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Disaffection a threat to the democratic process
The system of MPs’ allowances is to be reformed, but the country should not be punished for the scandal that Parliament has to endure, argues Glenda Jackson
PARLIAMENT, having been defined by the public and press as being nothing more than a gravy train, a pigs’ trough, a gigantic sweetie jar into which all MPs were permanently dipping their sticky fingers, on Monday became a shabby kangaroo court.
The Speaker was subjected to the most thorough humiliation by those who, in my opinion, were looking for a scapegoat.
Yes the system of MPs’ allowances has to be reformed.
Yes, some, if not all of the claims are scandalous.
But equally scandalous was the attempt, the successful attempt, to blame the Speaker for all the opprobrium heaped on all MPs’ heads.
But the failure, over many years, to clean up the system was due to the failure of us all to vote for those changes.
Now, as I write, it’s Tuesday and the Prime Minister has just announced fundamental, sweeping reform, which apparently has all-party support.
No longer will MPs have any voice or vote in what we’re paid and what we can claim – something which I welcome with open arms.
As always the devil will be in the detail, and I am sure that the details will be hammered out over the coming weeks. And I await with interest to see what decisions will be taken.
But if we want to save and maintain our democracy and democratic process it will have to happen.
Because of this disaffection on the part of the electorate, and turning away from elections, a “plague on both your houses” view can prevail. This is understandable but hideously dangerous.
The European and local elections take place on June 4. If we respond to the call by Conservative Lord Tebbit to vote for minority parties, we punish people who have no part in or any responsibility for the scandal that Parliament has to endure.
Our Euro candidates and local councillors are not to blame and should not be punished.
But equally, the country should not be punished.
Surely MPs have punished it enough.
One of the minority parties would take us out of Europe, another exercise overt racist, and anti-Semitic policies.
The alternatives to the three major parties have potentially very far-reaching implications.
We are in the middle of an international economic recession.
The environment is under ever-growing threat.
The world is plagued by poverty, disease, mindless and seemingly endless conflicts.
These are the problems we all, whether we like it or not, are facing and our responsibility is not to let this present crisis take away our right, our duty, to exercise our hard-won franchise.
I understand the rage and disgust.
After all, I’m a taxpayer, too, and cutting off our noses to spite our faces may, at the time, seem logical and pleasurable.
But time is not something in our control.
It ticks away regardless.
If we make short-term responses to long-term issues, we will find ourselves in a far worse situation than we are today.
We mustn’t give up on our best instincts because some MPs have, to our shame, shown they haven’t any.
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