Desperate denial

Recent political news have devoted countless column inches to the perceived rise in UKIP. Following this, it appears that the Conservative Party is in the process of imploding over Europe. For old fogies like me, this has very much a deja vu feeling as the Conservatives imploded over Europe in the last months of the Major Government, before Blair swept to power in 1997.

To date, the political reaction from all the mainstream political parties has been to blather on about how they need to reconnect with people and debunk UKIP's policies. If they believe this, they are in a desperate state of denial or do not want to publicly admit to knowing what is really going on. Some politicians are dropping pretty big hints that they know why UKIP are doing well, but they are staying 'on message' and talking about "engaging with people". I fear this approach is just kicking the problem to 2015 when a general election will make this issue someone else's problem. Sums up Government policy really!

So let's start with some basic political realities.

UKIP are a fringe party. This means that in terms of MPs and councillors, they are in the same category as the loony parties and the BNP/EDL or whatever they are called now. UKIP's policies are not as extreme as those parties, but it is not much more credible either. The voters know this. Debunking UKIP's more nutty policies is a waste of time because the voter is not interested in hearing it.

Also I do not consider the EU and immigration to be genuine voter issues. I am not saying the average voter is not concerned. What I am saying is that these topics are 'manufactured news'. They matter to the voter because the newspapers and politicians make it matter in order to promote their political viewpoints. In reality, ordinary people care about the economy, the NHS and social issues whether that be about social welfare, housing or crime.

So why are UKIP successful? They have no meaningful policies on those key issues.

UKIP are doing well because unlike all the mainstream parties, they are relatively honest both ideologically and in the way they approach politics. They have not made any promises that they have had to break and they are not tainted by the MP expenses scandal. Voters are turning to UKIP not because of their policies, but because the average voter is starting to hate the mainstream politician for their lies, broken promises and rampant corruption. This is a frightening concept for the big parties as it could signal a destruction in the political status quo that has been broadly prevalent in British politics for the last 70 years. In short, it threatens their cosy arrangement of pretending to represent the British electorate and pretending to offer a political choice at the ballot box.

I find Farage to be an enjoyable political figure to watch, but he preaches a very old and dangerous message. In the past that message would have been to blame the jews/blacks/gays/other religions/other nations for the problems being experienced by the population at large. Unfortunately such tricks remain as popular now as they did then, only the topic now is Europe and immigration. I have yet to hear a single coherent argument or economic case for how the UK would be better off pissing into the European tent from outside rather than going inside that tent and settling things the old fashioned way! The funny part is that the Germans are deeply frustrated because they see the UK as a potentially valuable ally for implementing much needed reform of the EU. Instead they just get lots of incoherent shouting and mixed messages. A bit like 1939 then...

In short, if the coalition government thinks that focussing on the EU and immigration is going to help them, they are in for a nasty shock at the next election. As was the case in 1997, the electorate were desperate to get rid of a corrupt political elite. Blair and Labour capitalised on this desire then, but with the Labour brand now firmly linked with that corruption that the electorate hated so much, what will happen in 2015? I fear that the current trend towards populist electioneering (as practised by UKIP) is only set to increase and so the political battleground will be fought over issues relating to the EU, immigration and the economy. The electorate will hate it, but will they hate it enough to do something unpredictable?

My prediction is not in 2015, but by 2020 things will get serious and probably messy.

European Games

First off, a declaration. I am very much pro the EU, but not uncritically so. Even its most ardent supporters openly acknowledge that things are not perfect and a lot more needs to be done. For me, however, the EU is at its best when it protects EU citizens from their national governments. Without the EU, many bad laws would have been enacted by the British Government, particularly those that impacted on freedoms or our protections, particularly from large corporations. Examples such as the 90 days detention, the BT Phorm trials and the ongoing anti-competitive investigations by the EU into Microsoft, Apple, Intel and Google are prominent in my mind. So for all its faults, particularly in the way it operates and spends money, there are a lot of good things to say about what the EU does.

