A site that gives information and answers:
“The Electoral Commission is investigating. So too, are more than a dozen police forces. So far 21 local constabularies have been granted an extra year by magistrates to complete their investigations. So while we wait to hear back from the Met there are still a number of questions that need to be answered.”
Nothing at all to do with Brexit or RemaIN, simply a good point on whether “sovreignty” is democratic:
Perhaps the most powerfully held aspiration for Brexiteers is to restore UK parliamentary sovereignty: in the words of Michael Gove, to “take back control” and, of John Redwood, for Britain to “be a democracy again .
But what would this “taking back control” mean in practice? Brexiteers imply that while EU legislation is “imposed”, Westminster parliamentarians control non-EU law-making through active debates and votes.
Except they don’t, because for voters what impacts on their lives most is not primary legislation – Bills – on which parliamentarians can vote, but the meaningful detail of the Bills, which Whitehall civil servants and ministers increasingly choose to hide in secondary legislation (sometimes called delegated legislation of Statutory Instruments – SIs).
The scale of this was estimated for the Lords by former minister Baroness Andrews:
“80 per cent of the laws as they impact on individuals are transported through statutory instruments, whether that is welfare benefits, food safety, planning requirements or competition across the NHS…”
Essentially Whitehall civil servants and ministers are defining important laws as “secondary legislation” in order to subvert the ability of parliament to choose whether to pass or not to pass laws.
Brexit is no guarantee of British control of its own destiny or of parliamentary sovereignty because our parliament is not in control.
SIs are rarely debated, and historic Westminster procedure means they cannot be amended. The idea that parliament meaningfully votes to “pass” them is no more real than the idea that the Queen gets to decide the content of the Queens Speech. …
“In celebration and memory of Jo Cox, we are raising funds to support causes closest to her heart, chosen by her family:
The Royal Voluntary Service, to support volunteers helping combat loneliness in Jo’s constituency, Batley and Spen in West Yorkshire.
HOPE not hate, who seek to challenge and defeat the politics of hate and extremism within local communities across Britain.
The White Helmets: volunteer search and rescue workers in Syria. Unarmed and neutral, these heroes have saved more than 51,000 lives from under the rubble and bring hope to the region.
In her husband Brendan’s words:
“Jo believed in a better world and she fought for it every day of her life with an energy, and a zest for life that would exhaust most people. She would have wanted two things above all else to happen now, one that our precious children are bathed in love and two, that we all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her.”
Let’s come together and give what we can to help create that better world.”
Something we all know about in East Devon!
“Cronyism in the South West”
The sheer amount of unsuitable and damaging development that has been pushed through against all objections in my home town of Totnes, but also throughout the south west, is making me question the role of cronyism in the deals made.
It starts at the very top of course in government, but appears to have sucked up many of our more august bodies that we are more used to seeing as our defenders and protection, into its net. The National Trust for example, now has a right wing business leader as its head. I wouldn’t suggest for a moment that this is as a result of any wrong doing, but I question why he is there, when he comes with no history of interest or involvement in conservation or the heritage sector. It is a coincidence of course that the National Trust appear to be engaged recently in the development business themselves, aiming to sell land, given to them in trust in Bovery Tracey and also in Somerset, for housing. To say local people aren’t happy is a bit of an understatement.
Natural England also, is now headed up by a right wing business man, an ex-developer actually, with little to no interest up to now in the environment, or preserving the countryside, he was too busy working to concrete it over as head of Linden Homes. George Monbiot describes his appointment as, ‘The government wants a chairman who can flog nature and have chosen a Tory party donor with a background in investment banking and housing developments.’
So our conservation and heritage organisations appear to be headed by cronies, our secretive Local Enterprise Partnership appears to be also. This is the self-appointed group tasked with pouring vast amounts of public money into encouraging enterprise and business down here and with running our devolution bid. The fact that the majority of those on the board come from the construction and housing sector and a few who are involved in weapons manufacturing won’t come as a surprise when you see that our devolution bid, which they mostly engineered, is very heavy on giant construction projects, which the board’s companies appear to profit from and very weak on tourism, farming and sustainability. This bid is about growth. ‘I want to only build structures that you can see from space,’ the chair is quoted as saying. The fact that this undemocratically elected group hold their meetings in private, have no head office, very little accountability and have managed to keep the lid on their activities very successfully is worrying and the ultimate in cronyism.
