What’s Next?

There’s an interesting letter in the Telegraph from the 2005 Tory intake calling for US style recall elections. It sounds nice but the world it belongs in is the one where most MPs enjoy the support the vast majority of voters and a recall can reflect a genuine shift in attitude. The problem is that we don’t live in that world and most MPs don’t have enjoy participially high levels of support in their constituency, 426 MPs had more of their constituents voting for other candidates than themselves and 56 had over 60% of their constituents vote against them (conversely only 35 had 60% or more vote for them). The fact that the system allows a majority of voters to be represented by people they didn’t vote for should really be one of the first places people look when trying to work out why no one trusts our political system.

Implementation wise I can see problems. As support for most MPs is quite low, the only way to prevent abuse of this system would be to have a prohibitively high level of signatures to authorize the recall. For this to happen they’d have have committed an offense so large that their removal would be a foregone conclusion and the recall would effectively be  a rubber stamp. Even more worryingly, unless all other parties bow out and allow a single alternative candidate to stand (which has happened), there is every possibility they could still win.  Adding a little bit of democracy could result in a profoundly undemocratic outcome, where an MP elected with 70% of the vote could lose over half their support and still retain their seat with 30% of the vote if the rest of the vote was divided between rival parties. Trying to patch over the holes in our political system just reveals it’s deep inadequacy.

Recall elections are a good idea when applied to executive positions like the example given of the California governorship, but in the UK we lack the same culture of elected executives (City mayors are the ones I can think of). In practice, they can’t be truly effective in legislatures.

So I like the sentiment, but I’d rather they were thinking about things that really would improve our political system. I don’t think the Tories are fundamentally a lost cause in this area, I think they’re are in a good position to deliver on some of my wish list; after last Autumn they could easily find enough support for fixed term parliaments and their experimentation with primaries leaves me hopeful they’ll extend that. I doubt they’ll be brave enough to talk about term limits and electoral reform, but they really should be if they’re serious about fixing the system.

From the Lancashire Secular Humanist website:

As John Gummer came upon the British Humanist Association’s campaign stand in the exhibitors gallery at the Winter Gardens this afternoon he was clearly heard to say to his companion “Do you know there is nothing I hate more than these Humanists”.

He then launched into a loud abusive rant in which he complained that The British Humanist Association “had no right to be here” and, with spittle-filled passion, he pointed his finger at startled BHA members and declared “The Conservative Party is and always has been a Christian Party” (big emphasis on “Christian”) before turning on his heels and storming off without giving those volunteers (me included) an opportunity to respond.

It’s a pity he left so quickly; had he allowed himself a little more time to think he may well have thought to quote his party leader by adding: “Oh and we are a modern, compassionate Conservative Party”.

And the truly awful thing? This is the last I expect to hear about this. If an MP said “Do you know there is nothing I hate more than these Jews” and that they had no right to be at the party conference because “The Conservative Party is and always has been a Christian Party”, this would be an instant national story and his the country would be united in disgust. But this won’t happen here, who cares if someone hates Humanists? Who cares if an elected Member of Parliament wants to publically boast of his hate towards an increasingly large percentage of the British people? In truth, very few except ourselves.

That situation won’t change until we push the issue, and we absolutely must. We have to fight back until bigots like John Gummer feel too ashamed to spit their bile in public. We have to fight back against religious leaders who decry the whole notion of public atheism as an ‘intolerant faith position’ and cast figures like Dawkins as ‘militant’ atheists for writing books and giving speeches, utterly devaluing a word best reserved for those who actually kill and terrorise others.

Humanists have much common ground with believers of every ilk and many believers recognise that a secular state that doesn’t take sides is better for everyone. The privileged place for religion in our government and society needs to end.

Some have hailed the internet as the savour of democracy and I have found the ultimate proof, it’s not the power of the blogs to reconnect the grass-roots with politics, but imitation computer games!

I present, TAXMAN GORDON, a game that isn’t at all like Pacman!

Let me unwrap this particuarly subtle piece of symbolism:

There I am, picking up all this money off the ground, when suddenly TAXMAN GORDON comes up behind me, so I run! And I run, and then there’s this tree in front of me and it strikes me…by voting for this tree, I can keep my hard earned coins and my lives! So I ‘vote’ for this tree….and suddenly the taxman is on the run! Ha ha, how the tables have turned!

Now, it’s possibly that if you finish a level, you gain a piece of information about these stealth taxes but I don’t know, because just like Pacman, I suck at it and can’t get past the first level.

I’m hoping that other political parties jump on the bandwagon here, I’m looking forward to the Republican release of ‘Donkey CON!’ and the BNP replacing the Space Invaders with immigrants. There’s a rich new political battlefield here, and I’m glad to see the Conservatives taking the initiative.