And so I now look at Cameron's speech on Europe which is still generating significant press coverage. My verdict is that there are some good principles in there. The Germans and the French do want the UK to get more involved, to push for beneficial change to the EU and to counter the perceived dominance of those two countries on most European issues. The UK is seen as a major player with a lot that it can bring to the table. However, I can only think that Cameron's strategy in pushing for this change is driven by political pressures, not by any realistic analysis of how best to go about bringing change and thus improving the EU. The European way of doing business is very much about obtaining consensus. Turning up from the beginning with a threat and a list of demands does not get things off to a good start!

My view is very much that Cameron (or any PM) should have simply signalled that the UK want to propose a number of changes which the UK feels is needed for itself, but would also benefit the EU as a whole. This could have been reinforced by a statement that the EU was becoming democratically tenuous in the UK (and other countries) and so it is critical that the UK government is able to demonstrate that the EU remains relevant and beneficial to the lives of UK voters. This is the sort of position that European leaders can understand and agree with. It is both a promise to be reasonable and a threat to challenge the democratic legitimacy of the EU if it cannot reform.

As for the issue of a referendum, Cameron is being as hypocritical as he accuses Alex Salmond and the SNP of being over the issue of Scottish independence. If you are going to have a seismic referendum, you should set the  date to be as short as decently possible only allowing enough time for a proper debate and not such a long period that it creates a whole load of planning and investment uncertainties. I am not saying that there should not be a referendum, but either it should be called quickly or Cameron should have left it as an unspoken threat for the EU to ponder over. That way, the UK has a strong hand in its negotiations, EU leaders can hardly be motivated to avoid the threat that a referendum brings if it is an inevitability. I fear, that the political pressure has over-ruled any common sense on this matter.

I know from my own work that being a leading member of  the EU brings significant benefits to the UK and I am going to share one example that illustrates this point. About five years ago I was dealing with a problem where working with the US was being problematic due to the way the Americans implemented their laws when co-operating with foreign governments. This issue was causing huge delays to work and creating a whole host of problems such as legal liabilities and delays to the UK. The UK had spent years trying to solve this problem, but to no avail as the Americans were not willing to change their position. My boss and I therefore approached our counterparts in the other five biggest countries within the EU to ask if they were having the same problems. Lo and behold they all replied that they were and so we set up several meetings to discuss it and to hammer out a strategy. We then invited the Americans to meet all six of us to discuss this problem which they willingly did. As a result, the Americans realised that they had a problem that needed fixing and so they went away and did so. For them, this was the ideal international co-operative scenario - the UK led the big European nations to clearly articulate the problem. Once the Americans proposed a solution, it could be agreed by the Europeans as a whole thus saving them from having to repeat the work for other countries and everyone went away happy.

Now of course, I can also give several examples of where working within the EU has not been so successful. But the example above illustrates why so many nations, both and and out of Europe want the UK to remain a leading member. It also shows how the UK is able to make itself more influential than if it tried to solve all these problems on its own. This is influence that political blustering and a UK only attitude cannot buy, it would be ludicrous to claim that giving it up would not have significant consequences. Is it worth what we pay the EU? That is a much harder question to answer, but what is clear is that the situation is far from black and white and the UK would be unlikely to be able to use the money saved to be able to protect its interests and influence world events as effectively as it does now.

How to make yourself very unpopular, written by the coalition!

Today's news is that the Home Office has decided to cut police pay, particularly for new recruits. Earlier this week, it was revealed that the police is suffering a huge decline in the young intake and thus the police forces are becoming older. In short, it looks like police recruitment is in for a rough time and there is no way that the current members of the police can see this scenario as anything other than they are getting screwed. A more Machiavellian outlook would be that this is a deliberate change that so happens to benefit companies such as G4s who just so happen to be significant contributors to the Conservative party coffers...

I will declare that I am not a police officer nor do I have any particular interests to defend on this issue, but I cannot help but imagine that the police feel pretty hard done by. Having covered for the Olympics thus not had much holiday, suffered pay freezes and pension cuts and worried about being on the front line at the next set of riots, I don't expect they feel particularly benevolent to the government right now. Traditionally, the Conservatives used to be able to count on a decent proportion of the police to vote for them. I doubt very much that is true any more.

