Live from Westminster, it's the quiz of the week
A Mortgage on a second home (applause)
A House for Your Ducks (applause)
Free Swimming Pool Servicing (applause)
Free Moat Cleaning (applause)
A sit and ride Lawnmower (applause)
A Glittering toilet Seat (applause)
A Compost bin for your Garden (applause)
3 Inflatable sex dolls
3 Mucky Video Downloads
A packet of paperclips (Groans)
Just in case you've been in a coma for 3 months, these are not prizes in a fantastic new TV show. These are just a selection of "Expenses" that have been claimed by our MP's. I've tried to steer clear of this issue. I try to stick to local politics, but once in a while I see something which scares the hell out of me. That happened today.
The reason that I put up the above list is because (paper clips apart), it shows the complete contempt in which us, the smelly public are held by the political classes. Many politicians now want the taxpayer to fund political parties. That way they won't even have to pretend to try and keep us happy. I was looking at a rival blog today, one called "Local Democracy". As a rule, I've found that blogs with such names usually promote the opposite of what "it says on the tin". The title of this particular entry?
Should MPs and councillors take up cases on behalf of individuals?
I'll give you three guesses as to the answer?
So what does Mr Paul Evans - The author think they should do?
"I’d suggest that – if we were defining the role of an elected representative from scratch – based upon an understanding of representative government should work, that some protocol would have been established confirming that MPs don’t meet lobbyists except in open hearings, and that they should never do casework for constituents. Instead, they would make a point of meeting local lawyers – especially the local Citizens Advice Bureau – to discuss failings in the law."
So there you go - he thinks they should sit in nice cozy committee's with lawyers and shut out the public completely. I can honestly say, I've never read such a load of old tosh in my life. It seems that Mr Evans hails from Barnet. He will be in good company with our local Tories. Councillor Mike Freer makes a point of never responding to comments on Leader Listens unless they agree with him. Richard Cornelius won't visit sheltered housing scheme's because it "would be too upsetting" and his "emotions may cloud his judgement".
MP's have little enough to do already. Dealing with Constituents problems is one of the few useful things a backbencher does with his time. In my opinion, there are far too few "ordinary people" and too many lawyers in Parliament already. I'd introduce quotas for trades. Barristers learn advocacy, therefore have a natural advantage over bus drivers and nurses, but do they know as much about Transport or Health? Parliament should represent society and year by year this becomes less so. As for Councillors, what on earth does he think they do? The whole point is that they represent the people. I suppose he prefers the model of a certain Mr Coleman who shuttles around in a taxi at the taxpayers expense and "never answers questions about his expenses".
Looking at the Local Democracy blog really disturbed me. I've seen blogs of all shapes and sizes but this one looks very professionally put together. It has the feel of a "semi official" blog. I couldn't really figure out it's motivation or purpose. It's author's descriptions says :-
"Paul Evans is a local democracy practitioner with a long track-record of running e-democracy projects at a local level with a particular focus upon the promotion of local representative democracy."Rather strange then that he wants to completely exclude MP's & Councillors from engaging with the people who elect them. MP's and Councillors must never forget who they work for - US. Even though some act like it, they win elections, not raffles.
P.S. I just noticed that the blog in question does have a link to a Local Barnet Political blog at in the sidebar. Which one does Mr Evans like most? Mike Freer's Leader Listens? Explains it all really.
15 comments:
Alright Rog? I was waiting for that, after the passing reference I gave your blog in mine last week.
You seem to have attributed a great deal of poor faith and dishonesty to me based on a fairly cursory reading of my blog, and then added a range of uncharitable surmises, but I suppose I should have braced myself for that one, shouldn't I?
I think that you've got my politics .... er *slightly* wrong as well....
Paul,
No idea what your politics are at all. You imply that I've posted this blog purely because of your comments last week. Not true. I posted them because I completely disagree with your view regarding the role of MP's & councillors, which I think is dangerous. I started following your blog as a reference site. From what I've seen we have a different perception of what Local democracy should be.
As you are a local and have an interest in local democracy, I'd assume you are familiar with the editorial policy of Leader Listens regarding comments. As you link to it & don't link to any one else, such as Duncan MacDonald, I made certain assumptions.
I read your blog entry several times before posting my comments. If I've misrepresented them, please correct me. That's why I have an open comment policy.
Hope that is fair enough?
Well you could start by giving me a breakdown of the evidence that led you to this conclusion?
"I suppose he prefers the model of a certain Mr Coleman who shuttles around in a taxi at the taxpayers expense and "never answers questions about his expenses".
On similar grounds, I suppose you have a penchant for flytipping?
Your blog states that you think politicos should steer clear of members of the public & spend their time in the company of lawyers. Seems to me that is what Mr Coleman does.
I posted a link to your blog for reference, I'm sure people will make their own minds up. I'm sure that if I've misrepresent your comments in it I'll get a couple of comments telling me why.