This culture goes down the line; housing developments pushed through when they are so obviously damaging and ridiculous. In Totnes, Great Court Farm was sold to developers in very suspect circumstances in my opinion. It is the last dairy farm in Totnes, the home to a fourth generation of farmers, a totally unsuitable spot for yet more mass building in this beleaguered town. The access is terrible, the logistics ridiculous and yet it was pushed through by a combination of cronyism and mis-management. The people who suffer are the people who always suffer when cronyism is allowed to flourish and that’s us – everyone else and in this instance the farmer and his family and the people of Totnes, who see their landscape the plaything of those in power.
Across the county, across the country in fact, the same story is played out endlessly. Local people left shocked and devastated as those in power find the wherewithal to circumnavigate due process and make an absolute fortunes flogging nature and our land to line their own pockets.”
https://allengeorgina.wordpress.com/2016/06/19/comment-piece-for-western-morning-news-cronyism/
“Most areas in England will soon have a directly elected mayor, but without proper scrutiny mayors alone won’t solve the local accountability problem.
Before too long, most people living in England will find they have a directly elected mayor in their area, making big decisions on transport, economic development, skills, further education, and possibly public health and policing. These mayors will sit at the heart of devolution deals, agreed between central government and local areas, which will see accountability and responsibility decentralised.
Beyond elections, there will be quite limited local mechanisms for holding these mayors to account. True, combined authorities – bodies made up of elected councillor leaders from across the area – will have a role in decision-making. These combined authorities in turn must establish overview and scrutiny committees of local councillors, to hold decision-makers to account – mirroring the arrangements which apply to most local authorities.
But the existence of these new structures is not in itself a guarantee of accountability. There needs to be an active effort by mayors and local councils to ensure these arrangements really work in the way intended.
Poor accountability will lead to services feeling and looking just as remote as they do when directed from London
Nationally, the systems for accountability seem, oddly, rather stronger. Devolution deals give government significant powers to hold local areas to account for their delivery under the deal.
Funding comes with strings attached and can be withheld if expectations are not met. Whitehall is keen to continue to assert its authority – and parliament is keen to support it. Recently, the Commons public accounts committee (PAC) placed devolution deals alongside major national schemes like e-borders in highlighting the risks of huge amounts of public money being spent without parliamentary oversight. But this fails to take account of the fact that effective oversight will work best if it works at local level. …
… What will happen if we fail to develop robust systems for accountability at local level? The first risk is that devolution will be anything but – a decentralisation of responsibility while power remains firmly at the centre. A tussle of power and responsibility between those at local and national level will only ever be won by Whitehall, which has the interest and the power to maintain the status quo.
The second is that devolution will fail to deliver the outcomes which have been promised. The only way that devolution will be a success is if local politicians are able to take more power to develop and implement creative, exciting ways to improve local people’s lives. Poor or non-existent accountability will lead to services feeling and looking just as remote as they have done when directed from London. …
… Areas with devolution deals in place will have to take it upon themselves to develop systems that will give local people confidence that deals will be implemented in their interests, and that they will have an opportunity to influence this implementation. …”
Why hasn’t she stood down now she is under investigation? Officers in the police force would have to do so. It is not an admission of guilt, it is to ensure that investigations are clear of any influence.
In her job she will be meeting with other PCCs and Chief Constables from other areas, including the area investigating her.
Muddy waters and our Police and Crime Panel should be clearing them, otherwise, with a Conservative majority on the Panel, they could be accused of protecting one of their own.
How come a Minister can’t talk about his constituency in Parliament but CAN say which side he supports in a referendum that will affect his all his constituents for decades to come?
Although this is about Dorset, much of it applies to Devon and East Devon. At least in Dorset, councillors (for now) remain in charge of their own destiny. In Devon and Somerset they have abdicated their responsibilities to local (and national and international) business interests, including developers and those with nuclear and arms interests.
And Dorset is making a token attempt to consult residents (although, as typical in these cases, they seem to be trying to keep it under their radar) unlike Devon and Somerset which have hijacked the process from under our noses amid secrecy and subterfuge.