In fact, I am pretty confident that the coalition has rather significantly lost of the vote of most of the civil service too. They feel pretty screwed over too. And with recent news that business leaders are worried about the anti-EU rhetoric, as is the US, and it looks like the coalition are fast running out of support from most quarters, including areas that would traditionally have been counted upon for some support. Like the Republican party in the US, they are in danger of running out of 'angry white men', or Euro-sceptics as they are otherwise known in the UK!

When they were in power Labour were terrible for making policies and promises specifically geared towards shoring up their political support rather than promoting good government. There are countless examples of this and the result were a lot of promises that were not funded. The coalition seems to have gone completely the other way and while this can be argued as possibly a good thing, if a bit politically suicidal, I would find it hard to argue that they are making good policies and winning support either. Without the support, they have almost no chance of implementing their policies, good or bad.

This behaviour from a politician is pretty hard to explain, after all, most shallow politicians are willing to sell their soul to win at politics right? Labour certainly did and it successfully kept them going for 13 years. So when one examines the behaviour of the coalition government and their apparent suicidal approach to gaining votes a rather disturbing pattern emerges. All those polices (cutting police pay, reforming the NHS, selling off national forests, privatising defence procurement, etc) all by amazing coincidence benefit significant contributors to the Conservative party. A coincidence? It is just too widespread to be written off as a conspiracy theory. If you take the view that privately the coalition knows it was left with an impossibly unpopular mess to fix, it can be easily imagined that those at the top have lost their motivation to win more votes. Thus we should ask what motivates them to shape government policy and endure the gruelling hours and criticism that results? A rather wealthy life after the general election in 2015 perhaps?

Before David Cameron became Prime Minister, he said that lobbying will be the next political scandal. That has yet to properly happen and so that particular cow will be milked for all it is worth before the game is up. Recent news coverage also states that MPs think they are not paid enough. I actually agree and I think these two issues are linked. Politicians should get a pretty generous pay from the state on the condition that they do not have second incomes or outside interests. If they are not prepared to accept this, then maybe they should accept, and the electorate should insist, that a career as an MP is not for them at that time. My sincere belief is that British politics would be in a better place when this happens. Sadly it cannot happen fast enough.

A bloody awful idea

Worried about politicians not being able to implement their policies properly? Need government departments to improve their performance? Well the latest idea seems to be to routinely sack those at the top of their profession and replace them with people who know even less! Today’s story in the Independent is what caught my eye:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ministers-plot-end-to-civil-service-neutrality-7995033.html

I am fully willing to concede that numerous top civil servants have done a poor job in many respects. However, some of them are brilliant and the ones you don’t hear about are the ones making government work despite all the handicaps thrown their way. Part of the problem is that the top of the civil service has become increasingly politicised. So making them even more political seems like a rather counter-productive move. More worrying still, this gives Ministers even more power at the top of their department, but does little to ensure that they receive good service and excellent advice. In short, it is more power with decreasing accountability.

I think the myth that the civil servants block ministers from implementing policy is exactly that, a myth. I feel an important quote coming on so here goes:

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
Napoleon Bonaparte

Simply put, government as a whole is failing to implement its policies because departments are not being run properly, policies are not being scrutinised or tweaked effectively and implementation is inadequately monitored. Bringing in another layer of political management is not going to solve the problem. More apolitical and competent technocrats is what is really needed plus reform of the system so that political ideology and corruption do not override common sense. It short, it is the politicians’ (of the last three decades) bloody fault because they are the ones who have created the structural and cultural weaknesses which has resulted in a poor civil service trying to implement bad policies, in an unfavourable environment with inadequate resources or skill sets.

