Euro grandees and retired diplomats attack Cameron ....
... over his decision to quit the federalist European People's Party, according to the Guardian.
Good. Proves it's the right thing to do.
Ever wondered why Euro grandees loath such a realignment? Because it means an end to the politicians' monopoly in Brussels. With a new grouping advocating a return of powers to the nation state, the federalist strangle-hold is broken.
When dinosaurs say it means less influence in Europe, they mean less influence for people like them. The British people, on the other hand, might at last start to get the kind of European policy they've wanted all along.
Remember; the Foreign Office is the unaccountable quango responsible for the Euro mess we're in. Only through democratised diplomacy can we heal the decades of damage.
Posted on 30 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Campaigning in Clacton ...
... and Frinton and Walton and Harwich and Jaywick and Holland-on-Sea.
Over the past couple of days, I've been knocking on hundreds of doors and talking to a great many constituents. It's the part of the job I really love.
We go into the local elections in my constituency holding only one of the five county council seats. But I'm quietly confident ….
I sense that people want to use Thursday's elections to tell our unelected Prime Minister, Mr Brown, just what they think of him.
Posted on 30 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The time has come to change Westminster's rotten system
Article in the Yorkshire Post here.
Not sure what folk will make of it in Yorkshire. But it won't make me entirely popular with all at Westminster.
Posted on 29 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The digital age is amazing
In the last chapter of The Long Tail, Chris Andersen speculates about what further changes the internet could bring. We've already seeing a revolution in retail - especially where the product, like an itunes file - can be distributed on-line. What, Andersen asks, if instead of merely downloading the product, or printing it off, it was possible to assemble it with a 3D printer?
It sounds bizarre, but what if you could order an electronic gadget or a plastic toy, and then have a 3D printer make it for you in the same way you can now print off your own photos?
I
recently visited a factory where they have precisely such a device. They were able to download the specifications and then "print" in 3D a copy of the product they had bought.
The 3D printer technology is probably at the equivalent of the dot matrix stage - but the mind boggles at the potential.
Posted on 29 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Is the decline of British manufacturing inevitable?
I used to assume that there was something inevitable and organic about the decline of manufacturing in Britain. Free markets, so I thought, meant that other countries would become better at making things. We, meanwhile, would move into the service sector. Comparative advantage. Ricardo. Blah blah.
I'm beginning to wonder if I've got that wrong.
Rather than being an evolution of the free market, might it not be that government looters and moochers - as so brilliantly described by Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged - have in fact killed off our industry? It's not just that Asian nations have become more competitive. Businesses in China or Indonesia or Malaysia aren't micromanaged by remote officials. Their private businesses don’t have half their profits expropriated by the state.
In the country that once produced Arkwright and Crompton, entrepreneurs today must seek permission to create wealth. And then hand over vast amounts in taxes to the ruling quangocracy.
Far from being the inevitable consequence of market forces, what if the death of our industrial base is in fact a result of there not being proper free markets in the first place?
Posted on 28 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Primaries band-wagon rolls ahead!
Latest aboard the open primaries band-wagon is Tessa Jowell, according to this morning's Guardian.
Good. I hope Tessa demands we begin with one for Salford. Give Hazel Blears a guaranteed slot on the final shortlist, and then let every voter decide if she's behaved "unacceptably" or not.
The trouble with having people like Tessa Jowell on board, however, is that they have an extraordinary ability to muck up good ideas (see Olympics). So, if we are to have
proper open primaries, let's be clear that we are not talking about holding the odd hustings meeting open to all comers. That's an open caucus. A real primary would be a proper chance for every local resident to take part in a ballot.
Second, this is not about laws to tell political parties how they must select candidates (as the Times ridiculously proposes). All that we need is to give local people the power to petition their local returning officer to organise a proper ballot. The tide of anti-politics will do the rest.
Posted on 28 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
We need the authentic back in politics
I was reading this on page 832 of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged:
"The passengers were listening to some radio broadcast, which appeared to be important ..... fraudulent voices talking ... the words chosen to convey no specific meaning whatever. How could one pretend that one was hearing a speech."
And then I listened to highlights from a debate in Parliament.
So much of what passes for "debate" at Westminster is the sound of a smug, self-satisfied, self-serving oligarchy patting itself on the back.
Posted on 28 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Thought for the day
A constituent emails me to ask "If MPs are now made to pay taxes on their income and assets like the rest of us, does this mean we might see more MPs demanding lower taxes?"
Posted on 27 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Tilting at windmills? No. The quango state really is a giant to be fought
As my good friend Dan Hannan points out in today's Telegraph, much of the heavy-lift thinking behind David Cameron's Milton Keynes speech yesterday appeared in our two joint publications Direct Democracy and The Plan.
Both publications present a critique of our broken politics - and set out specific remedies; an end to MPs perks, a new Speaker, real powers for select committees, open primaries and citizens' initiative, radical localism, democratisation of quangos, directly elected police chiefs etc. It's all mapped out - and in the appendix to The Plan we even publish drafts of the Bills a new government would need to enact in order to make it all happen.
Dan teases me by suggesting that while Douglas is "naturally delighted to see the meme spreading, he is a bit miffed not to be getting the credit.
You can see his point. For two years he fought a solitary campaign to oust Michael Martin as Speaker, and was widely described in consequence as a Don Quixote".
If I am to be Don Quixote, who's Sancho Panza?
Posted on 27 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Reform or election - which do we need first?