“You are probably aware that Dorset County Council (DCC) is considering changing the way it is structured and moving to a Unitary Authority.
This means the district / borough level of local government would be abolished. It will likely mean fewer elected councillors making decisions and reduce overall capacity to deal with the needs of local residents.
Power is already far too removed. Instead of moving towards a vision of localisation, the proposed changes have the potential to create an even bigger gap in local democracy.
There will be a public consultation on this through July – September, a decision will be made by DCC, and should they wish to proceed with a Unitary Authority, a proposal to central government in early 2017.
It is currently uncertain if DCC will apply to postpone the 2017 County Council elections, but this has been voiced in DCC meetings as a possibility.
You are probably NOT aware of a separate plan for a Dorset Combined Authority (DCA) to cover:
· Dorset County Council
· Bournemouth Borough Council
· Poole Borough Council
· Purbeck District Council
· East Dorset District Council
· Christchurch Borough Council
· West Dorset District Council
· North Dorset District Council
· Weymouth and Portland Borough Council
In essence this is a body of 10 members, 9 drawn from elected councillors (a sort of super-cabinet) and 1 Local Enterprise Partner (someone appointed from “big business”).
The Dorset Combined Authority will have specific decision-making power, covering economic growth, regeneration / infrastructure and transportation. We are concerned there will be no environmental voice on this Authority. There is worry that a programme of road building that would literally pave the way to support oil & gas exploration and production (e.g. fracking) would go unchallenged:
Why are we telling you this?
The public “consultation” for the DCA is happening right now! Our apologies we did not become aware of this earlier. But even with our eyes and ears open across Dorset, Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch this proposal and process was not on our radar until very recently. But it is now!
What can you do?
There are 3 key things we would ask you to engage in:
1. Participate in the consultation survey on the Dorset For You website. The closing date is
Friday 17th June
(yes, we know, it is a very hurried and low-key consultation). Just click on the link below to take part in the quite short survey:
You may wish to say that for changes as serious as this, you would expect a referendum, and not just a short consultation exercise.
2. Write to your local town / parish, district / borough, county Councillor(s)and ask them one, some or all of the following:
Ask them to explain to you what the Dorset Combined Authority is all about. Ask them if they are aware of the consultation process, and if so why they have not done more in your ward to inform you about it and encourage engagement.
Ask them for their opinion about the advantages and disadvantages of the Dorset Combined Authority. Ask them if they think this is increasing or decreasing democracy at the local level.
Ask them if there will be a representative on the Authority focused on ensuring decisions around growth, infrastructure and transportation will be evaluated for their impact on the local environment (e.g. air pollution, wildlife protection, open spaces, etc.) and on the consequences for Climate Change.
Ask them how the 10 members will be selected or appointed. Ask them how those members will be held accountable for their decisions and by whom.
There may be other things you will want to ask them, but the above are a few ideas. If you are not familiar with the names and email addresses of the local councillors, a list of the councillors at all levels by each area / ward / division for West and South Dorset can be found within the article on our website:
Many thanks for taking an interest and we hope you will take some action if you can.
Caz Dennett
Campaign Manager, West & South Dorset Green Party”
This article from May 2016 asks: what happened to the “vision for Greater Exeter” which, as the writer says, was a partnership between East Devon, Exeter and Teignbridge, set up in November 2014. Nothing at all exists to show what it did, does or might do in future.
It is interesting to note that, at that time, Cabinets and senior officers of all three authorities must have aware of devolution plans.
“Whose Vision is it anyway
It’s a truism that politicians (and not only politicians) love making good news announcements. Even when they have to announce bad news, it’s always presented as positively as the spin doctors can manage. Announcements which are then followed up by nothing at all are not unheard of – after all, it’s the fact of announcing something that generates the media coverage, and then the circus moves on.
But what barely figures in the spin doctors’ handbook is the announcement which is then followed not so much by nothing as by a veil of secrecy. And here in Devon, we have a fine example.
On 24 November 2014, three district councils – East Devon, Exeter City and Teignbridge – announced that there were setting up a partnership to be called Greater Exeter, Greater Devon [1]. The stated aim is “to drive forward economic growth” through “joined-up decision making on planning, housing, resources and infrastructure”. A Greater Exeter Visioning Board would meet every month “to define work priorities”. The Board’s membership would be the leaders, chief executives and economic development lead councillors of each of the councils.