The Independent article stated that Ministers were looking to the US , New Zealand and Australia as good examples. Not good choices. As anyone with the knowledge of the US can tell you, the bureaucracy is huge and every time there is an election or political crisis, government effectively shuts down. My limited knowledge of the Australian and New Zealand system indicate they have similar problems. Political decisions are too frequently made in these countries on a short term basis and with a very partisan bias. That is not how the UK wanted to do things which is why this model was never imported previously. At least the US Congress and Senate scrutinises these political appointments and they can get a very bumpy ride when things go wrong. The UK does not have this separation of powers and so such appointees are barely politically accountable. Until Parliament has more clout and independence from Downing Street , this transfer of unaccountable power would be simply frightening and likely to lead to horrendous problems.

More politicisation of the civil service is not an answer to our current problems. Neither is anything proposed by Francis Maude!

The electoral reform that never was

Students of politics should do a case study into the formulation of the coalition agreement of 2010. The insights about how this unique (to the UK ) document came about and the results that we have seen from it make for fascinating study. For this post, I am going to focus on the failed referendum for electoral reform because I find it interesting and because the whole tale greatly amuses me.

Rewind back to the heady days of March 2010 with the election results in, Gordon Brown having agreed to step down and the Liberal Democrats living the dream of being the ‘king maker’. (Oh how things have changed since then, but I digress)  Top of the Lib Dem agenda was the issue of electoral reform, something they have wanted for so long. Opposite them was the Conservative Party, conservative by name, conservative by nature, entrenched by self-interest and thus not in favour of political reform. Personally I think our current First Past the Post System is a mess (mainly due to the control of the two big political parties and the way UK voters are wedded to voting in a tribal way) and so I was looking forward to the Lib Dems bringing in some much needed reform.

And then there was the huge mistake upon which the Lib Dems have had plenty of time to regret and which I, with years of experience at conducting political negotiations, instantly recognised as a mistake at the time. They sacrificed their strong position for a compromised position. The Lib Dems agreed to a referendum to a named alternative electoral system, the Alternative Vote. Why oh why were they so naïve as to have agreed to this? I can only admire the cleverness of the Conservative negotiation, they bluffed and took a gamble and it paid off. Generally speaking compromising during a negotiation can be a good thing, but you should never do so at the expense of your core objectives or ‘red line issues’ as we call it in the office.

What the Lib Dems should have done was to insist that the referendum question would be agnostic about which system to reform to, but would merely establish whether the UK population wanted electoral reform with the specific system to be decided at a later date, probably through a second referendum. They had the trump card, “agree to this or we shall go and speak to Labour about forming a coalition.” They could have said this and I am sure the Conservatives would have had no choice but to accept it. Instead, they handed the Conservatives the ability to criticise a political system that no one really wanted, it was just too easy! It stifled the debate and shut down the opportunity for proponents of the other potential systems to make their (much stronger) case. I can only imagine that these thoughts were going through Vince Cable’s mind when he described the Conservatives as “ruthless, calculating and tribal”. He knew they had blown it and he knew Lib Dem naivety several months back was the cause.

It was a much needed jolt in the arm for the Lib Dems, exposing one of their many political flaws. It also very pointedly represents the cause of their current problems, they look weak on the red line issues that matter to Lib Dem voters. The obvious lesson from this incident is not to agree to something you know that neither you nor your opposite number actually want. Unfortunately in learning this lesson, the Lib Dem blew the chance at the electoral reform that they had always dreamed of and thus along with it a genuine chance at cleaning up the current political mess that Westminster is in. Politics is a dirty and nasty game and people don’t often get second chances. For those who really wish things would be better, you will have to dream a little longer I am afraid…

Reforming the House of Lords (just the concept)

With the Liberal Democrats now having their chance to be part of government, the issue of reform of the House of Lords is now firmly on the political agenda. Truthfully, it is something that should have been reformed a long time ago, but with the main political parties having benefitted so extensively from the power of patronage (or cronyism as called anywhere else), there has been little to no political will to do so. However, the House of Lords as it stands today should not be seen as a completely pointless body. Without it, many bad laws would have been passed unchecked. It is ironic that the most undemocratic part of British democracy is actually one of the best defenders of our rights and freedoms. This strength is in part because it is unelected and many of its occupants are professionals in their fields and willing to exercise independence from the political parties, this is completely in contrast to the House of Commons.