Denis MacShane once demanded that "David Cameron .... discipline Mr Carswell" for pointing out the fact Michael Martin was a lousy Speaker.
Today, he's posing as an leading authority on Parliamentary reform. Writing for the Guardian he suggests lots of tinkering; the same old self-serving political class - just serving themselves a little differently.
He ludicrously suggests that real reform can happen without the need for an election. Balls.
Gordon Brown's first act as Prime Minister was to unveil a paper on the governance of Britain. It contained some good ideas. He had a massive majority. He was in a position of strength, with the benefit of the doubt.
The outcome? Zilch. Zip. Nothing.
We do need radical reform. But it's direct democracy we need, not corporatist con tricks. And the current administration is in no position whatsoever to deliver it. Indeed, they're part of the smug, self-satisfied, self-regarding problem.
Election or reform? We need both and we need them now.
Posted on 26 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Guido is very kind
Over on his blog site, Guido sees similarities between the content of The Plan, and what David Cameron said in Milton Keynes this morning.
He is very kind.
Guido adds, "The Plan is a huge hit, an Amazon bestseller and the all-time best-selling publish-on-demand publication ever sold by Amazon."
It is a wonderful surprise to see it back in the bestseller list on Amazon again.
The really remarkable thing, however, has been the volume of emails I've been getting from people who tell me that they are utterly disillusioned with politics - but who find the idea of open primaries, recall and initiative really reinvigorating.
As one put it, "it might just make my MP listen to me, and me bother about who is my MP".
UPDATE: The Plan is back in the top 50 bestseller list on Amazon. The power of Guido.
Posted on 26 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Happy Birthday!
This blog is one year old tomorrow. Begun on May 27th 2008, I was thrilled at the end of the first week when I saw that 215 people had read me.
12 months, 739 posts, and one Speaker later, some 24,000 viewed the site last week.
Thank you for reading!
Posted on 26 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Large chunks of "The Plan" become party policy ....
... in Milton Keynes tomorrow.
Read what David Cameron writes in the Guardian
.
Posted on 25 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Daniel Hannan tries to..
.... nick The Plan.
Judging by Ed Miliband's wet flannel proposals for change (he seriously seems to think it's about altering ceremonial costume, introducing September sittings, and modifying Commons language) perhaps Dan and I should send him a copy of The Plan for free?
Posted on 25 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Open primaries - how to do it properly and mistakes to avoid
It now seems very likely that the Conservatives will be using open primaries routinely to ensure that everyone has a say over who their local Conservative candidate should be where vacancies arise.
It is vital that this process is done properly. No matter what name you give it, a proper open primary is not the same as a caucus meeting attended by party members, plus a few dozen others.
Instead, the primary process must be an extensive opportunity for all local residents to take part in a ballot, which should involve more than a hustings meeting (although hustings can be helpful). The process should build on, but involve even more people than, those open source selection processes already experimented with.
Key, too, must be to use local newspapers and other civic institutions in the process.
Happy to give advice - it's all in The Plan.
Posted on 24 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The man in the Mirror
Any readers of this blog who don't happen to be regular readers of the Mirror really MUST read this article.
It's by some bloke called Paul Routledge (I googled him and apparently he once wrote a pro-Gordon Brown biography back in the 1990s?)
I especially love his description of me as Cutlass Carswell with "his thin, twisted mouth, satellite-dish ears and mad, staring eyes".
Go Routledge!
On the other hand, Tory Bear's "Don't mess with Carswell" t-shirt is frankly embarrassing. I'll be having words.
Posted on 24 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The Times "gets it" - but from whom?
I see the Times is now calling for open primaries and open source politics and radical decentralisation and localism and direct democracy with referendums.
I wonder where they got those kind of ideas from? Some of it might sound familiar to readers of The Plan: 12-months to renew Britain.
Do you suppose any of their leader writers watched Newsnight this week?
Posted on 23 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
House of Commons is monumentally useless - change must be radical
At present, government controls Parliament. And the people have little say over who gets to be their representative at Westminster.
Change needs to be literally revolutionary in the sense that we need to turn things on their head and up-end the status quo.
Reform needs to put the people in control of Parliament. Then the Commons might break free from its indolence and sense of entitlement. And actually begin to hold those with power properly to account once more.
As I suggested in the Independent there is now massive potential for a new reform agenda that could be supported by Guardianistas on oneside and the Daily Mail readers on the other.
Whether or not politicians choose to put this on the agenda, the internet is will - like this and this and this.
Posted on 22 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
How to get more bang for our buck?
On Tuesday, I'm taking part in a seminar on one of my favourite subjects - defence procurement - organised by one of my favourite think tanks - Reform.
Readers of this blog will know that I've some ideas about how (in)effectively we spend our defence budget. Instead of spending the money on a select few suppliers, I believe that we ought to purchase more kit "off the shelf".
That said, I'm pretty open-minded about the detail as to how we change things. What is clear is that the status quo is not good enough - and is letting down our armed forces.
As with constitutional matters, it's time for the centre right to shift its thinking and favour overdue changes.
Posted on 22 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Today I'm focused on the constituency ....
... they are my boss.
Posted on 22 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
How to ensure more free votes and less whipping
“MPs need more free votes” goes the cry. “Curb the power of whips” even the BBC now seems to be saying.
Fine. But how to achieve that? Decreeing it won't make it so.