Leaving aside the question of whether economic growth is the right objective, this seems a potentially useful measure. The three councils cover adjacent areas and face transport and land use pressures, particularly in Exeter and its surroundings.
In the course of keeping up to date with local initiatives I recently trawled the councils’ websites for news of the monthly meetings of the Visioning Board. Nothing at all. So, focussing on Exeter City Council, I looked for minutes of meetings that approved the setting up of the Board and received reports from it. Nothing at all.
Next step, ask the council. After the usual 20 days had elapsed, an Exeter City Council officer sent me a reply confirming the Board’s membership and setting out the dates each month on which it had met since its inception . However, the reply stated that the minutes of the Board’s meetings were not available to the public, though no reason for this was given.
So, here we are. A local authority body, promoted as a driver for economic growth and coordinating policies and planning on key issues, is announced with much fanfare and then vanishes into a cloak of secrecy.
Open government, indeed. I’ve asked the City Council a series of questions about the Board’s authority, functions and accountability. Watch this space for their response.”
https://petercleasby.com/tag/greater-exeter-visioning-board/
http://www.eastdevonalliance.org.uk/news/20160614/eda-invites-hugo-swire-to-become-independent/
Hugo Swire MP has used his blog to attack the idea of Independents both in Parliament and at District Council level. This is EDA Chairman, Paul Arnott’s response:
“The last time I saw Hugo in the paper he was greeting US Secretary of State, John Kerry, to the anti-corruption summit in London. It seemed marvellous that although the Swire family name was dotted throughout the Panama papers Hugo was joining the fight for accountability and transparency.
So, may I suggest that he casts off the shackles of Conservative membership, and the ministerial code which he claims prevents him speaking in Parliament about his constituency, and join the free-to-speak, free-to-act Independents? With all the extra time he may even be able to find a home down here.
But as a matter of fact, Hugo is wrong that East Devon Alliance Independents operate as a bloc in the council. There are 15 Independents in the Independent group, including 9 who are also members of the EDA, and it is a matter of record that every one of them votes as they individually decide. There has never been and never will be the kind of arm-twisting beloved of EDDC’s Tory hierarchy, which itself does a disservice to many excellent Conservative councillors as perturbed by this as us.
As to being anti-Tory, this is a canard Hugo has tried to float before. In fact, we have just made a submission to the Home Office in support of his colleague Theresa May’s Action Plan on Money Laundering and Terrorist Finance, with reference to the possibility of money laundering through property development. This is as relevant in East Devon as it is to the gleaming new towers of central London.
Finally, the EDA registered with the Electoral Commission precisely so that our microscopic spend at the May 2105 elections was open to analysis by the public. We look forward to Hugo’s views regarding a number of his Devon Conservative colleagues whose own Parliamentary electoral expenditure returns are now being investigated by the West Mercia Police.”
“On Wednesday, two very different men will have to explain themselves. Both appear in London, to a room full of authority figures – but their finances and their status place them at opposite ends of our power structure. Yet put them together and a picture emerges of the skewedness of today’s Britain.
For the Rev Paul Nicolson, the venue will be a magistrate’s court in London. His “crime” is refusing to pay his council tax, in protest against David Cameron’s effective scrapping of council tax benefit, part of his swingeing cuts to social security. In order to pay for a financial crisis they didn’t cause, millions of families already on low incomes are sinking deeper into poverty. In order to pay bills they can’t afford, neighbours of the retired vicar are going without food. The 84-year-old faces jail this week, for the sake of £2,831.
Meanwhile, a chauffeur will drive Philip Green to parliament, where he’ll be quizzed by MPs over his part in the collapse of BHS. A business nearly as old as the Queen will die within a few weeks, leaving 11,000 workers out of a job and 22,000 members of its pension scheme facing a poorer retirement.
There the similarities peter out. Nicolson was summoned to court; Green wasn’t going to bother showing up at Westminster. When the multibillionaire was invited by Frank Field to make up BHS’s £600m pension black hole, he demanded the MP resign as chair of the work and pensions select committee.