That said, the House of Lords has a very uneasy position being a concept that is at odds with how a functioning democracy should look like and so reform does remain necessary. The trick is not to create further shortcomings or to simply replicate the shortcomings of the House of Commons. This means that having another body of elected politicians controlled by political parties has to be seen as a bad thing. Yet by the same token, there needs to be a politically legitimate body that can challenge the government of the day and stand up for the interests of the voters. How is this to be done? Well funny enough, I have some ideas on this issue that I have wanted to articulate for a while.

The first issue is that of elected peers. Election in a representative democracy is supposed to be good and democratic, yet I always think back to that great quote by Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher, “the problem with democracy is that the winner is not chosen by ability, but on who shouts the loudest.” Sounds an awful lot like the House of Commons! Even the politicians at Westminster admit they do not want a duplicate chamber. If we look at the US system, the dangers are obvious, either both houses have the same political party dominating and thus laws get rubberstamped, or they have different political parties in charge and so a huge amount of wasteful horse trading is required to get laws passed. At least in the US , they have checks and balances, in the UK such an arrangement would concede far too much power to the Prime Minister as they effectively control the House of Commons through the whips. That is bad enough, worse still if they could do this to both chambers.

And so I would argue that we need a second chamber elected in a very different way, one not based on everyone in the country voting as a one off event, but rather a system where political interests are openly acknowledged and harnessed in a constructive way. This would fall into the delegative democracy system and it is actually quite simple. Each peer would be elected on a 6-8 year term on a staggered basis. Something like one third or one quarter are elected every two years. However, these are not general elections, but rather closed ones with a variety of selection criteria.

Let’s start with regional peers. Each region in the UK ( Wales , Scotland , South West, North East etc) gets to vote one in one peer each. They represent their geographical region and only people living in those regions can vote for them. Then lets have major industry peers (rail industry, retail, finance, manufacturing etc) they get selected by their peers in those professions. So for example all manufacturing companies can be registered to have one vote each and they select a peer specifically to represent their interests. Now let’s have one peer for each government department, voted for by that department. Their job is to scrutinise their respective departments and to challenge governments about any mistakes made in running it or on the policies coming out. Each of the major religions can have one peer each. We also want peers for the voluntary sector and we want peers representing disabled people, poor people, gay people and so on. I can already imagine the question of how would their election be managed and how does one select which groups are represented, but please bear with me and gloss over this part as I want to talk about the principle of the idea rather than the detail of its implementation. Finally, the government would appoint a number of peers to answer questions. This has to happen because the government needs channels by which they can be held accountable and so a small number of appointed peers (who are also ministers in government departments) allows this to happen. They, however, are only in office for as long as the government is rather than adhering to the normal peer terms.

And so the end result is a second chamber designed deliberately to have few career politicians in it, a very diverse population (not full of white middle aged men educated at Eton or Oxbridge), as representative of the full UK population and industries as much as practically possible and those representatives are knowledgeable about their elected area. If they do a bad job, there should be rules to enable them to be impeached. Thus we have a chamber with political and professional credibility in a completely different way to the Commons. If the peer for poor people stands up and says government policy disadvantages their constituents or a doctor criticising NHS reform, the odds are that they will know what they are talking about. They are also not in the pay of political parties and they will not have a political axe to grind. Where the government has a good policy, but some flaws in its implementation, those peers would want to help them make it work. Thus the second chamber is there to help government, not just to hinder. If the government cannot mobilise the support of these professions then it must be pushing for a pretty bad law.

I am aware that this system will mean people will get represented by more than one peer, but I would argue this is a good thing. You may have not elected your MP, but they are your only representative no matter whether you hate them as personalities or their policies. With this peer system, everyone would have someone they can contact about their interests. It is much more inclusive and with the current political apathy gripping UK politics, this has to be a good thing. These peers don’t even have to take political bribes or hide support from special interests, it is their job to represent those interests. So if businesses gives peers people to help run their offices, this needs only be declared rather than glossed over as is the current case with Parliament. Above all, it is transparent.