As to your comments re "flytipping" - are you calling me a pikey because of my Irish ancestry?
No. Being 3/4 Irish myself, I'm not given to racial slurs - least of all against most of my own family.
In my case, the pusilanimous way that you argue is helping you to pull off the rather clever trick. You are actually getting someone who has been on the left of the Labour Party for over a quarter of a century to feel some sympathy for my local Tories.
I'm sure it'll wear off in time....
If I were them, I wouldn't bother responding to you - you don't seem to have a conversational bone in your body.
From what I can see, all you do is place the most out-of-context uncharitable construction on something that you think you don't like, chuck in a few unsupported assertions and the odd snide little aside.
You really haven't understood or engaged with any of the arguments that I've posted on my site, have you?
You still haven't explained how I've misreprestented your stance on politicians?
I've no idea whatsoever as to what your reference to flytipping is about.
I'm on the left of Labour as well, you certainly haven't made me any more kindly disposed to this mob who want to abolish Sheltered Housing. Are you really saying that because I criticised your blog, you sympathise with them. Diddums.
You accuse me of misrepresenting you. I haven't criticised Freer for not responding to my posts. I've criticised him because he won't even moderate them. I'm sure you know this as you clearly research everything fully.
Your comments yet again show you to be an elitist. You accuse them of refusing to engage in conversation, yet support Tories who won't respond to my criticisms. You are looking both ways at the same time on this one.
I guess I'm just to thick for an intellectual such as your good self. Before you get on your high horse, just remember you started this all by slagging off my blog for no good reason. You clearly love dishing it out, but clearly can't take it. Never mind, you'll probably get three more hist on your blog through this today, so it'll be worth it.
I may even have a look at your site later & comment if I can be bothered & there's nothing on telly.
Sorry that should say "you accuse me"
The explanation was in the original post and the posts that I linked to from it.
The one you didn't read properly. You might want to google the term 'representative democracy' to help you with this?
You accused me of approving of Brian Coleman's taxirides without any grounds (I see you're trying to associate my somehow with the closure of sheltered housing now! Where will it end?) so I offered you an arbitrary unsupported accusation of flytipping in reply.
I as going to make it anonymous Frottuerism but I figured (from the way that you argue) that you'd decide that I was calling you a paedo or something.
I'm trying to work out how to square this....
"It's like me howling anti Irish racism if someone calls me a boozer, because the Irish are supposed to like their drink, or accusing them of racism if they compliment our families athletic prowess, because we had Black ancestry several generations ago. It is nonsense."
... with this:
"As to your comments re "flytipping" - are you calling me a pikey because of my Irish ancestry?"
Also, I don't have any half-baked ideas about leaving all comments on my blog whether they're bollocks or not. If you've got any comments for my site, do try and read the post properly before you squat over it with any more of your pearls of wisdom?
Such arrogance. You assume that because I disagree with you, I haven't read your masterpiece properly. Plenty of people read my blog properly and thoroughly disagree with me. That's fine.
You can square my comment like this. I've never posted regarding flytipping. I had no idea why you chose to raise it, therefore the only logical explanation was it was some sort of dig. I made no comment, just was asking what the relevance was.? That was the only rational explanaition I could come up with. I didn't realise that it was a random comment.
I used the Coleman reference as, to my mind, he sums up the type of detatched politician you seem to be championing in your blog.
You clearly can't read as I was referring to MY views on sheltered housing rather than yours. Who doesn't read things properly?
I disagree with what you wrote about the role of MP's & councillors, is that OK?
You can call me "Victor Meldrew","not uniniversally for the common good", Dishonest, a flytipper, "half baked", whatever you like, really. I really don't care, I find it all quite funny.
It's just rather sad that you seem so pompous, self important and thin skinned.
"You can call me "Victor Meldrew","not uniniversally for the common good", Dishonest, a flytipper, "half baked", whatever you like, really. I really don't care, I find it all quite funny."
Yes. I can tell you're just pissing yourself and loving every minute of it.
"Self important?" "Thin-skinned"? Pot? Kettle?
You have no idea what kind of politician I'm championing on my blog because you plainly either didn't read the post or didn't understand it.
Tell us all then
*facepalm*
Why don't you read the original post? Not in a 'hello, here's someone saying something that I don't like the sound of so I'm going to go off in my pants' sort of way, but in way that starts from the point of view that I *may* just have something worth thinking about to say?
Have you ever read around the subject of representative democracy and what it means? Burke's Speech to the Electors of Bristol is the textbook place to start. It's the one they use in schools when they explore the role of the representative.
This, from here:
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s7.html
"Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole."
If you have, you will understand that there is a tension between having to represent the interests of the nation as a whole, and having to take up cases of individual constituents. Often, they are competely contradictory things.
