"The government can pay for that"

One problem I have with this blog is that it's very easy to repeat myself such is the diversity of matters on which I want to comment. Mind you there are occasions on which this has happened deliberately on subjects about which I have a particular passion, no apologies for that. Now here is something about which I have wanted to have my say for a long time but it may not be the first occasion I've done it. "The government can pay for that". These words must have been spoken thousands of time but they are guaranteed to put my back up. Why? There is this perception by some that magically the money spent by our government doesn't come from us and that if there is something we shouldn't pay for ourselves then someone else will pay for it. But of course the money government spends comes from you and me so therefore we are paying for whatever it is.

With the variety of ways communication can take place you would think that politics would come closer to the people. It's true that in this LibDem seat I get missives from that party saying in effect "look how well we are doing, aren't we clever" or from the Tories "vote for us and we will do this, that and this for you". I'm not impressed with all this nonsense because they are controlling the interaction if you can call it that. What I want is for the politicians to talk to me on the doorstep or address a meeting in the village's public hall so I get a chance to put my own questions and get away from the awful blandness pervading everything. So going back to my first paragraph we are getting this massive disconnect between decision makers and those affected by their decisions. This might answer in part why the comment "The government can pay for that" is made.

The Democratic Deficit (2)

Back in last June I was blogging under the title 'The Democratic Deficit' and in that particular piece I mused about what I considered to be the self evident problem about how government ministers could deal with simultaneously representing their constituents and formulating policy. In a perfect world I suggested it would be a good idea for different people to carry out these two functions but as to how to do this - well that's another question!

I'm returning to this subject now because the opposition are pointing to the following conundrum. On the one hand the government have instigated a review to significantly reduce the number of post offices in the land. At the same time certain government ministers (Jack Straw and Jacqui Smith were among those mentioned) are putting the case for the retention of certain post offices in their constituencies. Hypocrisy shout the Tories. We are just representing our voters rejoin the Ministers. This just illustrates the point I originally made I feel. But again I don't pretend to have the solution.

The democratic deficit (1)

This is the first of an occasional series of comments I want to make about what I perceive to be failures in our democratic system. One major problem of being a government minister or even the prime minister is that you are still an MP representing a constituency. We are led to believe that holding a ministerial post or being an MP are each full time jobs if performed properly. Now MPs have to respond to lots of concerns raised by their constituents many of which are not party political but still requiring some investigation and a reply. Fortunately my MP is not in the government so that on the very rare occasion I have written to him a prompt reply was forthcoming.

So if I lived in the Sedgefield constituency how long would it be to get Tony Blair to respond to a problem. Even if he has a good team of helpers I can't see him getting too involved with the minutiae of day to day queries and problems up there. Presently of course he is saying (at our expense thank you) one of the longest goodbyes in history. The question I would pose is this: should the Prime Minister and members of his cabinet and possibly other government ministers be drawn outside of the normally elected MPs. No I don't quite know how this could be done in practise but it seems to me that we could well benefit from using the talents of people who really understand how to run things as ministers. Just a little food for thought!