I have not read of this sort of idea anywhere else and to my knowledge, no one elects their politicians this way. I think this is an idea well worth exploring and could well propel the UK into the forefront of democracies for trying something new and interesting. I fear however, that it is the last sort of thing that those in power want. With this system, there will be little opportunity for patronage. Worse of all, the second chamber would know more than the politicians in government, we can’t have that! It is a pity really, I fear the reality will be more politicians, more arguing, more cronyism and little in the way of political reform that would genuinely make the lives of UK people better. It would have been nice to have proved Plato wrong on the issue of democracy.

Also: Since I genuinely do not know if this idea has been voice before, I intend to apply some copyright, specifically the Creative Commons Licence below. If people wish to circulate this idea further (with attribution) they are welcome to do so. If they want to discuss it or even to flag up where it or a similar idea has been raised before, again they are welcome to do so.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

The corruption paradox

There is one political story that will never die in the UK and that is politicians’ expenses. All countries have to wrestle with corruption of some form or another at the top. It is inevitable because there is no such thing as a perfect political system and so some people will always exploit the loopholes or just break the law because they think they can get away with it. Some countries are better than others at dealing with it, the UK political class, however, is failing miserably. It is a truly appalling state of affairs, worse even than what is being reported in mainstream newspapers and in my opinion is the biggest problem facing UK politics today because quite simply it is crippling any possibility of good government and undermining the key principles of democracy itself.

There are two strands to this problem: personal corruption and corporate corruption and the two are very much linked. I shall discuss the personal corruption problem first and cover the corporate second. Some parts of the problem are relatively easy to solve, other parts are not. What is definitely true is that there is a lack of true political will. If there ever was a time for a puritanical type of Prime Minister who would show the necessary steel and leadership to charge headlong at this problem, now is the time for them to step up!

Personal Corruption – The problem

I will start this section off by outlining a key assumption that needs to be borne in mind when considering things such as the MPs expenses scandal: British MPs, Lords and Ministers are poorly paid. It is a simple statement and it is not meant to excuse what they have done. For anyone seeking to fix the problem of politicians fiddling their expenses then this issue has to be tackled head on. The paradox is of course now that their scandalous expenses have been exposed and due to the current recession, politicians are too scared to actually pay themselves a decent salary.

Now I know many people think that MPs are paid too much and don’t deserve an even more generous salary, the truth as always is more complicated and so a quick history lesson is appropriate. British MPs were historically paid a very low salary because they came from wealthy backgrounds and UK politics at the time was very much dominated by the aristocracy who conducted their political affairs almost as a hobby rather than a profession. We do not live in that sort of world anymore and a lot has changed for the better since then and so how you look at the role of MPs, Lords and Ministers needs to change too. The majority of MPs (not all but indisputably most) work very long hours. Politics is a very life consuming beast, it demands more and more from you and before long it takes over your life especially the higher up the political hierarchy you get. Become a Minister and you effectively are now on call any time of the day, any day of the week except for when you are on holidays. The equivalent business man/woman expected to deal with complex issues and sacrifice their life for the benefits of the business gets paid several hundreds of thousands if not millions. It is also revealing that if you compare UK political pay scales to that of other countries, it is obvious that UK politicians are not paid well. The demographics of Parliament is also very revealing, too many people from wealthy public school backgrounds at one end, too many union leaders or political careerists at the other with a woefully low number of women, ethnic minorities, civil servants, proper business leaders or other professionals being represented. A decent salary is just one but still critical step towards correcting this demographic imbalance and eliminating personal corruption.

Personal Corruption – The solution

Nothing in politics is ever truly simple, but I really do not see this problem as being insurmountable providing the political will is there. I also think that the British public can accept it providing that the solution is presented to them clearly and simply. Here is how I think it should be done. I am not going to cover the Lords in this analysis simply because the issue of Lords reform complicates matters and I would like to cover this in a later post.

