Two weeks away
Two glorious weeks away in sunny Corfu gives one lots of time to read and think. The Greeks are a funny lot. How they came up with democracy is beyond me but that was a few thousand years ago so it was probably different back then. My post on the difficulties of democracy imposition abroad crossed my mind only closer to home this time.
The Home Secretary is on the offensive around the extension of the time limit to hold people (they do like to use the word terrorist but lets be clear, at this stage they cannot be labeled as such without trial) without charge. What has that got to do with democracy. Well nothing directly. But the report was clear that the likelihood of the bill going through this time is quite high. The reason given (and this must be taken with caution given my reflections on the news in previous blogs) was that the backbenchers had capitulated because a defeat for the government at this stage would be the end of Brown and consequential implosion of the Government and Labour).
If there is any truth in this matter then we can see a clear indication that the individuals that make up government in Labour are clearly more concerned with their own ends than the good of society. Not a new position but I think this issue shows a far clearer emergence of such behaviors. The existence of the Whip in many ways confirms this. Democracy at its best.
Reading various Greek Philosophers while away led me to think about what structures could be used instead. The first thing I looked at was why we like democracy. What does it give us?
My first view is that it gives us nothing positive in itself but is a mechanism to deal with a negative. The second point is that democracy is not synonymous with any particular structure of government. It is just that we decide to organize government in the way we do but that has little to do with democracy. We could have radically different forms of government which include democracy. We just naturally associate parliamentary structures with democracy.
Democracy was originally intended to let the citizens have a say in how they were governed. Each citizen (in modern views) having one say. But what we get is a choice but one which is rather limited. For example, we cannot chose the type or structure of the government we want, only the people who make up that structure. We could argue that these people could have policies to change government but this is almost never the case. The very system which votes you into power is not going to be changed. First past the post proves this.
When the people we do choose to sit in this predetermined structure get to power they have no obligation to do ANYTHING that they said they would nor do you get a say beyond their selection. Given that the choice you have is normally amongst pretty similar politicians and views the spirit of democracy is somewhat tainted.
So what can be done. Well, we could split the responsibility. If we accept that democracy is the ability to rid ourselves of trouble then we should work this into any new way of working. Maybe a constitution which those elected cannot change. Then an election can be not necessarily for just the people but also the type. This would separate the pigs from the trough. You could have two votes. One for the type of government and another for the people to populate it. So Labour might campaign for first past the post and a parliament but the queen might campaign for a monarchy. By keeping the constitution solid and not permitting it to be changed then whatever type of gov you have you could get rid of.
But why would one want to change in this way. The reason is that the type of parliament we have is inefficient, expensive and does not necessarily represent the will of the people. Why have 600 people in parliament when they are pretty much controlled by the few anyway. Why not just have the few and let them get on with it. if they do not perform then we could use technology to rid ourselves of them (a sort of voting system in real time, not for policies but to dump the government, just like Britain's got talent).
Ok, so maybe a bit too radical but the general dissatisfaction with the politicians today and the complete inability we have to do anything about them (they are pretty much all the same and the system keeps them there) is not the democracy we deserve.
The Home Secretary is on the offensive around the extension of the time limit to hold people (they do like to use the word terrorist but lets be clear, at this stage they cannot be labeled as such without trial) without charge. What has that got to do with democracy. Well nothing directly. But the report was clear that the likelihood of the bill going through this time is quite high. The reason given (and this must be taken with caution given my reflections on the news in previous blogs) was that the backbenchers had capitulated because a defeat for the government at this stage would be the end of Brown and consequential implosion of the Government and Labour).
If there is any truth in this matter then we can see a clear indication that the individuals that make up government in Labour are clearly more concerned with their own ends than the good of society. Not a new position but I think this issue shows a far clearer emergence of such behaviors. The existence of the Whip in many ways confirms this. Democracy at its best.
Reading various Greek Philosophers while away led me to think about what structures could be used instead. The first thing I looked at was why we like democracy. What does it give us?
My first view is that it gives us nothing positive in itself but is a mechanism to deal with a negative. The second point is that democracy is not synonymous with any particular structure of government. It is just that we decide to organize government in the way we do but that has little to do with democracy. We could have radically different forms of government which include democracy. We just naturally associate parliamentary structures with democracy.
Democracy was originally intended to let the citizens have a say in how they were governed. Each citizen (in modern views) having one say. But what we get is a choice but one which is rather limited. For example, we cannot chose the type or structure of the government we want, only the people who make up that structure. We could argue that these people could have policies to change government but this is almost never the case. The very system which votes you into power is not going to be changed. First past the post proves this.
When the people we do choose to sit in this predetermined structure get to power they have no obligation to do ANYTHING that they said they would nor do you get a say beyond their selection. Given that the choice you have is normally amongst pretty similar politicians and views the spirit of democracy is somewhat tainted.
So what can be done. Well, we could split the responsibility. If we accept that democracy is the ability to rid ourselves of trouble then we should work this into any new way of working. Maybe a constitution which those elected cannot change. Then an election can be not necessarily for just the people but also the type. This would separate the pigs from the trough. You could have two votes. One for the type of government and another for the people to populate it. So Labour might campaign for first past the post and a parliament but the queen might campaign for a monarchy. By keeping the constitution solid and not permitting it to be changed then whatever type of gov you have you could get rid of.
But why would one want to change in this way. The reason is that the type of parliament we have is inefficient, expensive and does not necessarily represent the will of the people. Why have 600 people in parliament when they are pretty much controlled by the few anyway. Why not just have the few and let them get on with it. if they do not perform then we could use technology to rid ourselves of them (a sort of voting system in real time, not for policies but to dump the government, just like Britain's got talent).
Ok, so maybe a bit too radical but the general dissatisfaction with the politicians today and the complete inability we have to do anything about them (they are pretty much all the same and the system keeps them there) is not the democracy we deserve.
posted by So long and thanks for all the fish at
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