Since I wrote this, the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has ennobled another 54 of his choices, one third Tory party donors. One donor – Malcolm Offord – failed to win election as an MSP, but has now been given a Ministerial post in the Scottish office.
“My dear Finn,
I am staying here with the Duke and Duchess of St. Bungay. The house is very full, and Mr. Mildmay was here last week; but as I don’t shoot, and can’t play billiards, and have no taste for charades, I am becoming tired of the gaieties, and shall leave them to-morrow…”
I am currently listening to Anthony Trollope’s “Palliser” novels set in the world of 19th century British politics, read by Timothy West, and I am on Phineas Finn. This is an excerpt from a letter the hero receives from reformer Mr Monk, who is seeking to extend the franchise.
“It seems to me that but few among us perceive, or at any rate acknowledge, the real reasons for changing these things and reforming what is wrong without delay. One great authority told us the other day that the sole object of legislation on this subject should be to get together the best possible 658 members of Parliament. That to me would be a most repulsive idea if it were not that by its very vagueness it becomes inoperative. Who shall say what is best; or what characteristic constitutes excellence in a member of Parliament? If the gentleman means excellence in general wisdom, or in statecraft, or in skill in talking, or in private character, or even excellence in patriotism, then I say that he is utterly wrong, and has never touched with his intellect the true theory of representation. One only excellence may be acknowledged, and that is the excellence of likeness. As a portrait should be like the person portrayed, so should a representative House be like the people whom it represents. Nor in arranging a franchise does it seem to me that we have a right to regard any other view…if we do have representation, let the representative assembly be like the people, whatever else may be its virtues,—and whatever else its vices.
“Another great authority has told us that our House of Commons should be the mirror of the people. I say, not its mirror, but its miniature. And let the artist be careful to put in every line of the expression of that ever-moving face. To do this is a great work, and the artist must know his trade well…There have been marvels on the canvas so beautiful that one approaches the work of remodelling it with awe. But not only is the picture imperfect,—a thing of snatches,—but with years it becomes less and still less like its original.”
Monk argues that the need to reform rotten boroughs where elections are bought and sold is becoming urgent, to create democratic institutions that work in the future.
“It seems to me that they who are adverse to change, looking back with an unmeasured respect on what our old Parliaments have done for us, ignore the majestic growth of the English people, and forget the present in their worship of the past. They think that we must be what we were,—at any rate, what we were thirty years since.”
Today’s UK Parliament is in as thorough need of reform as the one which Trollope writes about. The House of Lords would be far more independent if it remained full of hereditary peers. The 1999 Reform Act passed by Labour under Tony Blair left it as a half-reformed thing, and since then, it has gradually become a monster, now as rotten as the rotten boroughs of Trollope’s time.
PM Boris Johnson can now fill it entirely through patronage and he is busy packing it at such a rate that soon it will be able to rubber-stamp all legislation. He has appointed 79 peers since taking office, about ten percent of the total of this swollen legislative body. The election of Lord Cruddas to the House of Lords was an egregious example of the growing corruption – an unscrupulous rogue judged unsuitable by the House of Lords’ own selection committee, he bought his seat with a donation to the Conservative Party of £500,00. There are numerous examples: Johnson elevated Evgeney Ledebev, bankrolled by his oligarch father Alexander, to the Peerage; Brexit ultras like Ian Botham and Claire Fox who has a murky political past, are there. Johnson has even ennobled his own brother Jo.
The FT has done sterling work recently revealing the existence of a shady “advisory board’ made up of people who donate huge sums to the Conservative Party, many of them connected with businesses that win Government contracts or who influence development decisions. The National Audi Office recently found the Government awarded contracts to personal contacts. It is the kind of money-grubbing corruption you associate with brown envelopes under the buffet table at dodgy councils in the 1970s but on a huge scale.
Gavin Esler writes powerfully in his book “How Britain Ends’ that a UK government who was committed to maintaining the union of Scotland and England would abolish the current house of Lords and replace it with a Senate of the nations and regions, representing different areas of the country with members elected by proportional representation.
He writes that in a country without a Constitution to protect its democratic institutions, the process relies on a “good chap” theory of Government. Those in power could tear up the rule book and abuse the system but they won’t because they are such good chaps. When such a system falls into the hands of bad chaps, it is defenceless.
Journalists and commentators in the UK media often have a blinkered view of this – their awe for the “Mother of Parliaments” prevents them from seeing what it has become.
In their reporting of Scottish affairs, commentators often reveal either deliberate or willful misunderstanding of how Holyrood works. Holyrood has a more European system. it is elected on a blended system where everyone gets two votes, a First past the Post constituency seat and a regional vote that gives posts to the smaller parties. Every Holyrood administration bar one has operated with the support of smaller parties. That is the way PR works. This week’s big Scottish story has been the announcement of an agreement between the SNP and the Greens.
It is s a step closer than the agreements Holyrood has seen before but falls short of an official coalition where the parties govern together. It is an attempt to strengthen focus on the areas where the two parties can work together.
One thing the two parties agree on is the need for Scottish independence. (Some commentators quote a Lord Aschroft poll that showed most Green voters don’t support independence – but that is people who voted Green in the first, constituency vote where they didn’t get any seats. They polled much higher in the List vote, and 68% of that much higher number support independence).
The Agreement also covers a number of areas that the Scottish Government is responsible for. It voices support= for public transport, 20-minute neighborhoods, energy standard for housing, sets up nature networks to improve the environment and more.
Green co-leaders Lorna Slater and Patrick Harvie will take on junior roles as part of Scotland’s Government. Slater is a fresh face in Holyrood. A Canadian-born engineer, she came to Scotland to start a gap-year traveling and stayed. She recently worked on the worlds’ biggest tidal power turbine, which was built at Dundee. Her hobby is the trapeze – and she gave an interview while swinging on it, in the run-up to May’s Holyrood election
Harvie is a longstanding member of the Scottish Parliament who found a route into politics through campaigning for gay rights. He has worked on a number of policy areas and seems to have an impressive grasp of detail.
These are two of the most talented and dynamic figures in the current Holyrood body and it il be interesting to see what they can deliver as part of the legislature.
Another big piece in the Scottish political world shifted this week with the election of Sharon Graham as leader of the second-largest labour union in the UK Unite. A Londoner of Irish heritage, Graham was the only candidate to publish a section in her manifesto in Scotland and she has said it is up to the Scottish people to decide if they want another referendum. She has also raised the possibility that Unite members may no longer have to pay a levy to the Labour Party. Independence supporting workers would welcome that – and it could alter the make-up of the union’s membership. In time, that could add to pressure on the Labour Party to change its position on the constitutional question and focus on other things.
For many in Scotland, it is exciting to see a progressive, social-democratic European country emerge. The need to deal with climate change is becoming a mainstream preoccupation and in Slater and Harvie we have two people who have made a lifelong commitment to that.
The agreement between the SNP and the Greens marks a change of direction for UK politics. Mr Monk’s heirs who wish to renew English democracy for another generation could look northwards for a lesson.