Parliament: a politics-free zone?
Posted by Anna Bull on February 21st, 2007
Alan Simpson, Labour MP for Nottingham South, is quitting parliament to campaign on climate change. However, on the way out, he has taken the opportunity to make some remarks about politics in the UK that should make us wonder whether it is actually doing its job: ‘There is a desperate short-termism (in Parliament). It is dominated by playground games: who’s gang are you in?’. The short-termism is something I mentioned in a post last week about PR; it is institutionalised in the system and the fact that Alan Simpson thinks he can make more of a difference campaigning outside parliament than inside it (as did, famously, Tony Benn), means that governing the country will shortly be left to those seeking the limelight and power rather than people wanting to improve others’ lives.
Alan Simpson seems to think this is the case: ‘I think the danger is that Parliament becomes a politics-free zone, where people are more interested in their careers than the issues that really matter to people outside’. That reminds me of one of my favourite West Wing one-liners, where on asking after someone who’s just lost an election, ‘how did he sound?’ the response is, ‘unemployed’. If politicians are risking losing their job and livelihood at each election then they’re probably more committed to their jobs than most of us. But seemingly, that’s not enough, if MPs principles can’t survive the three-line whip. As the inimitable Geoffrey Hawthorne charmingly puts it in his lecture notes, CPbD?* I don’t know if it can, but it should.
*CPbD - Can Politics be Different?
Filed under: labour, ukpolitics on February 21st, 2007
Surely precisely the people we would expect to slam the practices and mentality of Parliament are those leaving it, particularly if they need to raise their public profile in order to get name-recognition for a campaign outside Parliament?
If he is lucky, he will end up like Tony Benn- ignored by policy makers, and with no influence on the governance of the country, but with a public persona of a ‘distinguished statesman’. Then he’ll be able to retain his principles without the inconvenience of trying to put them into practice.
So the fact that he’s giving up his salary to work as an independent campaigner doesn’t make you think that he might be sincere in what he’s saying?
[...] more carefully. The mere passing of legislation cannot be a solution to our many problems.” Like Anna, I don’t know if politics can be different, but it [...]
I’m sure he is sincere about leaving Parliament for the greater good. But his damning of Parliament certainly fits well with his future career path, and may not be the most accurate reflection of the state of the British Parliament. Plus I think he is being counter-productive in quitting Parliament, and heading down a Bennite road of commentary but no action. Al Gore managed to make a success of failing to win office and campaigning about climate change, but think how much more actual difference he could have made if he had been President.