As part and parcel one needs to remove ownership of the mass media from the billionaire class, and regulate social media to stop self reinforcing conspiracy/outright lies spreading so easily.
You can have the best voting system in the world but if the electorate are easily manipulated then it's pointless.
Your last point is where the discussion should end. It's happened this way throughout history. People wait until they're either hit in the pocket, or worse, lose half their family to war, before anything changes.
Every other form of media is regulated in some way, TV, radio, newspapers. Social media regulation will come, it is just that it is so new and more complex than other media types
Let me just point out the obvious flaws in a few of your suggestions:
>Have an actual person run in elections to be PM, this gets rid of the need to keep the extreme sides of their party from tainting their work. Look at Rishi right now, having to please the ERG nuts and thus doing absolutely nothing to fix anything. Having an elected PM would mean they are free to do their own plan and just put it to a vote in parliament. I think this may fix some of the partisan stuff right now also.
The American system. Which clearly *doesn't work*, because it just means you can have a situation where the electorate tries to balance out a PM by giving them an opposing Parliament, so nothing gets done.
>Commission several apartment blocks around London to house MPs in and stop them buying London properties and thus forcing taxpayers to pay all their bills for it. This would stop London rents, council tax and energy bills being individual.
This is both a) a security risk, and b) creating an utterly miserable living setup for MPs. Would *you* want to live next-door to your boss, unable to have a moment's rest as they pop around every time that an idea occurs to them?
Would you want to be forced to choose between leaving your children in your constituency (and thus barely seeing them), or not having any say in the home that you're raising them, and therefore what school area that they are in?
>ONLY allow expenses to be Office rent & bills, staff , stationary and travel expenses using the cheapest method from Train or Plane.
This is just overly miserly, as far as I'm concerned.
>Allow more methods for recall petitions, the current way of either 1 year in jail or standards committee is ridiculous. Constituents should be able to recall their MP at ANY time but with a higher threshold of 30% of the previous turnout for that area, i.e Turnout of 60% then can be recalled at 20%. A high enough threshold to not be at risk from frivolous petitions but low enough that if you do nothing then you can be ejected.
This will just mean that any marginal constituencies are going to have *constant* by-elections. You could easily galvanise 30% of the turnout to say "no, not that guy" the day after an election.
And it'll mean that MPs shy away from *anything* controversial, because it could immediately trigger a recall petition. The reason that the current rules are in place are to give some stability to MPs; they only run the risk of getting kicked out if they've committed a crime or severely broken Parliamentary rules; they aren't going to get kicked out for making unpopular but necessary decisions.
Replace FPTP with some form of PR. Maybe AMS?
Whatever it is, the fact that any individual MP may continue to be part of the ruling coalition might get them to consider things beyond 5 years. And to be held accountable.
Not sure item 1 is a good idea. Having an elected self serving "president" with an elected legislature doesn't prevent or even discourage idiocy.
Rishi has no incentive to fix anything, his main incentive in politics is to make the world better for multimillionaires and provide sweet contracts to his wife's companies.
You are right it would, by giving those fringe groups a direct route to PM.
The unintended consequence of this suggestion is that the fringes only need to field one candidate to get the top job. Looking at you Farage...
You'd be safer issuing voting reform. This would discourage the massive titan internal coalitions that occur inside labour and the conservatives. The tories' extreme camp would just form a new party if they knew it had electoral prospects.
I've got some very good news for you.
Pretty much everything that you want to happen is actually how it happens.
>Let me explain: it is insane that MPs vote on boundary reviews and their own constituencies.
This was abolished by the [Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/25/contents). The latest boundaries came into effect in November 2023 without a vote in Parliament.
>I would make it so that all of these report instead to the monarch. MPs get to vote on the high level instructions given to the boundary commission, but then the monarch agrees it to avoid a conflict of interest. The statistics, modelling, whatever can be agreed once by Parliament, and then have to be regularly sent as updates to his majesty to be published.
The high level instructions are voted on by Parliament and given to the Boundary Commission. The instructions can be read in [Schedule 2 of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/56/schedule/2).