But then, Green is used to cherry-picking which rules he plays by. Take this example: he buys Arcadia, the company that owns Topshop, then arranges for it to give his wife a dividend of £1.2bn. Since Tina Green is, conveniently, a resident of Monaco, the tax savings on that one payment alone are worth an estimated £300m. That would fund the building of 10 large secondary schools – or two-thirds of the annual cut to council tax benefits.
Just as Green underinvests in society, so he underinvests in his companies. The man to whom he sold BHS last year, Dominic Chappell, told MPs last week that “for the past 10 or 12 years there had been little or no inward investment in the stores”. A staple of the high street had been run down.
Then again, what incentive has he had to do otherwise? Green bought BHS with just £20m of family money and borrowed the rest. Within four years, he had pulled £400m of dividends out of the firm – 20 times his initial outlay.
He used the same tactic to buy Arcadia – stumping up £9.2m in equity and taking out £1.2bn three years later. This isn’t retailing as you might think of it, it’s balance-sheet shazam – the kind of financial engineering that posed as real business in Britain’s bubble years. And it’s enabled Green to turn major retailers into what Robert Peston, in Who Runs Britain?, calls “giant gushers of cash”.
But in today’s Britain, the poor are forced to pay the unaffordable, while the tax-avoider is honoured for his contribution to society. Green was knighted by Tony Blair, while David Cameron appointed him a government adviser.
Just as Green pretends to be a cheeky chappy even though he went to boarding school, so any charlatan in pinstripes can claim to be a businessperson – and be handsomely rewarded. The barons who run our rail services tout themselves as “investors”, but for every quid they put into their trains, they take out £2.47. That level of underinvestment ensures commuters are never sure of getting in on time and having a seat – but shareholders and managers can make a fortune.
From Margaret Thatcher through Tony Blair to David Cameron, successive prime ministers have preached the virtues of free enterprise. We’ve ended up with an economy comprised of what parliament’s public accounts committee calls “quasi-monopolies” – from water to banks to electricity to public outsourcing – and big businesses being treated as money-sponges to be wrung dry by their owners and managers. …”
Dear Mr Swire,
Many thanks for devoting space on your website to the subject of independent candidates. You mount a stout defence of the party system and many of the points you raise, single issue candidates, rejects from other parties, lack of policies and so forth are valid.
However as you might expect, before committing over six million pounds to this project, on a one way ticket, we
thought long and hard about these factors and how to mitigate them.
Our guiding principle is that all policies and major decisions should be made in Parliament by the best people that can be found.
As you know, politics is in a state of flux throughout the Western world with extreme parties and extreme politicians emerging. From Golden Dawn in Greece, Alternative für Deutschland in Germany and Donald Trump in America
the writing is on the wall for the establishment.
Electorates are now looking for an alternative to parties that have long marginalised them and treated them with contempt.
However, the future lies not with new parties;
tribal politics has been tested to destruction. The future will be politicians hand-picked for their ability and accountable only to their constituents.
These people will become accomplished politicians who will
work collegiately with their colleagues towards the best possible decisions.
The end result will be policies arrived at by consensus in a powerful yet democratic parliament, rather than being used as electoral bait on the doorstep.
As you point out, independents are often regarded as political misfits or as being obsessed by single issues. However, all the candidates we endorse will have at least three things in common. They will all have signed up to
the Bell Principles, which set out clear standards of conduct; they will support parliamentary reform to stop politicians accepting promotion in return for unquestioning support; and they will have agreed to recall by their constituents if they fail to perform.
Future reforms may include the replacement of general elections, which have become time-wasting, immoral
and unaffordable festivals of bribery, with a permanent parliament. Rather than holding a general election every five years to change from one self-serving party to the next, it would make more sense to hold MPs accountable by recall instead.
The parliamentary term would become a
settled and productive continuum marked only by the periodic check and refreshment of its Members.
By habitually bribing voters to gain power, political parties have caused Western countries to live far beyond their means. Not only do political parties routinely bribe the electorate with their own money, they are now
bribing us with our children’s money as well.
We are imposing a truly immoral burden on future generations and every baby born in the UK today is already £24,000 in debt. Given the parlous state of our economy, by the time
they are sixteen this debt could have more than doubled.
