Posts Tagged ‘Parliament’

Cameron flooding the Lords prepares the way for its abolition

by Grahame Morris.

The House of Lords is beyond redemption. While recent scandals have brought this issue to the forefront of politics, the reality is that the Lords has been an outdated and defunct institution for over a century. At the last election Labour proposed to replace the Lords with an elected Senate representing the regions and nations of the […]

Parliamentary reform should be major objective for next government

by Michael Meacher.

Parliament is currently not fit for purpose. It isn’t just the corruption – the expenses scandal, the recent Rifkind-Straw venality, the link between life peerages and party donations reported yesterday. More insidious and even more damaging is the way that Parliament presently operates fundamentally undermines any serious degree of democratic accountability. Tribalism (my party right […]

What is the point of Parliament?

by Michael Meacher.

On Monday, something happened in the House of Commons that should cause electors to wonder what parliament is for. The motion before the house was that “a commission of inquiry be established to investigate the impact of the government’s welfare reforms on the incidence of poverty”. At the vote the government was defeated by 125 votes to […]

Hodge’s grillings are a hit – but what’s the use without powers of redress?

by Michael Meacher.

If parliament’s ever produced a theatrical success, then it’s the recently-established public accounts committee (PAC), particularly in the last few months. It has dramatically raised the salience of tax avoidance by savaging the cheating devices of multinationals Amazon, Starbucks, Apple and Google. It has pilloried the soaring costs of HS2, it has excoriated a five-year […]

Westminster MPs: herded through the lobbies without knowing what they’re voting for

by Michael Meacher.

It’s a case not so much as turkeys voting for Christmas as turkeys voting to reject their escape into freedom. The House yesterday debated the proposal, originally put forward by Parliament First (the All-Party Parliamentary Group on reform of parliamentary procedure which I chair), that all amendments tabled at the committee and report stages of […]

A parliament fit for purpose?

by Michael Meacher.

A month ago the Government was defeated in a vote on the floor of the House of Commons on a very important issue – the question of the level of the EU budget. The Government whips strained every muscle they could to avoid defeat, but having been decisively defeated, the Government simply ignored the vote. […]

Democracy’s a great system – shame we don’t have it

by Michael Meacher.

A remarkable thing happened in Parliament in this last week, but it passed without notice. The government lost a vote, but then opted to ignore it. It was an important vote – namely whether Cameron’s mandate in the Brussels negotiations should be for an increase or a cut in the EU budget – but having […]

Working class MPs: the path to victory

by admin.

BY STEVE HART, political director, Unite Parliament doesn’t represent our society and is in danger of becoming out of touch. Following the last General Election just 4% of MPs had experience of manual work, while 55% come from backgrounds in PR, politics or the media. For a country with such a proud working class political […]

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