Gary's views

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

Accountability Gap

I am guessing that few of you will have noticed the news earlier in the week that the Labour MP for Reading was de-selected and will therefore lose her job at the next election. Hardly the stuff of breakfast time conversation, but I can assure you that it sent frissons of nervousness skimming around the Westminster village. If it can happen to her…

But I for one welcome the news. I know virtually nothing about the circumstances that led the local party to take such drastic action against a seemingly perfectly decent person, and I would naturally hate it to happen to me, but the principle at stake is one to be applauded.

It is called: accountability.

There is a prevailing view that our political system is flawed and that the last thing we need is for “politicians” to make decisions for us – after all they are “politicians” so we don’t trust them. Instead, we set up independent enquiries headed by distinguished judges or former civil servants. You can trust their deliberations, we tell people, because they are not politicians. We set up more and more Quangos to run crucial services that impact all of our lives. They won’t be biased or dogmatic because they are not politicians. Whatever else we do, we must take the decisions out of the hands of elected people. How on earth did we arrive at this point?

As a result, thousands of big decisions are made every day by dozens of Quangos who are accountable only to themselves. You try sacking one! The mindset is growing that as politicians can no longer run things properly, voting is a waste of time. If we continue to devalue our democracy in this way, soon good people won’t bother standing for office and the downward spiral will accelerate. That way disaster lies!

I prefer another route. Give the power back to elected people in exchange for real accountability. Ministers should be overseeing many more of the decisions that have now been contracted out. Parliament should hold those same ministers much more rigorously to account. Local parties should insist on higher standards from their representatives and the electorate should expect that wrongdoers should be dealt with robustly.

Our democracy is precious. The way to preserve it is not to sub-contact out the role of the elected representative, but to go in the opposite direction and reinstate lost power, in exchange for greater accountability.

What do you think? mail@garystreeter.co.uk

posted by Nigel on Thursday, March 04, 2004