For those regular readers who want to see just how mad our world can be, I strongly recommend reading Hansard for the more than nine hours of washing-up we did in the Lords yesterday. Or you can watch the video – the relevant section is about 33 minutes in.
In brief, we spent all that time – with contributions from all parts of the House – protesting at the way in which the government had landed on us, in the dying days of this Parliament, huge chunks of important legislation. What made matters worse for many of us was that so much could have been achieved so much earlier.
Just on the Bill with which I was most concerned (the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill – commonly known as ‘CRaG’) and some fifty plus clauses and schedules were excised during this process, by agreement between the Government and the Conservatives. You can see for yourself the significance of many of these proposals, to which Ministers had previously attached huge importance. Since we Liberal Democrats hadn’t been involved in the discussions, you won’t be surprised to hear that I described it as a ‘stitch-up’ rather than a ‘wash-up’. Not everyone agreed with my particular position on this Bill , but almost everyone seemed to agree that the process was dysfunctional and should never be repeated.
Watch this space.
Both DEB and CRAG are not just important to Westminster but to every single citizen of this Country. And what do we get, spineless sheep who follow the whip, it`s disgusting.
In no other field would this sort of thing happen, 2.30 in the morning deciding bills affecting the state of this Nation. Rushed through without the democratic scrutiny that the system was setup to give.
Westminster wonders why the public are apathetic to Politics…YOU`RE STILL NOT LISTENING.
Why should we bother to vote, to take an interest, you do as you please. So don`t wonder when we rail that you are all useless, that you take our money under false pretences.
This process, the wash-up,is wrong. Some of you know it to be wrong. It`s bad for me and it`s bad for you. I don`t want it, you don`t want it – So why do we have it ? It`s about as democratic, just and fair as Stalin.
I am not annoyed, I am angry and rightly so. The Bills being put through the wash-up are every bit as important to the people as were others. WHY are they not given the same consideration. Why am I being legislated by half a dozen whips and GB. WHERE are all the Lion hearted who should be standing up shouting this is not acceptable. Someone may suffer greatly because of this process it, because of the lack of scrutiny, because of a lack of British backbone.
Carl H, I agree with you about this process. I have read the debate in full and the CRaG was massacred before it even went into the Chamber by a private meeting where the two main parties horse traded. We lost all the important ‘tidying up’ parts of Lords Reform which Lord Steel and the Lib dems have pressed with diligence and the support of the vast majority of backbenchers in the House. But as you say when push comes to shove the party apparatchniks went sheep-like through their whipped lobbies. I quite understand Lord Tyler’s sense of frustration. I deal with mine by going abroad! You will rightly say this is a cop out but until there is leadership within Government and Opposition determined to promote a better way it is unlikely we will make much progess.
I find it hard to disagree with Carl.H’s assessment, although I would argue that he’s made a slight error in his perception of himself and most of the people in the country.
“Westminster wonders why the public are apathetic to Politics”
Westminster might wonder this, but it is very obvious from comments like Carl.H’s (and mine, I hope) that people are not apathetic. This is a conforting lie told by politicians about the electorate, because if its true then its not their fault that people turn away from politics.
But as we can see, people arn’t apathetic, they’re angry. No party, seems to want to confront this.
I don’t know what I’m going to do if it starts getting worse, but plan B is learn swedish.
Carl makes me laugh!
Lord Tyler, the lib dem, I agree with.
Roll on the libdem bandwagon!
When are we not allowed to mention politics, due to the election?
Ok our host`s may not want to tal about electoral issues but….
Seeing as we`re in a Lib-Dem blog let`s tell them why they are not getting my vote. Two words….Proportional Representation …in any form.
Not only does this make voting a much more complex issue ultimately it will be unfair and even possibly unworkable.
If proportionality is the fair system will we see it Parliament ? If 27% vote against a bill, will 27% be removed from the bill ? Will 27% of the public be allowed outside the raft of measures ?
No! Didn`t think so.
Will any referendum regards PR be done proportionally ? I doubt it !
Liberal Democrats would like this put forward because it`s better for them, at present, it`s like putting more of your own people in the HoL. What would happen though if people put BNP as second choice ? I believe a lot more than you may think would.
FPTP isn`t perfect but we haven`t found Utopia yet and are unlikely to. You can take proportional representation right down to the minutest level if you want, what you come up with is anarchy.
The people know the actuality is that we are not in anyway represented, in the Commons at least, it`s all party line. This PR lark is exactly that, PR.
I cannot vote LD on that and the possibly elected Lords which would be quite wrong imho. If you had a stronger, little maturer leader you might stand a chance this election but I can`t see Clegg pulling you through not that he`s bad. He`s just not man enough.
Ouch – who did Microsoft bribe to make the Parliament video stream inaccessible to non-windows users? I would of thought that of all places the mother of democracy should be accessible to all via standards based solutions.
My thoughts exactly, I took one look at the silverlight thing and closed down the tab.
Although I am a windows user, I object to installing SL on the grounds that its useless.
Nothing wrong with uploading to Vimeo or even Youtube.
The Parliamentary website has the option of a Windows Media Player stream as well as the Silverlight one.
If you wanted to avoid Microsoft technology altogether, I would suggest the BBC’s DemocracyLive website. I think this is the section of Wednesday’s debate that Lord Tyler was pointing you towards:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_lords/newsid_8608000/8608351.stm
Matt Korris
Hansard Society
It’s not that I want to avoid Microsoft per-se, but as I run Linux I don’t have much choice. Given the fact the copyright for the footage is public domain (I assume) it would be nicer if the video was available in a vendor neutral, open standard that everyone could use.
Anyway thanks for the link, Flash still has a lot wrong with it but at least I can watch the debate now!
