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July 24, 2006
Representation or repression?
On account of me feeling especially uninspired, this post is brought to you by someone else, from a blog that is less than a week old:
We seem to think that we elect a "government" to govern us, and that the government should therefore get its way in Parliament. This is wrong. We do not elect a government to govern us. We elect a Parliament to represent us, and Parliament appoints the government. Parliament, not the government (executive) should be the focus of our political life. It is in Parliament, and through its committees, that key policies should be decided. The government's role should be to administer us under the law, and to execute the policies agreed on by Parliament.
Which is true, in theory. But this is politics. Politics hates nice theories. It likes fears and insecurities, simplicities and people to hate; the fundamental foundations of our quirky little party-political system. While MPs are remote, voting will be too. A voting system that focuses more on representation and responsiveness than simply working out who won the battle can help, as it would show more clearly the importance of Parliament and the principles of representative Parliamentary democracy. The post linked above comments thusly on Scotland's voting system helping to put the attention on the Parliament, not the executive:
Because we have proportional representation in Scotland, the Scottish Parliament emerges more clearly as the centre of political life. It is not possible to believe we are "electing a government" when no one party has an overal majority of seats, and when the parliamentary parties must collaborate to elect a First Minister and form a coalition after the elections. In this, as in so many other things, Westminster has much to learn from Holyrood.
Posted by pauldavies on July 24, 2006
