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