Events | 2009.05.23
Speaker Martin's end could be just the beginning | Jackie Ashley
The expenses scandal is an opportunity to end the days of parliament as an elite club and rejuvenate democracy
Yes, clearly, Speaker Martin must go. The Commons no-confidence motion, the growing complaints from MPs and now the convention-defying call for his resignation from the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg , make his position impossible. Senior Labour figures are also admitting, privately, that his time is up. Yet the Speaker\'s departure is pointless if it\'s just a personal thing. His resignation must be an opener, not closure, the first symbolic act of a much more radical cleansing of the Commons.
You can\'t blame it all on "Gorbals Mick" . This privately kindly, but easily riled and abrasive man is guilty of being a shop steward for a system the public loathes. He has become a visible face of the private club now exposed to the daylight. But it\'s the club itself that is the real problem.
This last fortnight has reminded me of a long exercise I took part in – the Hansard Society\'s commission into parliament\'s ability to communicate with the general public under the chairmanship of Lord David Puttnam. We took reams of evidence and in spring 2005 concluded the place was simply not keeping pace with changes in society, was spreading cynicism, was sidelined from the centre of political life and needed dramatic change: "The public have an absolute right to know what happens in parliament … and to have access to all forms of information about parliament" we concluded.
Some good came from the report but its main thrust was quietly and effectively parried. The "Commons authorities" didn\'t like it, and sat on it, as they have sat on so many other proposed reforms, from changing the hours, doing away with old-fashioned conventions and generally bringing parliament into the 21st century.
Though I\'ve always been fascinated by politics and come from a political family, I have never felt at home in parliament. The schoolboy humour, the stodgy waft of old food, the utter pomposity of so many office-holders, the unfriendliness to women and above all, the sense that this was a club, part of whose purpose was to exclude the wider world. The change that must now happen really has to feel like change. A blast of fresh air must smack open the windows and barrel through the chambers.
And radical action has to come, first of all, from the parties themselves – if it doesn\'t, it will come from the public. The slowness with which parliamentarians have reacted, the bemusement and indignation, has been striking. It\'s like a herd of North American bison coming across the repeating rifle for the first time.
But what does radical action mean? Well, as one cabinet minister told me yesterday, it has to mean resignations, deselections and byelections for those who have deliberately set out to fiddle the system. One thing has to be said about "flipping" first and second homes , which is that ministers had to designate their London home as their main home until 2004, when the rules changed. So some flipping, on taking and then leaving office, may be justifiable (though not lavish refurbishment either side of flipping, of course). But there are some MPs who have flipped to make money, either by avoiding capital gains or council tax, or to boost allowance claims. They should all be told to stand down.
The worst offenders, who may face fraud charges, should be told to go now. That will mean byelections, including in erstwhile safe seats which Labour, or other parties, would then lose. It means Brown losing ministers. It will be painful and embarrassing. But if there is to be any accounting, it\'s necessary. Some MPs may refuse to stand down; they need to be named, shamed and cut loose by party leaders. Their local parties or associations should deselect them.
Beyond this, the comparatively easy stuff needs to be agreed among the parties. That includes a ban on flipping, a much tighter cap on other expenses, a system for removing MPs who cheat the public and a change in the officials who in the past waved through these expenses. It would also help if the July publication of all MPs\' expenses could be brought forward so that the public can judge for themselves, rather than having to rely on the judgment of one newspaper. (One MP tells me that this too is being blocked by the Speaker).
Even the most decisive action won\'t be enough to stop a bloodbath at the European elections for all the main parties, Labour in particular. For now the party seems paralysed by the trauma of what is happening, with individual MPs complaining of no guidance from the centre. Only by setting out a radical programme for reform, not just of allowances but of parliament, can Labour have any hope of salvaging some of its reputation by the next general election.
Now, surely, is the time to bring proper accountability to the House of Commons, to do away with all the frippery and nonsense. Call MPs by their names, rather than "honourable members" (many are not so honourable anyway); end late night voting when half the MPs have no idea what they are voting about; cut the ancient court dress; end the secretive lobby system; appoint new people to run the place professionally, rather than relying on shadowy figures who are unknown to the public.
Whatever happened to reform of the House of Lords? Why not make the Palace of Westminster a museum and move to a modern, fit-for-purpose legislature? All of this has been suggested over the last five or six years, and turned down by the powers that be.
This is why, if there is a big change in the composition of the Commons at the next election, it would be no bad thing. Certainly, if the main parties don\'t get the message, we will see independents and challengers victorious. If the politicians don\'t clean up the Commons, the voters will clean it out.
And in the end that\'s the optimistic thing to cling on to. However disgusted many people feel about parliament itself, parliamentary democracy is still an almost magically self-correcting system. Think of all those MPs facing their local parties and association officials in the past few days. Think of them walking through their local supermarkets or attempting to canvass. They know how people feel.
Eventually we will end up with a better parliament than the one we elected in 2005. I sincerely hope it does not contain extremists. But if it contains hundreds of fresh faces, who don\'t mistake themselves for members of an elite club then it will rejuvenate democracy.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]penses-speaker-labour-politics
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