Power to the people!

I was originally going to write about the UK Border Agency and how in its current state it can hardly be deemed fit for purpose. While it has been causing me much personal angst recently and its shortcomings have been highlighted by its recognition of hundreds of phantom English colleges, it will have to wait another day for some Common Dog treatment.

Instead I want to get behind another of Douglas Carswell’s, campaigns this time for Primary style selection of candidates. The comments of Nadine Dorries (see below) and the widely recognised sentiment of MPs being lumped together as ‘they are all the same’, a complaint of both the angry public and the victimised MPs, is a condition of the current selection system. The majority of constituents do not know their MP, they have no say in his/her selection, and very few will have any knowledge or care in his or her views and what they will do for the constituency. All they will know is what party they represent. Currently, unless there is a major scandal such as we are currently witnessing, MPs are very rarely held to account for their actions, words or voting record by the local people. Such lack of accountability inevitably leads to disinterest in politicians and politics as a whole, a sorry state of affairs for the world’s oldest democracy.

While it is a positive sign that the public are willing to make their voice heard (in writing, at public meetings or through the media) when there is strong resentment on a policy such as Gurkha immigration or abuse of the expenses system. What we really want to see is positive involvement of the public at the start of the policy making process and not at the end. If the public and not just the local activist can identify their MP and understand the manifesto that he is running on it would be a start. We have seen it in the London Mayoral elections where Londoners actually became quite passionate about who they wanted inside city hall. Neither of these candidates could be seen as ideal party representatives, but where their focus was on what they can do for the city and not specifically on party politics they were able to capture the public’s interest.

Of course for the selection of constituency candidates, party politics will and should play a major part of a candidate’s manifesto. But by opening up the party’s selection, the general public and not just the constituency committee will be able to evaluate potential candidates true political beliefs and what they would do not just for the party but also for the constituency. Ultimately what this could lead to is the engagement of the public in politics like we witness across the Atlantic, the political parties actually representing the needs of its people and the penalising of failure and inaction.