MPs have to square the demand to do this with their primary role as legislators. Because that's what MPs (and to a lesser extent, councillors) are for. It's their main job. You could argue that MPs do a lot of casework to cover over the cracks in the crappy legislation that they rubber stamp (a view I'd endorse, as it happens).
It's *possible* to be a good MP without ever doing casework, but it's hard. I'd also acknowledge (as I did in that post that I'm having to rewrite for you here) that casework gives MPs a birds-eye view of the big failings in legislation, and I suggested that they could resolve that tension I mentioned earlier by having a good relationship with the lawyers at their local CAB because they *could* possibly learn most of the things that casework teaches them by monitoring the CAB's work closely.
From your comments, it seems that you may think that the main job of MPs and Councillors is to take up cases on behalf of individual constituents. If you think that, you are factually demonstrably wrong. If you acknowledge that their main role is as legislators and not caseworkers, then you would have little choice but to acknowledge that my post - intended to start a conversation (thus the ? in the title) had some merit.
But you've not done that (yet), have you Rog?
Ok, firstly I just read your post again. I've just read my original post again. Yup, I think I understand it. I think I understood it pretty well 1st(2nd & 3rd) time around. Now you clearly think I'm far too thick to be able to form opinions, but I have. I think everything in my original post was spot on.
You confirm that with your last comment. I think that if you erect barriers between electors & politicians it will ultimately destroy democracy. Your original post quote's a civil servant as it's inspiration. We don't all think civil servants are the font of all knowledge.
Where do you suggest people go who approach MP's and Councillors as a last resort, when bureacracy is ruining their lives. I read Andrew Dismore's constituency report religiously when he sends it. I've no idea whether he fits your mould as a good MP or not, but the people he has personally helped would doubtless disagree with you as well.
If MP's are inclined to be lazy when framing legislation, this will be just as much the case if they were banned from helping people out. It's called human nature.
I'm not going to dismiss your whole blog out of hand as you did with mine, as I'm sure that there are people out there who love it. I just find it rather strange that a left leaning person who lives in Barnet can take such exception to a blog which has fought tooth and nail against all the crap Barnet council is up to.
It astounds me that a search on your blog failed to mention Brian Coleman, yet you find time to slag me off. You link to Freer's leader listens, but no other Barnet blog. Sure, you hate my blog but what about Vicki Morris blog?
Is your interest in local govt only theoretical? IMHO, left leaning bloggers should be opposing Future Shape, Warden cuts, Tory incompetence. Alison Moore told me that the main thing that keeps her motivated is the casework and the fact that she can help people. If you removed that, I suspect that you'd just end up with even more Colemanesque troughers. Is that what you want. The model for Parliament you suggest would have it stuffed full of Lawyers. In my opinion that would be a disaster.
I suggested that we should erect barriers between MPs/Councillors and the public?
Where?
I'm not a civil servant, and I spent four years working for politicians. I also formally studied politics and administration, and from that experience, I'd say that the civil servant that Jenni Russell quotes is one that most UK political scientists would recognise.
You seem constantly determined to find a way of playing the ball and not the man - finding some imagined personal flaw that invalidates someone's arguments. Why is that?
http://www.onegoodmove.org/fallacy/attack.htm
Working in an MP / MEPs office, I understood why politicians do casework (I made this point in the original post), and why they make a noise about the fact that they do it, and I'm not saying that some good can't come of it. But none of this deals with the central tension (my key point) between the nebulous definition of the word 'representation' does it? Burke's 'nation as a whole' problem.
I wonder if you'll ever address that one?
I'm not sure how you arrived at the view that I want parliament to be stuffed full of lawyers either.
You seem to have imagined that I take a great deal of exception to your blog. I don't. I don't really read it very often. I simply used it to illustrate a point in another post - a contrast between a broad-based community blog that is managed in an inclusive way and a more narrow, partisan, slightly obsessive political blog.
And I don't use mine to attack any political grouping because I intend it as a non-partisan discussion of political theory around local democracy.
My other blog - an outspokenly political one - is a good deal less restrained.
On my choice of links to councillor blogs, I had an RSS feed from the 'Read My Day' project, but that broke, so I started building a list picking three or four prominent councillor bloggers from all sides (I added a second tory because I met him and he asked me to). Freer's was the one that I'd heard of.
I'm planning to update the list, but I think my blogroll is pretty long already, don't you?
It's your blog, feature who you like. It just struck me that leader listens was a strange choice, given it's history & how rarely Freer updates it. Do you actually read it?
So the blog is obsessive now is it? You rarely read it?
You clearly didn't read it last week then? It was about music all week.
It may have escaped your attention, but we've Future Shape, Iceland, Warden Cuts, Coleman's excesses, Aerodrome Road, to name a few scandals. The Blog is called Barnet Eye so I try and keep it local.
I won't be doing Burke, ever. I'll leave that to you, you may find it fascinating, I don't. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a blo about future Shape to write - seems like someone has to.
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