Every MP should get a decent basic salary, let us say for the sake of argument that the figure should be between £100,000 and £150,000. Each Minister should get between £150,000 and £200,000. They should be allowed to claim expenses for any ‘reasonable’ travel (this means not everywhere first class!) and overnight stays connected with work. They should also be allowed a certain amount of expenses for hiring staff to run their offices. In addition, Parliament should own or lease a significant number of reasonable but not extravagant properties in London which MPs and Ministers (who don’t live in London ) can rent from Parliament at a subsidised rate. Let us say something like £500 per month for a single bedroom, £800 per month for a two bedroom, £1200 for a three bedroom and so on. All very straightforward, they cannot sub-let these subsidised properties, they cannot buy houses or furniture on expenses and in short, they are treated fairly. For those who would rather own their own property, would rather rent a different one or who already live in London , they should be able to claim an allowance in lieu of paying rent, but that allowance should not exceed how much they would pay in rent. For example, if an MP bought or rented a one bedroom flat, they would get a £500 per month allowance. This is simply to recognise that they are not claiming the Parliament provided rental property, but they have incurred the cost of buying/renting a property for work purposes. As they have chosen to buy/rent their own property, all other costs above that allowance are their problem (mortgage, repairs, furniture etc). Simply put, there is nothing to claim on expenses and the salary is enough to live reasonably well in London.

And now for the big clincher, the big stipulation that MPs will hate the most, but is what I think will make the British public accept this idea. NO SECOND INCOME OR JOB. As a civil servant there are very strict rules on my ability to obtain income from a second job. Those rules exist for a reason and I find it inconceivable that MPs and Ministers should be any different. The exception should be for where a professional needs to do paid work to maintain a professional licence or qualification, for example pilots need to fly so many hours a year and magistrates need to be in court so many days a year in order to keep their respective licence. I might even be generous and say that being paid a smallish sum to act as chair/treasurer to a political party or being paid a small fee for appearing on Question Time would also qualify as an acceptable exception. I do not buy the argument that MPs or Ministers are ‘kept in tune’ with life outside Westminster by having additional jobs. This is a nakedly obvious way in which conflicts of interests arise and how political corruption is legalised. MPs and Ministers are essentially public servants and so need to dedicate themselves to the job in the same way as I do. If a Managing Director of a company wants to go into Parliament, they should stand down from their job for the company for the period in which they are serving the country and be willing to accept this. Note that I am talking about an income for actually conducting work. For those who have shares or significant savings etc, this should not need to be cut off. The principle is that you should not be paid to do something outside of your day job, but there should not be a barrier to utilising existing property or assets in the same way I am allowed to gain incomes from my savings or from renting my own property outside of my civil servant job. By doing this, the rich and wealthy person who enters politics is now on a level playing field (job wise) to a much less wealthy person. Both should have entered Parliament because they want to do good not to enrich themselves and both should be expected to focus fully on that job. If the rich person does not want to sacrifice/postpone their business income then that should be their choice as obviously that is not the right time for them to enter politics. The suggested increase in pay does mean, however, that they can live within that income while doing the job.

Corporate corruption

For anyone who reads Private Eye, this will be a familiar topic. MPs or Ministers sit on committees or run a Government Department while big business places ‘office assistants’ in their offices and pays them directorships during or after their time in Parliament. This has to stop. What also has to stop is the reality that big business and individuals make political donations to influence policy as seen by the recent Peter Cruddas story (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17503116). Anybody involved in politics knows that this is not an isolated incident. All the political parties are desperate for campaign funding and by various means, whether involving money, dinners, favours or even simply privileged access, the corporate world is now more able to influence certain UK policies even more than several million UK voters are able to. Democracy is meant to be about the decision of the many, not the influence of a select few. Can it be a coincidence that the Conservatives are so keen to reform the NHS despite the overwhelming hostility from the UK populace at large while at the same time the party is accepting large donations from private health providers? Can it be right that certain defence companies can walk into Downing Street or the Ministry of Defence and press for pet projects to go ahead or for corruption enquiries to be shut down? Can we really be surprised that Adrian Beecroft (A big Conservative Party donor) who is a venture capitalist is pushing for reforms that in allowing people to be fired on a ‘no fault dismissal basis’ which just so happens to reduce the cost of making people redundant coincidently making it cheaper for venture capitalists to asset strip businesses that they have just bought?