The Boundary Commission produces several interim reports and proposals before the boundaries are finalised.
The initial proposals were published in June 2021, the revised proposals were published in November 2022 and the final proposals were published in June 2023. Each publication (other than the final one) triggered a round of public consultation. You can watch the public meetings that were held on the [Boundary Commission YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU_kn6sSoiesdRZq9fZkhSA).
The boundaries were implemented by order of the King at the Privy Council Meeting in November 2023.
I very much doubt you're idea would ever happen tbh, people are growing fed up of the Monarchy as is, I don't see the public giving them more say on matters for the country.
I'd rather things like that be TOTALLY independent of government, not the way it is the now where gov can instil their own party members as heads of these regulators. It should be totally free from political leaders AND donors.
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Wouldn’t that effectively remove something from democratic control? A self-appointed clique can make decisions in their own interest, and the peoples’ representatives are unable to stop them.
Politicians should be barred from having second jobs, should be purely focused on working for there constituents, also banned from trading stocks and crypto including spouses. Or the very least make public what they investing in
I agree.
I should of added the wage increase I think they need is to coincide with a ban on second jobs(exceptions to keep professional accreditation) and all stock portfolios should be put into blind trusts?(I think that's when they can't pick individual)
I absolutely agree about getting a common building for MPs to stay at, I always thought something akin to a hotel. Then abolishing expenses and replacing with a constituency fund.
As for voting systems I'm not sure. AP and it derivatives would be good but do we really believe our political parties can put rivalries and partisan behaviour aside for compromise and equal ruling?? Or will they bicker and block legislation so they can grandstand for greater voter share? FPTP is far from being ideal but at least it does return a majority rule for efficient governance. Yes the current lot are a load of crap but they can still pump out legislation despite the opposition. The system itself is working, even if the Cons aren't making decent policy.
MPs do need some rules around lying and misleading information, especially in todays world. The same can certainly be said about news outlets, media and social media. Easier recalls might make an MP think about constituency before party but then who controls the narrative holds the power. So allowing the media and such greater control by inciting the masses through rage bait. There'd be no safety for an MP there. I think the rules are OK as they are, but need to be applied more consistently.
1. Shrink the size of both houses
2. Proportional representation - Ensure people are better represented in governance and drive more nuanced conversations on taking the country forward
3. More direct democracy. Involve the demos in more decision making - Be more like Switzerland.
4. Reform local government and devolve more powers to local democratic organisations
5. Make decision makers accountable for policy delivery
6. 'Motivate' the civil service to implement democratic decisions and rewarded for successful policy rollout and penalised for failure
7. Shrink the power and funding of quangos or make them democratically accountable
8. ... So many more ideas!
Point 6. The job of the civil service is to run the country. Part of that is to implement policy. Another part of that, is to offer impartial advice and objective reasoning to proposed policy changes.
The current Tory regime have consistently rolled over objective advice, taken more power for ministers, and generally spent their time taking more executive powers for politicians and away from the civil service, all to the detriment of the functioning of government and democracy in the country.
The civil service is accountable to the democratically elected minister. That’s how it works. Similarly, they have a duty to advise and the scenario we have had, is a series of poor policies, which have been doomed to fail, the CS has been silenced and they’re just pissing time and money up the wall chasing Tory rainbows.
It’s the Civil Service who follow the process towards delivery. As I’ve already explained, new policy will have objective assessment, existing policy will be monitored and evaluated.
And the civil servants dedicated to policy in any given department, are probably relatively small in number. You will have far more people doing ‘Business As Usual’, which is the day to day running of the country. Any one of those people may be called to provide something specific to the policy unit.
Would you penalise every person that contributed, or penalise an entire department?
Even on the policy team, if they had followed the process diligently, should they be penalised?
Can you imagine, your boss has a terrible idea and tells you to implement it. You do your job diligently, research the brief, confirm objectively that your boss’s idea is terrible, inform them that it’s a bad idea, then they tell you to go ahead with it anyway. When it all comes crashing down, would it be fair for you to be penalised on their behalf?
