WHAT ISSUES ARE IMPACTING THE UK AT THE MOMENT
The UK, like most countries, are experiencing a large number of major issues now, for example,
- the tail end of COVID-19and the economic and human issues it’s caused
- general economic woes
- fall out of Brexit,
- cost of living crisis,
- war in Ukraine and its knock-on
- immigration challenges and the ‘panics’ over small boats, i
- impending climate change
- massive national debt
- the general lowering of the UK’s reputation around the globe.
one would expect that the UK Parliament should be looking to address these problems in the same way a manager or an owner of a business would be doing the same with their organizations experienced the same.
PARLIMENT IS NOT LOOKING AT THE ‘REAL’ ISSUES IMPACTING THE UK
However, it is clearly not the case.
We hear lots of noise and side issues that seem to divert everything away from the problems that are happening. For example
- The recent report regarding Boris lying to Parliament which resulted in him resigning his MP role and a rather childish argument between him Rishi and many other MPs.
- Likewise, there was a very similar argument between Boris, Rishi and others regarding the honours lists, This resulted in a number of resignations from several politicians (many I’ve never heard of). As a side point, the honours system is clearly out of date. It’s okay to give honours to people who have done large amounts of community work such as nurses or people who worked with handicapped children for many years, but to give them to politicians, civil servants, sports people and other celebrities for doing their job is clearly not right.
- There was also party-gate. While there was clearly wrongdoing here, why can’t people accept that they made an error, take the punishment, apologize, fix the problem and move on? As opposed to arguing and trying to blame everybody else apart from themselves regarding what happened. Remember the old political phrase “It is not the crime but the cover-up there tends to bring people down”
- There’s an unbelievable amount of spin on everything. Brexit is good and bad. Immigration is under control and not under control. Economic policies are working and failing. It gives the impression that no one really knows what is going on. Politicians need to be much more factual and held to account if they lie or do not do their job. Although I believe that media should be more helpful here. Newspapers need to focus on facts as opposed to their own political views, and TV really needs to look to bring in experts to discuss issues as opposed to interviewing MPs who will always repeat the lines that the party has told them to say.
Overall this gives the impression that politicians are stuck in a bubble with no sense of what’s really happening around them in the real world. Or MPs are in it for what they can get and don’t really care about their constituents until the elections. This is a shame because I’m sure there are a large number of very decent and dedicated MPs in Parliament.
The other worry is that the opposition (Labour and the SNP) are very similar to the current government in many ways. So even if the Tory party was to lose and Labour/SNP came to power, you could end up with something very similar to as now . Although one could argue if there is a change in government and something could change maybe there’s only one point we have to find out.
SO WHAT CAN BE DONE?
To be completely honest, – NOTHING !!!
The only people who can fix the problem are politicians and why would they want to kick the ladder away that put them where they are (especially if they are still standing on it)?
However, it just doesn’t stop me from coming up with some suggestions.
Real Diversity and Inclusion (D+I)
We need real diversity and inclusion across the MP population to ensure is representative of the UK population. This doesn’t just cover race and gender but in areas such as education, demographics and age.
Regarding education, there are a large number of Tory MPs and Cabinet members who attended Eton and Oxford. This will create a natural bias, therefore, we need a better representative spread of educational backgrounds
From a demographic point of view, most MPs are from the middle/upper class and are generally well off. How would a multi-millionaire MP know what it’s like to live on a week-to-week salary in a Gateshead council state? We need a spread of backgrounds from the poorest to the richest
Regarding age. We need to get a large spread of different ages across Parliament. For example, how would a 65-year-old MP understand what younger people need? Again we need a better spread of ages.
Remove Career Politicians
The next area is around career politicians.
These need to be removed quickly.
There is a trend for individuals to go to university, join a political party (say as an advisor), become an MP, possibly a cabinet minister and even sometimes the Prime Minister.
These people have never worked in the real world which creates a natural bias and reinforces the Westminster bubble. Therefore one should say people can’t join parliament until they have worked (for say 10 years?) outside in the real world.
Remove 2nd (3rd, etc) jobs.
Second (and 3rd, 4th, etc) jobs should be banned. If you’re an MP then you should be focusing on this 100%. If you have other jobs outside Parliament, then this will take up time, create a conflict of interest and divert you away from focusing on your constituents.
A maximum term for an MP
Therefore should be a maximum time in Parliament for each MP to try and avoid stagnation and complacency. If an MP is on a safe seat then they could stay there for life.
One possible solution is that an MP can only stay for a 12-year period before they need to move to a different seat. It will ensure they are focused on the job, although it could create a rollover of staff which can be disruptive.
Proper MP discipline
The MPs’ disciplinary processes need to be tightened up. Financial Services proved that industries cannot regulate themselves (i.e. the near catastrophic impact of the 2008 credit crisis). Therefore MPs need an external body (with teeth) and staffed with non-politicians (such as judges and other respected people) to oversee and punish MPs if they break the rules. The current system is very soft and does not provide the control required.
Open and transparent MP funding.
The parliamentary funding system is very vague and open to abuse. There are lots of claims that rich people will give money to political parties for favours and influence. Therefore all donations regardless of size should be listed on an easy-to-access website that the public can see and review.
Make the House of Lords work properly.
The final point is the House of Lords. While a separate house or chamber is needed because it gives some sort of oversight to the House of Commons. The current House of Lords is clearly not fit for purpose. It consists of MPs and people put there by political parties or because they inherited it from (normally) their father. The makeup of the Lords does not reflect the general population. This creates bias and reduces its ability to provide robust oversight of the House of Commons.
Therefore, we need to make it fit for purpose.
One idea would be to have 10 members in the House of Lords for each county across the UK. I believe that are 48 counties which means there will be 480 members in total. All of these should be independent (from any political party), selected by local constituencies and match the D+I targets of the county they represent. Also by having a better spread across the UK, it removes the focus and the dominance of London, Southeast England and the other large cities.
IN SUMMARY
To summarize, UK politics needs to change to make it work better for the population.
However, not wanting to be a bit of a downer. I’m very skeptical that anything will change in the short and medium term.
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