This is not to say politicians should not speak to businesses, particularly when trying to understand the implications of certain policies. But this engagement should be a lot less cosy than it currently is and politicians should always be critical of whatever bright ideas is put in front of them, no matter who suggests it. The fact that business can offer ‘rewards’ to politicians is a significant barrier to any Government making the right decisions for the benefit of the country as a whole. Paying politicians a good salary while forbidding them from holding down second jobs or accepting payments would go a long way towards cracking down on this form of corruption in whatever soft guise it is practiced. And for those politicians who demonstrate that they can make a positive difference or successfully run a Government Department? I don’t think they will lack for job opportunities when they come out. For a business person looking for a new challenge, sacrificing a very high income for five years for the chance to put a big success story on your CV which will probably earn you more pay later on sounds like a reasonable trade-off to me.

The UK used to pride itself on being a relatively honest country as far as political dealings were concerned. I think we lost this claim a long time ago and if you are going to try to encourage other countries, particularly those involved in the Arab spring, to become democratic or for those various parts of the world where corruption is endemic, the UK is not exactly a shining beacon of good practice. There is currently a lot of gloom about recovering from the current economic recession, a big part has to be because no one has faith in politics anymore, probably not even the politicians or big business leaders themselves. A new, more honest, more professional generation is needed. One can only deam…

The U-Turn Trap

Another day, another u-turn by the Government. I don't have a problem with u-turns providing there is a good reason to do so. Good policy is not made by stating publicly what will be done only to find out later the unintended consequences are too great to be acceptable. Good policy is made by quietly suggesting something should be done and then asking other people to look at that suggestion from all angles and then to reach a conclusion on whether it can and should be done and what should be done to reduce unintended consequences. I refer back to my earlier statement in this blog, "No decision is black and white", embrace this concept and seek to confront it and you are halfway there to producing a good policy!

Sadly, this is a case against the adversarial politics as practised in the UK. Standing up and shouting in parliament makes for good TV, but does not necessarily lead to good policies. Good policy is boring and painstaking work. It is detailed cost-benefit analysis backed by the best available information at the time. Sometimes this is not enough because in a democracy, not only should a policy make logical sense, it must be seen to make logical sense by those outside of government. U-turning on what appears to be a large chunk of the policies set out in your last budget (pasty tax, charity caps etc) and indeed on some much bigger policies made in the last two years (which aircraft for the aircraft carriers, the NHS and security reforms etc) is not exactly confidence inspiring!

No doubt many people might say that this is a consequence of coalition government and such debate and scrutiny is healthy. This is a point I would agree with, but there is a world of difference between exploring what is the right policy and that of stating what is the correct policy. To be fair to the coalition, they have tried to show that they are 'consulting' on policy formulation. Sadly this has been clumsy and too often the media has reported that these policies were firm policies and done deals. UK politics is all about shouting loudly and pretending unwarranted confidence on what are complex issues. True democratic leadership is not about dictating to people what will happen, but by convincing them that it will happen that way because it must happen that way to get the best result. True leadership in a democracy also about having the confidence to set out a broad objective which you then expose to scrutiny, including by people opposed to you, which you can then constructively harness to implement your stated objective.

In short, far too often those who comment on government policies are badly informed and do not understand the complex issues behind those policies. They are not helped by government refusing or unable to expose those facts. Sadly, those at the top of government also don't understand the issues and complexities behind their decisions leading to more u-turns, more criticisms and more defensive behaviours thus reducing confidence in them further. It is a vicious circle in which Ministers, parliamentarians, the media and senior civil servants are all complicit. Fixing this problem is not easy and unfortunately there is no sign of the political will to do so.

I leave you with a final point, politics is the only profession where you do not need formal qualifications or demonstrated competence in the subject matter to practice it! Should maybe the Prime Minister (or a delegated panel) conduct proper job interviews before appointing their Ministers? No other profession or business thinks this should not be done so why is politics different and yet our expectations of the political process so high?