Introduction
Disengagement and disillusionment is nothing new in British politics. Edmund Burke, MP for Malton, North Yorkshire, spoke of it in the 18th century. Furthermore, he identified the cause:
“Whenever Parliament is persuaded to assume the role of executive government it will lose all the confidence, love and veneration which it has ever enjoyed whilst it was supposed to be the corrective and control on the acting powers of the state.....”
While we welcome the POWER Inquiry's establishment, the way it describes the extent of the problem, and its debunking of the apathy myth, we feel it has fundamentally failed to recognise the root cause of the problem, namely the parliamentary system itself.
We agree with the POWER Inquiry's goals of rebalancing power, ensuring fair and representative elections, and including direct participation of citizens in decision-making, though our detailed recommendations are radically different.
Rebalancing PowerBlog
- The unveiling of the "big society" in their manifesto, while it impressed me, seems to have done little for the Tories with most voters. So, with no policies to fall back on, David Cameron has chosen to go for fear as his primary means of motivating voters.
- National Insurance is the ultimate stealth tax. So why are none of the main parties proposing to get rid of it?
- As someone who was born an brought up in the Stoke Central constituency, I welcome the candidacy of Gary Elsby to challenge the arrogance of New Labour who think they can gift the seat to their favoured candidate Tristram Hunt.
- This election is being misrepresented as a 3-way contest by those most likely to benefit from such a perception, the three main parties in Westminster.
- The next time someone gets the chance to mobilise significant resources in the name of democratic reform, can we please have some joined-up thinking?
- He stole an entire party, lied to Parliament, was jointly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and probably abused the expenses system. Tony Blair should be on trial, not being touted as the first President of Europe.
- There seems to have been much more fuss and palaver over the bath plug and porn than the £116,000 Jacqui Smith fiddled from the public purse. But now she's apologised, that's ok...
- Never mind the fact that she is typical of her colleagues in every respect other than gender (age, class, education, race), Harriet Harman is (thankfully) unrepresentative of her sex.
- Since when was getting 18% of the electorate considered a victory worth shouting about?
- Despite all the promises of reform, the wringing of hands and donning of hair shirts, Parliament has gone into recess without putting its house in order.
- It is downright hypocritical of David Cameron to suggest he is cleaning up his party. So he's paid back £1,000. What about the other £20k per year?
- Not only do we NOT need professional politicians, but their very existence degrades the quality of democracy.
- Now we know why it was so important that the Telegraph published this information.
- It doesn't matter that she was a Treasury Minister. It doesn't even matter that she was a Minister. She was a public servant milking the system.
- Labour were kidding themselves when they deposed Blair for Brown if they seriously thought he had any chance of winning an election.
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