Those who find work will face punitive levels of taxation; those who cannot will suffer an ever-decreasing level of support and opportunity. It has been known for
parents to cut up an offspring’s credit card, one day our children may well wish that they could have cut up ours. The prospect of a happy ending is fading fast as paper currencies, government bonds and quantitative easing
lose their charm in lockstep with stocks and commodities which are now also crumpling under the pressure.
With a clean sheet of paper, no sane person would replicate our present political system. Less than one percent of the electorate is now a member of a political party and seventy-six percent of that same electorate have not voted for the present government.
However, the system will not cure itself; the electorate will have to force reform by voting only for people
with a record of achievement rather than skilful orators. Staffed by MPs chosen for their ability rather than their political affiliation, parliament will have the views, needs and aspirations of the electorate woven into its
fabric rather than being cynically exploited for votes.
The political parties are now trapped by the very system they created and are condemned to keep on promising the earth to cling on to power. It is now up to the electorate to break this destructive cycle by voting only for people we
trust and respect.
You mention that most people are not political obsessives and may find it difficult to stay the distance. We would say that many have become fatalistic about their inability to control their own circumstances, institutionalised, confused by bureaucracy and demotivated by a system that only gives them a restricted choice of options to vote for once every five years.
You also correctly refer to the independents lack of resources in comparison to the big parties. Whilst this is true, crowdfunding will change that dynamic, not only in financial terms but by giving people a stake in their chosen candidate.
It has to be said that the ‘resources’ of the big parties have often been provided in exchange for influence and favours.
You mention that we have a position on the EU, we have and it is on our website;
“Brexit and Remain are both right in what they say. Brexit is correct about the inability to control our borders, red tape and the restriction on global trading by the EU.
Conversely, Remain is right to point out that there would
be damage to trade and that our ability to stand up to major players such as Russia and China would be weakened.
This tells us that the referendum will solve nothing.
However, no middle way is on offer and we are stuck with a
blunt Yes or No choice, neither of which will be in our best interests. The EU has made many mistakes but it has also got some things right and must be reformed rather than blown asunder.
However, it will take a concentrated
effort by all its member states to bring about the changes that will be required.”
The Free Parliament campaign is a philanthropic effort to replace a political system that is well past its sell-by date with one that is designed to work for us rather than against us.
We are now getting serious approaches from all round the UK not just from the West Country. I hope that this goes some way to assuage your concerns and there is also an
extensive FAQ section that you may find of interest.
However, I would be delighted to answer any further questions you may have.
Yours sincerely
Martyn Greene
Campaign Director.
Interesting how many old-Etonians were parachuted into safe seats, including our own Hugo Swire. But it isn’t looking quite so safe at the moment. What on EARTH would Swire DO if he was just a constituency MP (or possibly not an MP at all). No wonder he rants at Independents – more of a threat now than ever before!
“Voters elect their members of parliament (MPs) in general elections, but a large majority of MPs have very little to do with the day-to-day governing of the country. It is rather the ministers in government, as selected by the victorious party leaders, who do. Hence there is an obvious link between the general elections and government formation with regard to who selects ministers.
In a recent study with Elad Klein, we show that there is another—albeit a less obvious—connection in terms of who gets selected as ministers; MPs in electorally safe seats are more likely to become ministers.
This is based on an analysis whether the constituency results from the elections to the House of Commons over the period 1992–2015 influenced the likelihood of MPs being selected as ministers in the United Kingdom (UK).
The House of Commons provides the perfect case to assess the electoral connection of ministerial selection due to the single-member districts, large government size, and the relatively decentralised candidate selection process in the UK.
Electoral safety affects the ministerial selection because elections are a constraint over the preferences of MPs and their parties. MPs need to stay in the parliament by being re-elected to be able to pursue other goals, including attaining promotion to government ranks. On the other hand, party leaders need to maximise the number of their MPs in order to stay in the government to achieve their policy ideals.
Electoral constraints differ with the marginality of seats for each MP in Westminster systems. In single-member districts, it is comparatively clear to members and to their leaders how electorally safe their parliamentary seats are.
As the electoral marginality of a seat increases, or in other words as the number of votes separating success from failure to secure a seat decreases, re-election becomes the dominant motivation.