The power of party whips is a symptom of the fact that the party machines generally decide who gets to sit in the House of Commons, and who gets promoted when there.
Simply promising to give MPs more free votes does nothing to change the bald facts of power. It’d be giving MPs permission to be frightfully daring and naughty. From time to time. Gosh.
What would change things would be to have:
a) secret ballots to decide who gets to sit on Commons committees, just as there is about to be a secret vote for the new Speaker (The Plan step 3).
b) Open primaries and a right of recall. Then and only then would those in Westminster owe their position more to local people that to party bosses (The Plan step 14).
Posted on 22 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Does the BBC "get it"?
Kind of ...
Posted on 21 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
"But open primaries mean Labour voters could decide our candidate!"
... emails an angry party member.
Letting everyone have a say over who gets to be the local candidate might alternatively make those voters ex-Labour.
The Conservatives would still have the final say on who was on the shortlist. And I presume that means we'd not put up someone we'd not be happy to have on the ballot.
"But it's the internal business for each party to decide on primaries" retorts another.
Indeed it is. But if we passed a law that allowed local people to petition the returning officer to organise full-blown, proper primaries, (step 14 of The Plan) it would enable parties that wished to do so to run them properly.
Posted on 21 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Why we need direct democracy and open primaries
If 7 out of 10 colleagues in your workplace felt they had a job for life, would your organisation be firing on all cylinders? Parliament neither.
Posted on 21 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
It's Carolyn Quinn wot done it
I might have started the campaign to oust the Speaker over a year ago, but it was only after appearing on Radio 4's the Westminster Hour, I decided to table the no confidence motion.
Carolyn Quinn, the presenter, had gently teased me on air for always going on about the subject. Right, I thought, as I left the studio. Time to act.
The next morning, as my blog entry records, I wrote "enough is enough". I started to draft the text for the motion and work the phone.
Posted on 21 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
All reformers now
This week, I met more people in SW1 wanting to change our broken Westminster system than I thought possible.
Of course, the "reforms" proposed by some would simply extend the grasp of the quango state. Let's have effective independent regulation of our politicians. But that independent regulator is the voter.
Voter regulation of our politics isn't working effectively because 7 out of 10 MPs come from one party fiefdoms - like Salford.
How to change that? Let everyone in Salford chose who gets to be the Labour candidate. Indeed, let them decide for each party.
How? Don't force parties to accept primaries. Anti-politics will do that. But do pass a law that allows local people to petition their returning officer to run the ballot.
Oh. And to end the sense of SW1 entitlement, why not have a right to recall MPs and a right to initiate debates in the Commons? Reform is more than just expenses.
The road map for all these reforms - beginning with a new Speaker - is set out in The Plan: 12 months to renew Britain. It's available on Amazon for a tenner - with a special discount for Party leaders.
Posted on 20 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Martin Bell declares for open primaries
I met Martin for a coffee yesterday. I wanted his take on what we need to do to change things. We discussed ideas to allow everyone to have a say over who gets to stand to be an MP.
Afterwards, he said that he entirely endorses the proposal for open primaries to decide on the selection of parliamentary candidates.
He said "It will make the process more democratic, and challenge any incumbent's sense of entitlement. Our democracy is at present in crisis. We need sensible reforms - and this is certainly one of them."
Posted on 20 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell MP
Danny Finkelstein gets it. Change is coming to politics
Danny Finkelstein's column in the Times today is brilliant. He has been consistently ahead of the curve - and the commentariat - in seeing the impact of the internet on politics. He might even be right about Mrs C.
He suggests that "Mr Martin's departure should be seen as the pivot between two very different ways of conducting politics. It should be seen as the final moment in the long, slow death of closed politics and as ushering in a new age, one that will grow slowly and from small beginnings. The era of open politics."
The future of politics in the open era is thus looser, much less whipped ... There will be more referendums .... less central accountability and more individual accountability for politicians."
Indeed. And he could have added open primary contests to decide who stands for office in the first place. A right of recall to fire bad MPs. Citizen's initiatives to ensure that the politicians address our concerns, and spend less time on self serving exemptions for Freedom of Information law.
His article confirms my view that Chris Anderson's book The Long Tail, ostensibly written about the impact of the internet on shopping, is in fact one of the most influential political books of our time.
Posted on 20 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Change is coming to Westminster
Want ideas on how the end MPs perks, and make them more accountable to the rest of us?
Want to get our supine, spineless Parliament off its knees?
Looking for ways to renew our broken democracy, to restore purpose to Parliament and dignity to politics?
Here's the plan.
Posted on 19 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The substantive motion of no confidence UPDATE
It appears in the Order Paper tomorrow. Easily more than 20 names now signed it.
Expect more. Change is coming to Westminster.
Posted on 18 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Three more names following Mr Speaker's disasterous statement
Since Mr Speaker's statement, I gather that the following names have now been added to the motion of no confidence; Greg Mulholland, Iain Gibson and one other (not 100% of the name, so won’t run risk of getting it wrong).
Posted on 18 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Motion of no confidence in Speaker Michael Martin
The following no confidence motion in Speaker Michael Martin has now been tabled, supported initially by 15 MPs from all three major parties. More names are expected to declare, as MPs return from listening to their angry constituents over the weekend.
It will appear in the Order Paper as a Substantive Motion on Future Business of the House (Remaining Orders).
The Table Office advise me that i
t is now up to the Speaker to make a decision.
