« Italians: cast your bedsheets | Main | Italy: where would we be without you? »
March 10, 2006
Ken Clarke, David Cameron, and PR
Interview in the Indy today:
Mr Clarke described as "brilliant" the analysis in last week's report by the independent Power commission that warned Britain's democracy faced meltdown and accused the political parties of "killing politics". He has persuaded Ferdinant Mount, the commission's vice-chairman, to join his task force.
He said a public clamour could one day force politicians to accept proportional representation (PR) but does not think the moment has arrived. "I want strong government with the courage of its own convictions. My objection has always been that a Parliament elected by PR would start a process of horse-trading between the parties for the lowest common denominator of policy options."
Mr Clarke wants the commission to give the parties one more chance. He said: "It asks how to get people more interested in the product. One answer is to improve the product. I believe more people would vote if we improved the quality of the national political process.
"The politicians are as guilty as the media for turning it into a rather lightweight soap opera -the awful Clintonesque techniques, the focus groups, everyone chasing the same voters with the same slogans and clichés."
So no change there then. To be fair to Ken, he has a point (as embolden above), and given it's one that I often gloss over, I might as well highlight it for once.
Horse-trading is a grand possibility, even greater, IMO, when one considers how any reform would be managed, i.e. by the politicians. (Alas). There is a rather unfortunate possibility that so managed, nothing much would change. However, Ken puts it rather crudely, suggesting that at the moment, we don't have a culture of horse-trading and lowest-common-denominator policy making. Yeah, right. LCD policy making is ultimately what democracy (even a skewed one such as ours) is all about, so to think we will ever exist in a situation where this is not the case is a bit dumb. Ah, heck, Ken probably knows this, but his career's not yet dead enough to say it.
He wants to improve the product, i.e. the parties. This requires motivation. But while everyone is still chasing the same voters, the circumstances demand the same tactics. The change Ken is after can only be achieved with a shift in what parties need to do to win power, which requires a voting system less geared towards mud-slinging and a few special voters. Et cetera, et cetera.
Posted by pauldavies on March 10, 2006
Comments
Of course we don't have a culture of 'horse trading'. But in Scotland and wherever else power isn't a one-party monopoly, there is a develpoment of a culture of 'power sharing'.
Compared with the present adversarial system, in which by definition the other side has nothing to contribute, that's better in the long run.
That, I believe, is what the Power Inquiry is all about.
Posted by: Nigel Baldwin at March 11, 2006 09:30 AM
We're democrats and believe in free speech, but we're also committed to civil and rational debate. We reserve the right to delete material posted to our site, but we hope and expect to exercise this right rarely if at all.