If you install mplayer and the relevant Firefox plug-ins then you can view the Windows Media stream from the Parliament site, I’ve done it before, although last time I did that I discovered that it was lagged about 30 seconds behind the BBC feed so I switched.
I had a good look through the Hansard from yesterday and it struck me as very worrying that the Bills go through all their stages in one like this.
The excellent Parliament website explains in detail the purpose of each stage of the legislative process and why and how it works.
http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/laws/passage_bill/index.htm
There are usually a couple of weeks delay between the stages (eg committee / report / third reading). It seems ridiculous that this process is just junked at the last moment due to political expediency and I think it is worrying that so much important legislation got through without alot of time to possibly consider things.
One question – if the LibDems and Cross Benchers are annoyed with the “labservative” stitch up (I take that phrase from Hansard)… could they not add lots of amendments and filibuster?
Having said all the above, I admire the Lords for at least doing their best and sitting til 1.50am ! Good luck tonight
The Lords constant go on about how they do a serious job revising legistlation.
However its a lie. The washup shows why.
With the digital economy bill, you have completely abdicated any revisions and just voted it through.
It’s time to axe the lot of you
the interweb people are starting to make a list and considering their voting options apparently
http://www.theyworkforthebpi.com/
£baronessmurphy£
“I quite understand Lord Tyler’s sense of frustration. I deal with mine by going abroad! You will rightly say this is a cop out but until there is leadership within Government and Opposition determined to promote a better way it is unlikely we will make much progess.
”
and there we have it, apparently your saying your happyer to leave than be one that shows that Leadership, you dont need to be leader to show your true colours ,running away solves nothing or does it!
https://nodpi.org/forum/index.php/topic,2516.msg28334.html#msg28334
” Re: BBC:Digital Economy Bill bill could ‘breach rights’
« Reply #129 on: April 09, 2010, 06:53:34 PM » Quote
——————————————————————————–
Fascinating list – distorted of course by the circumstances of the wash up – campaigning MPs with marginals all away campaigning, retiring MPs able to stay and make mischief, Labour MPs not too worried about preferment especially if they are retiring etc etc. As one LD MP commented in private correspondence – there aren’t any LD safe seats!
But – given that the Tory front bench and whips office were “supporting” the DEB (while winging constantly about how terrible the whole thing was but without a constructive amendment to show for it) – they only marshalled a total of 3 MPs to go through the lobbies with their Front Bench spokesman Adam Afriyie, while their more “individual” fringe (from the right) managed to send 5 MPs through the other lobby. So – 9 Tories interested enough to turn up, four in favour, five against. In otherwords – the party couldn’t care less. Note that David Davis voted against the bill. Keep a note of that name and that vote. He’ll be back.
Lib Dems – very poor showing on day 1 of the debate, with Don Foster on his tod. Complaints sent in and press comment about how the Lib Dems don’t look like the third force in politics with only one member present, so they improve turnout on day 2 and manage to send 18 people through the lobby to vote against and even get some of them to attend or speak in the debate (Evan Harris, Don Foster, John Hemming, Lynne Featherstone). I think Alan Beith was there because he had a petition to present after the end of the DEB debate.
Labour – as expected – the governing party got their loyal lobby fodder to do their bidding, and very late in the day, and far too late to make a difference, 22 Labour MPs managed to summon the courage to resist the mighty Voldemort/Darth Vader. Sadly, the best informed Labour MPs, John Robertson, and Derek Wyatt were not among them despite knowing, probably better than anyone else, the deficiencies of the legislation and having spoken eloquently against many of its stupidities.
Significance?
1 – a contentious bill forced through the washup contrary to precedent and good parliamentary practice.
2 – the bill about the internet demonstrated the power of the internet, and even the luddites were aware of what was going on on twitter, and one or two arch luddites managed to grasp the key issues quite well. The MPs were aware, that perhaps as never before, their failure to properly scrutinise was being scrutinised very closely indeed. I think some of them may finally be realising that when they get hundreds of emails, it might just possibly be because hundreds of people actually are interested, and not because of some “campaign on the blogosphere” that is artificially created and can safely be ignored. the combination of broadband, Parliament TV, and the ability of people to watch debates live, and tweet one another, and for the MPs themselves to be able to follow all that in the chamber, does make for a different type of democracy.
Final comment?
I’ve learned how important it is to fast forward Bill Cash and Christopher Chope unless you wish to lose the will to live. there’s a lot to be said for watching these bills on about a half hour delay, to allow fast forwarding of the usual suspects who are always present to object to everything. But bless them – they took their objections all the way to the NO lobby, and I am grateful.”
I considered it to be a stitch-up as well, although I had a personal interest in part of one bill not getting through (which it didn’t). I think Lord Tebbit made a good point when the topic of fixed-term Parliaments came up, that this session was a fixed term and there was far too much legislation to sensibly get through in the known short time available.
On principle I would have been happy for anything that had not had proper debate time to automatically get binned, because of the behaviour of the Government in setting out so much in November. The Opposition should have refused to cooperate, and I did wonder what would have happened if the Lords had voted down the motion to suspend certain standing orders – would the whole lot have stopped at that point? You’d certainly have managed more sleep.
As for the CRaG Bill, I’m not sure it’s Parliament’s place to be final arbiter on much of that anyway. It should be put to the whole electorate to decide because those sitting in Westminster have too much vested interest for the process to be considered free of bias. The voting reform suggestion only considered one alternative, when there are many, each with good and bad points, and we were going to be stuck with a limited choice because someone thought he might gain some political advantage. There was too much in the Bill anyway, it should have been divided into at least two smaller ones.
As Troika21 suggests, I’m not apathetic, I’m annoyed and angry. I’ve learned a lot of stuff about how the system works over the past year and much of it stinks. The stitch-up is only a small part of it.