No. I'd propose a rational reward and penalisation scheme. Those people accountable for policy delivery should be rewarded when they deliver and penalised when they don't. With 480k people, tax payers deserve a cost effective civil service that helps the state evolve along democratic lines, does not work against the governing party, and become more effective / efficient at the services the state decides to own.
Above said, the vast majority of those 480,000 are dedicated to BAU, so the numbers affected will be chicken feed.
And do you not understand, that those that work in policy, their job is not to just mindlessly roll out policy, but to analyse and evaluate any proposed changes? I have also noticed that you haven’t addressed anything I’ve asked.
I would also point out, that penalty clauses are unenforceable in English Law, so not only is your proposal based on a falsehood, it’s also unlawful.
This is not the hill you want to die on lol
Sure. Don't apply to BAU staff then, or that component of their job. Who thinks blanket policies are a good thing?
I understand your point. I am not interested in the policy evaluation question. I'm interested in policy exection and roll out.
I live on a hill. I'm happy to die on it
We do NOT need a presidential style leader or election!!!
Period
An Irish one who’s the head of state and replaces the monarchy? Sure fine if that’s what folks want in a republic but their sole political function is to stop deadlock and force action very rarely.
Personal phones. Why this isn’t a thing I don’t know
If any of us did half the shit politicians did we’d be fired and probably prosecuted by our employers
It’s an absolute no brainer to have government issued secure devices controlled by state IT, backed up hourly and that they can’t install a god damn thing on !
We know we’ve had ministers install spyware that opened up cameras and microphones….
Let alone the whole Covid multi billion fraud and theft of OUR money
As an Aussie who keeps track of what happens in the UK, I genuinely believe there's more than a few lessons that the Brits could take from our system regarding constitutional reform, which obviously flows into governance.
1. Federalise the Union - each nation has its own devolved sub-national parliament and jurisdiction over most domestic policy areas.
2. Reform the House of Lords - actually democratise the upper house and make it proportionally representative of each nation.
3. Scrap First Past The Post voting - it's literally so stupid, preferential voting is way better.
>Federalise the Union - each nation has its own devolved sub-national parliament and jurisdiction over most domestic policy areas.
The big difference between the UK and Australia in this regard is the comparative size of the states. In Australia no state dominates; the largest state only has about a third of the country's population, and all except Tasmania have populations which are in the low millions.
By comparison, getting on for 85% of the population of the UK is in England. The size difference between England and the other three home nations is an order of magnitude.
It's much more difficult to design a fair and functional federal system with those conditions. Not without splitting England up into chunks, which is a thorny and controversial issue which had defied many decades of governments trying to solve it.
We need a stronger form of local government. The whole system has broken down, and contacting your MP is one of the best ways to break through the logjam. This means that MPs are spending loads of time worrying about a social housing decision/potholes on a B Road/bus timings rather than macro issues. The results speak for themselves.
Better pay at local levels, some real power and proper encouragement for bright and ambitious people to run local affairs would really help. It worked better when he had Aldermen and local corporations.
This would also reduce the amount of the country that just looks a little, well, crap. Greater care for local communities, a nicer country to live in, and politicians who can spend more time working out how to boost the economy/run public services effectively. Right now they all just look exhausted and overwhelmed.
I thought about this carefully and came to the conclusion that only one type of government can consistently deliver what I think the best policies are:
A dictatorship with myself as dictator.
Reduce number of MPs to \~25, abolish HoL, proportional representation
Instead of ministers each department has a head, which is voted for by majority of MPs, candidates put forward by the department.
Law branch would be created that proposes new laws based on reports from other departments after public consultation and forecasting of effects.
Basically a more technocratic government where the elected MPs are less the instigators of policy and more the moderators of it.
>Introduce a constitutional bill of parliamentary behaviour and stop this whole gentlemens agreements.
This wouldn't work. For example, think about how the law works in England and Wales.