There is no precedent for such a motion in Erskine May. However, I am advised that given that this is the first direct challenge to the authority of a sitting Speaker in over 300 years, it is not unreasonable to assume that he now request the government find time for a debate on it.
Has your MP signed the motion? If not, why not call the House of Commons on 020 7219 3000 and urge your local MP to back the campaign to clean up Westminster.
No confidence in the Speaker
"That this House has no confidence in Mr Speaker and calls for him to step down; notes that Mr Speaker has failed to provide leadership in matters relating to hon. Members' expenses; believes that a new Speaker urgently needs to be elected by secret ballot, free from manipulation by party Whips, under Standing Order No. 1B; and believes that a new Speaker should proceed to reform the House in such a way as to make it an effective legislature once again."
Douglas Carswell
Kate Hoey
Norman Lamb
Richard Bacon
David Davis
Philip Hollobone
Paul Flynn
Gordon Prentice
Richard Shepherd
Philip Davies
John Hemming
Jo Swinson
Norman Baker
Lynne Featherstone
Stephen Williams
Posted on 18 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The text of tomorrow's motion
Tomorrow I will be tabling the following motion in the House of Commons:
No confidence in the Speaker
"That this House has no confidence in Mr Speaker and calls for him to step down; notes that Mr Speaker has failed to provide leadership in matters relating to hon. Members' expenses; believes that a new Speaker urgently needs to be elected by secret ballot, free from manipulation by party Whips, under Standing Order No. 1B; and believes that a new Speaker should proceed to reform the House in such a way as to make it an effective legislature once again."
I already have the signatures of a growing number of MPs on both sides of the Commons.
Please contact your local MP and ask them if they intend to sign it.
Posted on 17 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Why Mr Speaker must go now
I've an article in the Mail on Sunday explaining why Mr Martin needs to step down.
I hope that you will read it, and then maybe ask your own local MP if they will support this motion tomorrow.
Posted on 17 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
More names declare for the motion of no confidence in the Speaker
Kate Hoey announced she'll be signing the motion of confidence in the Speaker live on the Andrew Marr show this morning.
The list of names behind tomorrow's motion continues to grow.
PS. At least two three Labour MPs who read this blog are trying to contact me but don't have my mobile. Email me your mobile at my Parliament.uk address and I'll come right back to you.
UPDATE: David Davis MP, who has a great article in the Mail on Sunday, has just now confirmed he wants his name added to the motion.
UPDATE: William Hague - "We would have a free vote on our side, if there was a vote of no confidence".
Posted on 17 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Westminster alphabet soup revisited
This is what I had to say about Westminster six weeks ago
. Someone has just emailed me to say I was being kind.
A is for .... Accountable, something many of our MPs are not.
B is for ... Ballot, the lottery process used to decide which lucky MP gets to ask ministers a question, to maintain the fiction that government is Accountable (see A above).
C is for ... Commons Committees, and all their spineless, executive-controlled futility.
D is for ... Directives, the rules (issued despite Westminster) which really decide how Britain's governed.
E is for .... Executive power, once held by those answerable to Parliament, now in the hands of Quangos (see Q below).
F is for .... Fed-up, something most voters now are.
G is for .... Guillotine motion, a procedure used to prevent MPs doing their job whenever any are so inclined.
H is for .... Hansard, that record of ministerial evasion and bluster.
I is for .... Indefensible
J is for .... Joke
K is for .... Knighthoods, once awarded for achievement, now dished out for .... best not ask.
L is for .... Legislature, something the Commons once was, but now fails to be.
M is for .... Mr Michael Martin, the Speaker, who presides over it all.
N is for ... Not-to-blame, as in “the minister followed official advice”.
O is for ... Order, order!
P is for ... Pocket, as in “the Commons is in the pocket of government”.
Q is for ... Quango, the unaccountable institutions that really run Britain
R is for ... Right of Recall and Referendum, as in the direct democracy we need to make our politicians work for us.
S is for ... Smug, self-satisfied, self-regarding SW1.
T is for ... Turnout, something that's fallen to an all time low at elections.
U is for ... Useless, as in the House of Commons
V is for ... Vanity, which stops many elected ministers 'fessing up to the fact they no longer count for much.
W is for ... Whitehall, which is to Westminster what puppet-master is to puppet.
X is for ... The mark our forbearers once struggled to have the right to place on ballot papers.
Y is for ... Why does it have to be this way? Other countries have proper legislatures.
Z is for ... The grade I give our broken Westminster system after four years there as an MP.
UPDATE: Angry email arrives from Col. Blimp; "Why can't you make some positive suggestions for a change?" he rants.
I do. Plenty of suggestions for real change. In The Plan, I propose 30 very specific, detailed changes, including drafts of the actual Bills required, that would clean up Westminster and restore meaning to our broken democracy.
Posted on 16 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Down to earth
I've been asked to enter some of my vegetables in a local gardening competition this summer. Here’s the latest state of play in my allotment with the broadbeans, shallots and potatoes.
Once again, my tomatos are a bit of a disaster. Is it me doing something wrong, or is it the weather just not right again this year in these parts of Essex?
Posted on 16 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Motion of confidence in the Speaker - UPDATE
Scottish MP, Jo Swinson has now signed the motion calling on Michael Martin to step down as Speaker - and she declares publicly in the Herald. I can't find her actual article online yet, but I'm told it's a devastating read.
This means that even Mr Martin's own constituency Member of Parliament is now calling on him to quit the Speaker's chair. It is truly without precedent.
