Political system must protect our democracy
DAVID Torrance has accused me, in my article for CommonSpace, of arguing that “greed and rule breaking is somehow an inescapable product of a particular constitutional arrangement”, as if the problems of Westminster politics have come about purely because of the intangible evils of Unionism (“UK must rejuvenate itself in order to survive 21st century”, The Herald, March 2).
He also presumed that I would “argue that Unionism had somehow corrupted an otherwise decent sensibility” and implied that at the root of my argument lay a hollow dichotomy within which “Scottish” is accepted as something automatically good and virtuous which is invariably corrupted by the malign power of the British state.
He also felt the need to point out that Britain is not Haiti and that Westminster is not the Kremlin. “Hyperbolic” language may “irritate” Mr Torrance, but he clearly has no objection to tilting at scarecrows.
I find this quite flattering, and while imitation may well be its sincerest form, misrepresentation is somehow far more satisfying. For a simple English lecturer to earn such opprobrium from one of Scotland’s better-known journalists is something of a personal achievement.
In a roundabout way, though, Mr Torrance is correct, because the seemingly endless stream of parliamentary abuse, the contempt with which the political establishment regards vast section of the population, and the systemic corruption at the heart of Westminster are, in reality, examples of what our political system looks like when it operates precisely as it was intended to.
What has become clear is this: our political system (indeed, any political system) must be constructed to protect democracy, including from those in its direct employ. That is why party funding should be nationalised and linked directly to individual memberships; why lucrative second jobs should be unequivocally banned; why MPs’ pay should be reduced rather than increased; why the House of Lords must be abolished; and why the prevailing philosophy that our elected representatives can’t be expected to suffer the consequences of their decisions must be defeated once and for all.
A political and parliamentary system which is, even in part, arranged to facilitate and justify activities that most people would consider abuse of public positions, and which singularly fails to be of the people, by the people and for the people, deserves to be attacked. In truth, it deserves to be torn down. Ultimately, Britain has been broken by a corrupt, self-serving and fundamentally conservative political consensus which has resulted in the complete abandonment of huge sections of our society. But the windows are shaking, the walls are rattling, and the waters are rising. James McEnaney, Dovecot View, Kirkintilloch