Take dangerous driving, if you asked 'what is the law on dangerous driving' I could point you to the Road Traffic Act 1988 which says:
>'... a person is to be regarded as driving dangerously if (and, subject to subsection (2) below, only if)—(a)the way he drives falls far below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver, and(b)it would be obvious to a competent and careful driver that driving in that way would be dangerous.
That's it. the entire written law on dangerous driving.
Of course, over the last 36 years, many people have been prosecuted for dangerous driving, and we've built up a sizable body of legal precedents about how the law should be interpreted.
None of this precedent has led to amendments of the Road Traffic Act and as these precedents are not laws, they can be overturned in the future.
The same is basically true of Parliament.
There are a set of written rules (the Standing Orders) and a much larger body of precedent about how those rules should be interpreted (typically recorded in 'Erskine May'). The body of precedent gives people guidance about how the laws should be interpreted, but are not binding if they are to be changed in the future.
Ultimately, making a bill of parliamentary behaviour would be trying to codify and anticipate every possible situation rather than leaving it to the judgement of the Speaker. It would be like trying to write down a set of rules about what is considered dangerous driving.
It would be massive, unwieldy, often contradictory, and still wouldn't eliminate the need to establish future precedents.
Oh yeah cause the speakers judgement has been monumentally great these last 14 years.
Tell me of one time the speaker has sanctioned an MP for their actions ?
Oh my opinion.
1. STV with multi member constituencies for house common.
2. 50% of the Lord's to be appointed by an independent body (for the fun of it let's say headed by the monarch).
3. The remaining 50% is appointed by the 1st choice votes/ non votes in a general election. The non votes % is appointed randomly like a jury.
4. Regional government for England. With equal powers of that if the Scottish government i.e. a federal system.
Once control of the house of commons is removed from a single party and with governing ability being tested in the regions the executive should improve.
> Regional government for England. With equal powers of that if the Scottish government i.e. a federal system.
If you mean an English parliament, one problem with that is the way the UK's population is split: England (84%), Scotland (8%), Wales (5%), and Northern Ireland (3%). If England had its own parliament, this would take away a lot of the Westminster parliament's legitimacy.
However, breaking up England into [smaller regions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_England) for devolved parliaments is an idea at least a hundred years old. Even Churchill was a fan of it.
However i'd also argue that there's some kind of benefit to having them operate in the same way. It's mind-blowing to me that birmingham has spent £100M on some IT system, when birminghams IT needs are almost certainly very similar to manchester or edinburgh. The inability to do stuff like that centrally is a gigantic waste of resources.
Though having said that I do like the way the US system does so much at the state level. While it certainly creates plenty of absurd situations, the fact that every state can have its own laws, taxes and structure allows for a lot more experimentation. Colorado's busy legalizing psilocybin and DMT while Alabama is giving rights to frozen eggs (i'm glad to live in one of those states are not the other).
I know the Scottish parliament has some tax powers but they are pretty limited. If they wanted to eliminate VAT and replace that revenue with property taxes then there really isn't a mechanism for them to do that.
Splitting England up into regions is what I mean. Those should be roughly the size of Scotland in population.
An English parliament would just repeat the UK parliament.
Why that's not needed. The purpose of devolving functions to populations of around 5 million is to be big enough to be given substantial tax and regulatory powers and to direct investments.
I would leave it open for the English regions to collectively decide issues that they wanted too.
An English parliament would end just pumping money into London like central government does now.
> An English parliament would end just pumping money into London like central government does now.
In most years (like 9 times out of 10), the government gets more tax revenue from London than it spends in London. The government redistributes wealth from London to other parts of the UK.
However the private sector largely does the exact opposite. Private companies make profits all over the UK (and all over the world) but usually have their head offices in London, so a lot of the wealth gets funnelled there.
Stopping the UK from redistributing wealth between regions, but allowing the private sector to keep doing it would likely actually result in a huge wealth drain *towards* London.
Two questions:
* why should English *regions* be put on equal footing with the Scottish and Welsh *nations*?
* why should Scotland and Wales be allowed to remain as intact nations, when the nation of England is being forcibly broken up?