Watch out for any big beasts over the weekend.
Posted on 16 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Motion of confidence in the Speaker - UPDATE
A Scottish MP, who's already signed the motion, will declare publicly tomorrow. Apparently they were so shocked by the strength of feeling in their constituency, they feel they've no choice. Parliament has got to change. With a new reformist Speaker. Now.
They'll help put paid to any notion that this is anything to do with snobbery. It's about restoring trust in our broken political system.
UPDATE: More calls. More momentum.
Posted on 15 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
The political order is in crisis
Could the scandal of MPs expenses be to our political order what the Winter of Discontent was to the 1970s economic order?
Are not both a crisis of the old order? A tipping point that reveals the bankruptcy of the status quo and the need for change?
The economic crisis of the late 1970s was a precursor to the radical reformist movement - Thatcherism - that followed. It proved the need to take on certain vested interests.
The agenda that the Thatcherites then followed - trade union reform, scrapping incomes and exchange controls, privatisation - were all aimed at decentralising economic control.
Might the current crisis in the political order pave the way for a programme to radically decentralise control of politics? Open primaries to decide who gets to stand for Parliament; Citizens’ initiatives to decide what MPs debate; Recall to sack wayward politicians.
In John Wilkes time, people had to campaign for the right to know what MPs were saying in the chamber. Today, people have had to campaign for the right to know what MPs are costing. Might we soon see campaigns to give people the right to decide who actually gets to stand to be a local candidate in the first place and what they do when they get elected?
Posted on 14 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Motion of confidence in the Speaker - UPDATE
Bottle feeding the six week old nipper with one hand. On the phone to a robustly socialist MP about supporting the motion of confidence in the Speaker with the other.
As babies do, the nipper emits a high pitched shriek.
"That's not the Sergeant at Arms sent round to torture you, is it?" asks my new comrade.
Posted on 14 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Making the case for directly elected police chiefs
Speaking at the Police Federation conference in Bournemouth this afternoon, I argued the case for locally accountable policing. I made the point that our current system of Police Authorities doesn't work - and that we need directly elected police chiefs.
Interestingly, the audience - which consisted mainly of serving police officers - was asked to vote, and 72% agreed that Police Authorities are not an effective mechanism for local accountability.
In fairness, most of the audience also disagreed with my proposal for a single Justice Commissioner, overseeing local policing, prosecutions and offender management.
That said, it was a great forum, and I came away with real admiration for our police force. I'm unashamedly pro-police.
Posted on 13 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Motion of no confidence in the Speaker - UPDATE
I continue to pick up support for the motion. I can confirm that it will definitely be tabled with backing from both sides of the Commons.
It's the first time anything like this has been done in 300 years.
As regards the actual formal tabling of the motion, I'll let you know once it's been formally submitted and tabled - perhaps not until early next week.
In the mean time, there are more phone calls to make.
PS. No matter what my views about the Speaker, one thing I find awful are the number of anonymous briefings I now read in newspapers about the need to "hand Mr Martin a revolver blah blah".
If you don't think he's up to the job, say it.
Be frank, be straight forward and be prepared to take the consequences. I've a growing list of MPs who are.
Knifing people in the back isn't the way to begin cleaning up SW1.
Posted on 13 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
A fresh start for Parliament?
One reason many MPs are seen as being a caste apart is that most owe their position in Parliament to "safe seats". With only a minority of seats changing hands in a General Election, there are an awful lot of constituencies in which there simply isn't any meaningfully competitive contest on polling day.
In such one party fiefdoms, the real decision as to who gets to be the MP is, in effect, made during the internal party selection process. With less than 1% of local people paid up party members, it's not exactly an open democratic process to decide who gets to sit in the House of Commons.
So what can be done?
a) Open primaries
- allowing every local resident a say in candidate selection is good enough to decide who gets to be the President of the United States. It ought to be much more widely used in the UK. The Conservatives have experimented with the process, but only in target seats and only using caucuses, rather than proper primaries.
In The Plan, Dan Hannan and I propose a law that would allow people to petition their local returning officer to run real open primary contests - as a proper poll.
Look at the chamber of the Commons. Think of each time you’ve wanted the Commons to hold government to account. Think of each time it’s failed to do so; the Lisbon treaty, £ Billion bailouts for bankers, ID cards, inaction on welfare reform. You begin to see the attraction, no?
b) Multi-member seats
- I've come round to thinking that we need multi-member seats and an electoral system similar to that in Ireland. It would produce working majorities, but there'd be competition to be part of the legislature no matter what the complexion of the chamber. Alex Hilton is impressive on this point over on LabourList.org .
If we had only one choice of supermarket or restaurant in the town where we live, we could expect providers to be unresponsive and the service to be bad. So why not break local political monopolies and allow voters real choice?
c) Both.
I imagine those who'd find multi-member seats and direct public participation in selecting candidates hard to stomach would be any lazy, unresponsive politicians.
If those who sat in the Commons were made properly democratically accountable to local people, they'd be careful with their allowances. They'd also ensure government was a lot more careful with our money.
Posted on 13 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Comment is Free
I've an article over on the Guardian blog site.
Hope it cheers up, Sir Michael White. When I first suggested Mr Martin wasn't up to the job, he wasn't entirely in agreement. Wonder if he's changed his mind yet?
Posted on 12 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Motion of no confidence - UPDATE
Well. It's going to be a cross party motion.
