Westminster alphabet soup

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 30 March 2009 by Douglas Carswell

Comments

Happy in your work?

Posted on 30 March 2009 16:27 by Guido Fawkes

"Other countries have proper legislatures."

Absolutely right. Like France. Germany. Spain. Sweden. All of whom are also EU members. Membership does nothing to diminish one's own democracy - we're the only ones destroying it.

Posted on 30 March 2009 18:56 by John Smith

Douglas, on ConHome D has "EU" before "rules". Had a telling off from the big bad whips office?

Posted on 30 March 2009 21:32 by Michael Heaver

No, Mr Heaver. ConHome must have inserted the letters "EU" into my sentence for the benefit of some of their readers unfamiliar with directives as an instrument of government. My posting is as it appears on my site.

Posted on 30 March 2009 21:55 by Douglas Carswell

cheer up doug, change can't happen without access to the levers of power, but will the bloke in the switch box be brave enough to sing from the same hym sheet, or at least run with the good ideas? ... over to you Dave

Posted on 30 March 2009 23:37 by toby

see, you say that youve made positive suggestions and they are in your book, which i aint gonna be buying.

but the thing that strikes me is that it certainly seems that parliament broadly worked in, say, the 80's, and i think there is a strong argument to be made that its the current crop of people IN parliament and on the gov benches that are the problem.

So unless im wrong about that then if you still say we need to change this even for the next lot, what you seem to be saying is that the tories in government will be as bad as, if not worse than, the current crop.

Posted on 31 March 2009 01:53 by Iain Menzies

S is for Smug, self-satisfied, self-regarding Scottish MPs voting on matters that are not their rightful business.

Posted on 31 March 2009 03:16 by Gareth Young

E is for England one word all of Westminster have forgot

Posted on 31 March 2009 09:11 by E Justice

"B" is for the Barnett Formula - deemed unfair to the people of England by Lord Joel Barnett himself. "W", of course, is the West Lothian Question.

Posted on 31 March 2009 11:30 by Maria

My apologies Douglas.

Posted on 31 March 2009 15:56 by Michael Heaver

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