Mark Reckons has a long and respectful interview with Douglas Carswell, Tory MP and (with Daniel Hannan) author of The Plan.I was taken aback by the following exchange early on:
Mark Reckons: In Part One of the book you bemoan “declamatory legislation” based on emotive rather than proportionate evidence based responses to issues or events. What would you suggest is the best way to debate against this sort of political tactic?
Douglas Carswell: The best way to ensure that the laws that are passed deal with real problems is to ensure that our law-makers are made more directly answerable to local voters. If we had a right of popular initiative, plus recall and open primaries to decide who gets to be the MP in the first place, we'd have wiser, more judicious people in our legislature, passing proportionate laws.
This, of course, is nonsense.
Imagine a clamour against dangerous dogs. The MP has been around a bit and understands the dangers of legislating in haste, so she declines to support a new bill on the subject despite a vociferous campaign by his local paper.
Having been around a bit she understands that by the next election tempers will have cooled, memories will have faded and dangerous dogs may not be much of an issue at all.
Other MPs reason the same way.
Result: The dangerous dogs bill does not go through.
What would happen under Carswell's proposed system? The MP knows the new dangerous dogs bill would do more harm than good. But when she says so the local paper steps up its campaign on the subject and begins to attack her.
A petition for her to be recalled as MP starts to circulate. Eventually, she bows to public opinion and supports the bill.
Other MPs reason the same way.
Result: The dangerous dogs bill goes through.
I am a great believer in Representative democracy - what George Watson called The English Ideology. Yes, popular opinion must ultimately prevail, but popular opinion can be fickle and inconsistent and needs to be mediated through parliament.
Removing the checks that a representative system provides will result in more bad laws, not fewer as Carswell claims.
5 comments:
So media outcries have no effect on lawmakers under our current system?
Really?
Increases in gun restriction legislation had NOTHING to do with Dunblane? There's no change in social services based on the Victoria Climbie and Baby Peter cases?
I think you're exaggerating a possible side-effect of Douglas Carswell's approach, one which is far from unheard of under our current system, and you're simultaneously downplaying the iniquities of the system we have in place at the moment.
After all, under our current system, when a constituency discovers that their MP is a lying cheating thief (clearly, not unheard of) they have absolutely no system of recourse until the next election, potentially up to 5 years later, during which time that MP will continue to be paid to do the job they've proved themselves unsuitable for.
Or, to put it another way, I disagree.
I am not sure if you are using the word "respectful" in the pejorative sense here! There were some questions where I pointed out where I disagreed and pressed him on things but I would agree that I did not get all Paxo on his ass.
He didn't really answer my question on the one you reference. I was really trying to find out from him how he suggests dealing with the sort of debating tactics he was bemoaning. He really answered a different question. I am pleased to see the substance of what we talked about being debated more widely like this though.
I am more receptive to the idea of recall though than you here Jonathan. I think giving the voters more power in this way could be a good thing. At the moment for example what can constituents in Leominster do about the egregious Bill Wiggin?
Mark
I think this is a case where I fall back on "Hard cases make bad laws".
I would rather suffer the occasional Wiggin than the poisonous political culture which I believe Carswell's approach would lead to.
The Swiss already have direct democracy and the country seems to function just fine.
I have more faith in the intelligence of people than I have in the incorruptibility of MP's.
I'm ambivalent about recall and primaries as the real priority for our electoral system should be PR, but I do support agenda initiative. Where I think your argument falls down is that the Dangerous Dogs Act was government legislation. Government legislation can be introduced in a matter of days. By contrast, private members' legislation is introduced as part of a lengthy process that takes place over the course of the parliamentary session.
Carswell's proposal - which I endorse (I hasten to add that I don't agree with everything he has to say) - is for a petitioning system in which the most popular twelve or so proposals get guaranteed a second reading debate. In that respect it isn't much different from the current system of ballot bills.
You are right to say that some populist measures would get through, but that happens already. The answer to that is a more balanced Commons, a stronger second chamber and a written constitution. But I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater here. A great many measures would be popular AND sensible - we need a system that allows for proposals like that to come through parliament without having to be approved by government first.
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