As I said on Sky, the Commons Table Office has been remarkably helpful in giving advice.
UPDATE: According to the Times "Ministers tell Gordon Brown that Speaker Michael Martin must go". I can believe it, since it’s Labour MPs I speak to that seem most angry with him.
UPDATE: It's now open season. Andrew Gimson in the Telegraph writes that "the Speaker has become an embarrassment to the House of Commons ... he has to go, and go soon".
Posted on 12 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Today on Today
Click here to listen
Posted on 12 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
MPs "a profession"? That's the problem
Apologising for the expenses fiasco, Gordon Brown yesterday talked about MPs as belonging to "our profession".
That sums up what's gone wrong. It is precisely because MPs have become a professional class, we're in such a mess. Instead, we need citizen law-makers.
Fixing our broken Westminster system isn't just about expenses. If the Commons is this hopeless at getting its own affairs in order, do you imagine that it's doing its job of holding government to account properly? At last, we start to see why government has become more expensive and overbearing over the past few decades; the institution we elect to hold it in check seems asleep on the job.
To wake it up, and ensure that SW1 answers to the voters, we desperately need a programme of direct democracy.
Imagine if every MP faced a properly competitive election contest in order to sit in Parliament? No more "safe seats". Open primaries to allow everyone to decide their next MP?
Imagine if the Speaker answered to our lawmakers, not to government Whips? Imagine if we had a right of initiative and of recall?
Direct democracy is needed to update our nineteenth century system. It might just restore purpose to politics and dignity to Westminster.
Posted on 12 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Do they still have blogging?
Yesterday was a bit of a record. 3,000 readers on the site. 178 comments posted - and not one in defence of the Speaker.
Congrats also to Claire Harding, my 200th follower on Twitter.
Posted on 12 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Motion of no confidence in the Speaker
Enough is enough.
I've drafted the text of a motion for the Speaker to quit, and to be replaced by a new Speaker with a mandate to clean up the Commons. I'm consulting the Commons Table Office for advice on it.
I'm also starting to canvass for support for it from colleagues.
UPDATE: Table Office has just approved some text for a suitable motion.
UPDATE: The dam begins to crumble: Ben Wallace MP has joined me in calling for the Speaker to go.
UPDATE: During an interview on BBC Radio Scotland with Norman Baker MP this morning (Tuesday), he said it's the "end of the road" for Speaker Martin. And then there were three.
Posted on 11 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Warships of the future
The Telegraph reports that the United States navy has unveiled a warship of the future, the Littoral Combat Ship.
It's small, fast, versatile, very heavily armed and has a tiny crew.
Guess what? It looks nothing like an aircraft carrier. Nor does it present a massive target for silkworm missiles in the straits of Hormuz or for any USS Cole-style suicide attackers.
It has missiles that can be fired directly at the target without needing the complicated planes, plane crews, or runway to get them there. Nor does it require a flotila of other ships just to protect it.
Oh, and it might actually be able to do something about pirates.
As the Americans say "go figure".
Posted on 11 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
What's the plan?
Last summer, Dan Hannan and I wrote The Plan, in which we advocated a specific programme to clean up Westminster. It included:
-
Abolishing MPs’ perks
– including the Additional Cost Allowance and the Communications Allowance.
-
MPs to be bound by the same laws as everybody else
– bar Article IX of the Bill of Rights of 1689
-
Electing Commons Speaker by secret ballot
– no more Whips office patsies in the role
-
Electing select Committee chairmen by secret ballot
– again, no more Whips running the show.
-
Confirmation hearings for Whitehall chiefs –
Sir Gus O’Donnell and the Sir Humphrey Appleby-types might not like it, but that’s a bonus.
-
Select committees to confirm annual budgets for Whitehall departments
– Voting to approve supply, is after all, the reason we invented Parliament in the first place – yet it no longer seems to fulfil this role.
-
Scrap state-subsidised politics
– including election broadcasts, leaflets and “Short money”. With the internet and YouTube, the costs of doing politics could be lower than ever. Time for political parties to cut their cloth according to their own means, perhaps?
-
Direct democracy, including open primiaries and popular initiative, to make politicians answer to us - not the other way round.
“It’ll never happen" someone told me. "MPs won’t accept it”.
Perhaps soon they'll not have much choice.
Posted on 10 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
We need an early election
I'm starting to think we need an early election. No. I don't mean that in a "let's-challenge-Gordon-and-see-if-he's-got-the-bottle-ho-ho-ho" way.
I really mean it. In the sense that our Westminster system isn't working. In the sense that we need a fresh Parliament, with a new Speaker, and a mandate for far-reaching change. And we need a legislature that works, that isn't in the pocket of government - Labour or Conservative - and which does its job efffectively once again. And which answers to local voters, not party hierarchy.
How could a new Parliament restore dignity to our legislature and meaning to our democracy? Here's 30 ways to fix things. Here's a manifesto that would be popular, and bring us change. And, as I keep saying, it can all be done by an incoming government in 100 days.
Posted on 10 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Labour on 23% in the latest polls apparently
"Wait until Gordon's leader!" a slightly tipsy Labour MP once crowed at me on the Commons terrace.
I didn’t reply.
Posted on 9 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Commons suffers from a catastrophic failure of leadership
"And so it goes on. Another month, another set of damaging stories about MPs' expenses.
Never has there been such bitter contempt for politicians or the standing of MPs been so low.
We need to clean up Westminster politics and take action to restore faith in our political system.