Our results show that there is indeed a positive relationship between MPs electoral safety and their probability of securing a ministerial office. …
… For an MP with 5% electoral safety, which is often considered as marginal, the probability of becoming a minister is one in 10. In contrast, a 35% majority more than doubles this probability for MPs.
“… For months, I’ve been investigating MPs’ money and business affairs for my book Parliament Ltd. But of all I’ve seen, one thing struck me the most: the level of transparency in Westminster is utterly pathetic.
There will always be some rotten apples, of course. No matter how honest and hardworking most politicians may be, some will always fall short. But if Westminster were more transparent, at least it would be easier to keep track of the finances. The truth is, however, that authorities actively help MPs to keep things under wraps.
How many of our representatives stand to gain directly from the decisions they push through? How many could profit from NHS privatisation, housing policies or even military action? We have no idea.
With the help of business intelligence firm DueDil, though, I began building a database of all the UK companies that had MPs and peers on their board of directors.
It was a mammoth task – and never done before – but the results were staggering. We identified about 2,800 active directorships, linked to almost 2,500 companies. Together, these firms employ at least 1.2 million people – equivalent to one in 20 of the UK’s full-time workforce. And they bring in more than £220bn of revenue annually. …
… This doesn’t necessarily mean MPs have broken any rules – although some have. But that’s exactly the point. The system itself fails to enforce transparency in politics. That’s why David Cameron can legitimately claim he didn’t break any rules when he failed to declare his stake in his father’s offshore Panama fund. The system allowed him to dodge transparency. Indeed, often the rules actually force MPs to hide information. One line says: “Members should not specify the value of the shares, or the percentage of shares in a company that are owned.”
The register of interests contains some of the most crucial information to our democracy. It doesn’t stop corruption in itself – but it does give a clue about whether MPs are speaking on behalf of voters or a private company they work for. Yet this vital document is scrutinised by no one. MPs’ declarations are only ever investigated if other people make an official complaint about someone. The whole thing is based on trust. And the result is that tons of stuff gets missed off – whether intentionally or not. …
… Because the system fails on transparency, it’s easy to see how financial controversies can brew undetected; not noticed until it’s too late. It’s a similar story with expenses. After the 2009 scandal we were promised a complete reform, yet the stories keep coming. For instance, one set of documents I found reveals how a peer claimed nearly £9,000 for a business-class return flight from New York, just to make a four-minute speech in parliament. Why had this not been discovered before? Because the files were buried in an archive, only retrievable through protracted freedom of information requests. What’s more, many of the worst abuses of the 2009 scandal would still be completely untraceable under the current system because key details are often redacted by the authorities.
We will never cut out financial controversies altogether – whether it’s business links, expenses or election spending. But if we’re ever going to clean up politics at all, transparency must be the first step.”
No wonder Hugo Swire is scared in his so-called “safe seat”!
“Italy’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement (5SM) took a large lead in the first round of voting for the mayor of Rome, according to exit polls published on Sunday, in a possible blow to prime minister Matteo Renzi.
Some 13 million people, or a quarter of the adult population, were eligible to vote for mayors in around 1,300 towns and cities, with attention focused firmly on a handful of major centres, including the capital.
Victory in Rome would be a huge breakthrough for anti-establishment 5SM, which was founded in 2009 by comedian Beppe Grillo and has grown to be Italy’s second largest party.
A victory by the populist party in the capital’s mayoral election is considered to be a key marker of whether the 5SM could eventually challenge Mr Renzi for leadership of the whole country.”
http://nr.news-republic.com/Web/ArticleWeb.aspx?regionid=4&articleid=65928995
Replace Parliament with EDDC and Executive with Cabinet [and backbenchers with Independents] and you have a dead-ringer for local politics too!
“Scrutiny of the executive
The prime minister’s active participation in parliamentary proceedings is a key mechanism for ensuring the accountability of the executive, but they have been less and less present in the Commons since the time of Thatcher and Blair. David Cameron’s attendances are limited to a 30 minute question time (PMQs) once a week when Parliament is sitting, occasional speeches in major debates, and periodic public meetings with the chairs of Select Committees in the new Liaison Committee.
