cultural basis of the programme.   So I was somewhat reluctant to book tickets for “Last Night at the Proms featuring the Grimethorpe Colliery Band” at the Royal Hall in Harrogate.  Even though the mood had been cheered by news, that afternoon, that the Prime Minister had concluded an agreement with the EU about leaving the EU, I still had worries about the potential tone of the evening.   Perhaps I feared some sort of “Brassed Off” anti-Thatcher social lecture but I could not have been more wrong.  Following an excellent early supper at Gianni’s (top tip – the early bird menu is superb value) we took our seats in the magnificent Royal Hall.  Marie Curie, for whom the whole event was all about, rightly, took some time to remind us of the wonderful work they do but we were soon into the musical programme with Grimethorpe on tip-top form.  Katy Kelly and Philip Wilcox accompanied by Ewan Gifford delighted with some extracts from Mozart and Puccini before Grimethorpe concluded the first half with Londonderry Air and a stirring finale of Tale of the Dragon.

After the interval the audience joined in singing with, We’ll Gather Lilacs, White Cliffs of Dover and We’ll Meet again and then, after another stirring piece from Grimethorpe, we were into the finale of Rule Britannia, Jerusalem and Pomp and Circumstance.  By this time the audience appeared thoroughly enthused and stood and waved flags with vigorous abandon – looking around, the auditorium was full of red white and blue banners.  Oddly, there were no EU flags – they were all Union Flags apart from a solitary Welch standard.  Whether we had all been affected by some sort of collective sub-conscious relief that we might, finally, be moving forward after three and a half  years of Brexit prevarication I could not know but perhaps the cautious optimism of the afternoon’s news added to the occasion?  It certainly felt, as we stood before an honour guard of the Royal Lancers and sang the National Anthem, that we were citizens of somewhere.