First, Speaker Martin must step down...."
That's what I wrote in the Mail on Sunday last April - and I got criticised for doing so within SW1.
Perhaps others at Westminster might now like to come forward and call for the Speaker to quit?
Any Speaker up to the job would have shown some leadership and called time on this nonsense years ago.
If the Commons can't get its own affairs in order, how can it possibly be doing its job of holding government to account? It isn't. As a legislature, Parliament needs radical change.
Posted on 9 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Anyone still think the Commons works wonderfully?
A couple of years ago, I suggested that the Speaker was proving to be a bit of a disaster. I argued that he was failing to produce any leadership in cleaning up the Commons or making sure it did its job properly. Some MPs were appalled, and accused me of being partisan.
Since then, I've repeatedly blogged about just how badly run the Commons is as an effective legislature.
As well as diagnosis, I've tried remedy. Last summer, in The Plan, I set out the actual text of the amended standing orders of the House that would scrap all the unacceptable perks and privileges. Some MPs told me I was going “too far".
Okay, chaps. Who’s now paying the price for such dreadful leadership in an unreformed House of Commons? Everyone is. Both in SW1 and right across the country.
If you put up with bad leadership, you will be badly led.
Posted on 9 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Conservatives win control of my local Tendring Council
Congratulations to my local Conservative group on Tendring District Council. At Wednesday's council meeting, the old administration was voted out, and the Conservatives now form the new administration.
Despite making impressive gains in the local elections two years ago, and despite being easily the most popular party, Tendring Conservatives remained a couple of votes short of an outright majority. Indeed, a hodgepodge coalition of local politicians did all they could to keep them out and cling to office - until this week.
Walking down Connaught Avenue in Frinton this afternoon in the sunshine, I was approached by an elderly couple I know through the local church. They were delighted and said they felt this is the first time for many years that we've had a proper Conservative administration running the council. Indeed.
Well done to Cllr Neil Stock and his team.
Posted on 8 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
"Daniel Hannan has changed my mind" ...
.... says Tom Harris MP on his blog.
Now that's a phrase I'd like to start hearing a lot more around Westminster.
Posted on 7 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
In praise of honest profit
Barclays today announces a profit . Bravo, Barclays! It's an achievement not to be taken for granted these days.
Some lefties and BBC-types will, I'm certain, sneer at the very notion of vulgar profit-making. By a bank, no less.
But recent events prove beyond question that an honest profit is a vastly greater social good than a loss. Afterall, when a bank fails to make a profit, the rest of us end-up carrying the cost.
Being able to produce something, and sell it to willing buyers, at a profit, is not to be sneered at. It's ultimately what makes us different from less happy lands, and what - apart from the passage of time - seperates us from the dark ages.
Today's results also show that markets are better at running banks than politicians.
Remember how in October last year that nice Mr Vince Cable criticised Barclays because they rejected government hand-outs to recapitalise, instead preferring to raise the money privately?
Barclays borrowed money from private sources at higher rates of borrowing, rather than touch what government put on the table. In doing so, they avoided getting people like Mr Cable telling them how to run their business. Today's results vindicate that decision.
Posted on 7 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Can the blogosphere cope without Derek Draper?
According to Iain Dale, Derek Draper is to leave LabourLost, the website set up to "bring Labour-minded people together".
With or without Mr D, I doubt
LabourLost is going places. Indeed, the day I first came across it, I wrote "If it continues the way it's begun, it's going to be a wonderful example of how a website can have absolutely zero effect. It'll be to politics what the Sinclair C5 was to transport". Vaguely comic. Even a touch sad. I rest my case.
LabourLost has one basic, yet fatal, flaw no matter who heads it, and regardless of which side of the Commons chamber Labour MPs happen to sit. The site is an echo-chamber for the SW1 establishment. It is propaganda, full of "lines to take" from the war room - a collection of Mandelsonian press releases.
With or with Mr Draper, in or out of opposition, leftie blogs will never work as well as libertarian or centre right ones. Why? The blogosphere epitomises what Hayek called “evolutionary rationalism”. That's a fancy way of saying that out of all that sparky debate emerges something that is self-designing - and the antithesis of the centre left's dirigiste world view.
Posted on 6 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Gordon Brown on YouTube - I imagine only the Blairs are laughing more.
Gordon Brown MP, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and First Lord of the Treasury.
Posted on 6 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
ID card launch today - the dying gasp of a rotten government
Would you voluntarily hand-over your confidential personal details to government officials? Given how they lost the private records of 25 million individuals receiving child benefit, would you trust them with all your private records?
Me neither.
But this hasn't stopped our delusional government launching a scheme today in Manchester, where - get this - people can voluntarily sign up for an ID card.
From today, anyone over 16 in Manchester is going to be able to give the government £60 in return for .... um .... giving them your personal details too. A bargain, no?
Posted on 6 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Gordon Brown: back on YouTube, as delusional as ever
Remember how they said Gordon Brown needed to take a break? Have some time off over the bank holiday weekend. Get out into the garden, maybe.
Well, it looks like he did.
His latest YouTube offering shows him wandering about the Downing Street garden talking to himself while grinning manically at the camera.
He compares himself to Barack Obama. He proclaims his global solution to the debt problem a triumph. He reasserts his view that you can spend our way out of debt.
Delusional? You decide.
UPDATE: During the video there's some footage of share price trading. Being a Gordon Brown Downing Street production, the shares are shown to be falling in value. It's at the 51 seconds mark.