More encouraging is recent research is showing that backbenchers used PMQs in 1997-2008 as a key public venue, with backbenchers often leading the agenda and breaking new issues that later grew to prominence. The current Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, has also routinely been using PMQs to ask questions sent in on email by the public, somewhat changing the tone of the session.
The ‘payroll vote’
Parliament’s independence vis-a-vis the executive has long been qualified by strong partisan loyalties amongst almost all MPs, who (after all) have spent many years working within parties before becoming MPs. The members of the government’s frontbench are expected to always vote with the executive, as are Parliamentary Private Secretaries (who are pseudo-ministers) The last official data in 2010 showed approximately 140 MPs affected. Unofficial estimates of the size of the payroll vote suggest that it was equivalent to well over a third of government MPs, by 2013. Given the smallish number of Conservative MPs in the 2015 Parliament the ratio will still be high. When Commons seats fall to 600, the prominence of the payroll vote will increase, unless government roles for MPs are cut back.
Dissent by backbench MPs
The coalition period marked not just a period of record dissenting votes by backbenchers against their party line, but also the extension of this behaviour to larger and more consequential issues. The cleavages inside the Conservative party between pro and anti-EU MPs are exceptionally deep. During the summer of 2016 the Cameron government backed off several controversial legislative proposals, and proposed an exceptionally anodyne set of bills in the Queen’s Speech, apparently to avoid straining party loyalties further in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum. The rise of serial backbench dissenter Jeremy Corbyn to be Labour leader has also created a serious gulf between his team and many of the Parliamentary Labour Party, which may reduce the cohesion of the main opposition party’s voting.
Conclusion
Public confidence in Parliament was very badly damaged by the expenses scandals of 2009, and trust in the House of Commons remains at a low ebb, despite some worthwhile but modest reforms in the interim, especially making Select Committees more effective in scrutinizing government. The Commons remains a potent focus for national debate, but that would be true of any legislature in most mature liberal democracies. There is no evidence that the UK legislature is especially effective or well-regarded, as its advocates often claim.
Five years of Coalition government 2010-15 (almost automatically) somewhat reduced executive predominance over Parliament. But it did not break traditions of strong executive control over the Commons. Tory divisions over the EU (plus the artificial exclusion of UKIP from Commons representation) have perpetuated backbench unrest after 2015. But these ameliorations of party discipline may still be termpoary. Structural reforms to make the Commons a more effective legislature, and to modernise ritualistic behaviours and processes, are still urgently needed.”
“What do fixed term Parliaments mean?
The new rules require a PM with a Commons majority to call the next general election on a five year fixed timetable.
However, should the PM resign or lose a no-confidence vote, the process to be followed is still unclear. The monarch could ask another member of the largest party to try to form a government. But if they too declined, conceivably the Leader of the Opposition could be asked to and might seek to form a minority government without any immediate dissolution.
To dissolve Parliament early a vote of two thirds of MPs is needed, which would normally require that (most) MPs from both the government and the main opposition should support the motion.”
“I have a gut feeling that this is not right,” warned portfolio holder for the rural economy Councillor Adam Grist (Con, Legbourne).
It seems like an attempt to transplant a metropolitan solution on a shire county. …
… Councillor Terry Knowles (Ind, Grimoldby) described the 67-page proposal document as being “heavy on fine words but almost empty of content”.
He continued: “I am not at all impressed – the creation of an elected mayor would simply provide an easy blame-channel when things go bump. …
…also came from Councillor Sarah Dodds (Lab, Louth Primary and St James) and Councillor Stephen Palmer (Ind, Sutton-on-Sea), with the latter demanding: “How much will this cost?”
He asked: “Is the drive for a new authority coming from the people of Lincolnshire or from the Government? Why should we have forced on us something we don’t want?”
There were plaudits at the meeting for council leader Craig Leyland (Con, Woodhall Spa) for his hard work in liaising with counterparts at other authorities, including North East Lincolnshire Council leader Ray Oxby, to move the initiative forward.
But even Mr Leyland admitted to doubts on the project.
“I feel like a car salesman just praying that the customer doesn’t ask to look under the bonnet,” he quipped.
“We need to seek the views of electors,” insisted the leader.
East Devon Watch 