Posted on 5 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Don't blame birth rates for the shortage of school places
Many thousands of children won't get a place at their parents' first-choice primary school this year. According to the Telegraph, many families will be forced to accept second, third or even fourth choice school, and some four and five year-olds could be left without any place for September.
Why?
We are being encouraged to believe that it's all the fault of rising birth rates, economic downturn and an unexpected increase in the number of four and five year olds. Nonsense.
Do you think there has been a shortage in toys for four and five year olds? Or clothes? Or, when they were toddlers, was there a shortage of nappies? Of course not. There may have been more demand for all the things young children need, but guess what? Along came the market and supplied them.
The only reason there aren't enough places for primary school children is that we leave it to the state to allocate places. And the state is never as good at deciding what's best for us as we are ourselves.
If the state ran supermarkets there would be a shortage of cereals and waiting-lists for fruit and veg. It's because the state runs education that we have shortages and waiting-lists galore.
Posted on 5 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Competitive sweetpeas
A local gardening club in my constituency have asked me to enter their summer competition. I'm worried. I only took up gardening a couple of years back, and compared to some of the club members, I know next to nothing.
I shall now be tending my sweetpeas with extra care.
Posted on 3 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Trouble looms with the Foreign Office
According to the Independent on Sunday, over at the Foreign Office Sir Humphrey Appleby is alarmed by Tory plans to quit the federalist European People's Party. Sir Humphrey is also concerned that we may yet call a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
What possible business could it be of unelected diplomats to decide what alliances we form in the European parliament? Since when did FCO officials decide foreign policy rather than those we elect?
Now you mention it, since about 1970-something, actually.
The driving force behind our involvement in the EU has been our foreign policy establishment at the FCO. Thanks to Crown Prerogative, our diplomats are almost wholly unaccountable to the Commons. Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair or Brown – ultimately it made not a jot of difference to the integrationist outcome of our Europe policy.
We need to change not only our alliances with the EPP. We also need to radically overhaul the way that the FCO functions. Only by democratising diplomacy, with a programme for reform outlined here, can we halt the integrationist ambitions of our foreign policy establishment.
UPDATE: Daniel Hannan makes much the same points (rather better)
here.
Posted on 3 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Perhaps the press just aren't very good?
An old-school Westminster journalist came over all defensive the other day when I happened to mention that Guido Fawkes is read by a quarter of a million people each month.
Not only do many fewer read my journo pal's opinion pieces. Judging by the number of people who actively choose to read his pieces by seeking them out online, it's a slam dunk to Guido.
This got me thinking.
What if, pre-blogging, editors tended to employ a particular hack, not because the journalist was actually an astute and respected commentator. What if it was because other journalists said that they were?
What if the said hack was in fact utterly pedestrian in their analysis. Unoriginal in their questioning. Even - shock horror! - the kind of person who would simply take copy off of "spin doctors"?
Readers might not actually rate the said journalist, but being on Lord Copper's list of favourites, that was what the readers at the Daily Beast got.
Remember how lots of commentators wrote about Gordon Brown, with his "moral compass", as a "son of the Manse". Did they all independently come to that view, or did they take copy all by themselves? Who kept telling us the Iron Chancellor was a political and economic genius?
Then there was the time we read in the press about Tony Blair's profound underlying philosophy. At a time when some voters suspected he was an unprincipled opportunist, somehow lots of hacks seemed to start writing about how the young Blair had been inspired by some obscure 1960s philosopher.
Blogging is ruthlessly exposing the extent to which too many in the media class endless re-cycle the same views and opinions. Indeed, opinions that they have dismissed as beyond the pale, might actually start being debated.
Now that the existing business model is bust, maybe a newspaper could adopt a wiki-newspaper business model, where the print version reflected how readers actually rated different journalists analysis?
I suspect that the blogosphere means we'll see much more competition amongst the commentariat.
Comment and analysis of the news will start to be properly competative. If I was sitting in Islington on a £70,000 a year sinecure for regurgitating rubbish, I'd fear Guido and the bloggers, too.
Posted on 2 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Prescott rounds on Brown critics ...
... says the BBC headline .
Should keep him busy for quite a while doing that, I imagine.
Posted on 2 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
Our benefits system is sick
A couple come to see me at my MP Advice Surgery. They’ve both lost their jobs, and through no fault of their own need help from the welfare state. Despite always having paid their taxes and contributed into the system, somehow today the system is not there for them. I do all I can.
“Why” asks the man as he’s leaving “does government punish those like us who do the right thing, but it rewards you if you don’t?”
I wish I could answer.
Is it sustainable – to use a word beloved of bogus leftist intellectuals - to create a society where virtue becomes a burden, while bad behaviour is rewarded? I think we’re about to find out.
Kipling once wrote “
… we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul….
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins…”
Sounds like a pretty good description of what our welfare and benefits system has become.
Posted on 2 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell
April stats - traffic up 19% on previous month
14,070 people visited this site in April, and they read 21,962 pages. If you were one of them, thank you.
On May 27th, I'll have been blogging for exactly one year. Not yet the kind of traffic Guido or Dan Hannan get, but after 12 months I'm delighted to be as widely read as I am.
A friend and colleague, who was thinking of blogging, recently asked me why I made the effort. Simple. When was the last time 14,070 took much interest in what I'd said in the Commons chamber?
Posted on 2 May 2009 by Douglas Carswell