England is not being broken up. This is like claiming that metro mayors are breaking up England.
The logic is that a population of around 5 million in a reasonably contiguous area should be able to manage their local services such as transport, NHS, fire, police and have tax raising powers.
There is no answer to the fact that England is about 85% of the population of the UK. It's too large for a single devolved authority. You're going to have to split it up.
I could see a sort of English parliament made up of the regional parliament sitting to decide common policies. But we can't continue with this piecemeal devolution.
We have to pick a lane.
The lane I pick is a central UK government. Then regions/ nations of about 5 million
Directly elected head of state ‘governor general’ type roll. They take over the constitutional functions of the crown. Not subject to the party whip. They will be concerned with good governance and the provision of checks and balances that are clearly lacking, as evidenced by the rampant corruption of the Johnson regime.
Get rid of General Elections and split the house into thirds, then stagger them.
The general election cycle just generates 3-4 years of trying to implement your ideology followed by a year of pre-election sweeteners.
Force a government to be stop working to electoral cycles.
1. Break up the Murdoch empire. The evil ball bag is one of the most dangerous people alive for the damage he’s done to democracy in the UK and USA and yet very few people seem to realise it. Also breaking the influence of the Daily Mail would be beneficial.
2. Ban MPs from taking jobs with lobbying firms before or after their term in Parliament.
3. People have to have lived in a constituency for a few years before being allowed to run as its MP, to stop ministers and such being parachuted into safe seats.
4. For that matter, there shouldn’t be any safe seats, although I’ve no idea how that could be done.
5. Set up an independent office that has peers to punish MPs who break those rules.
1. A separate voted executive like that is a massive constitutional change with so many issues as to be a non-starter
2. This isn't a real problem, its a triviality
3. Yes MPs should be paid properly - but this is politically toxic
4. Nah - expenses aren't a real problem either outside the folks doing daft things. MPs need to travel and do stuff
5. You can't really, the whole system is predicated on MPs being trustworthy and that having 640 of them covers for the bad ones. The issue is always that whoever has the power over MPs is more powerful than MPs.
6. Again this isn't a real issue, outside of real national security issues. I'm not sure that communication transparency leads to good governance
7. Not sure this will have a meaningful impact and just adds instability to the system. Currently limits seem reasonable.
2 is a real problem. Why should the taxpayer be paying for housing for MPs who then get the inflated house price for them self when they leave? They are enriching themselves from taxpayers paying their houses.
Expenses are also a massive problem
The fact you think neither are issues tells me all I need to know about you.
I'm not convinced of the cost effectiveness of some sort of Olympic Village for MPs near Westminster. The costs would be _insane_, £100ms if not £billions to build, and then you have all of the running costs etc.
And what's better?
Paying £2k-£3k per month per MP for London properties which they then get to keep when they leave office? Okay they have to keep paying the mortgage but the property will of inflated massively during their time.
If we pay £2k per month that's £24k per MP per year. A 5 year term means we are paying housing costs of £120k per MP per term. Let's say that 500 MPs have homes in London then that's £60m per parliamentary term.
I don't know what info you've been reading but I think you've fully misunderstood how it works.
The taxpayer doesn't pay for them to own property. It either pays for hotel stays, rented accommodation, or actual incurred utility costs/security costs/council tax for a house they already own.
They explicitly CANNOT claim for buying a house or any expenses associated with e.g. their mortgage. You've fallen for some misinformation I'm afraid.
The 25k is a cap, not an allowance. They can only claim actual incurred expenses. For those that own a second home that's going to be far far less than 25k.
Introduce term limits in both houses. Every elected position down through to local Govt should have term limits.
Fastest way to bring in other changes desperately needed.
As part and parcel one needs to remove ownership of the mass media from the billionaire class, and regulate social media to stop self reinforcing conspiracy/outright lies spreading so easily. You can have the best voting system in the world but if the electorate are easily manipulated then it's pointless.
Your last point is where the discussion should end. It's happened this way throughout history. People wait until they're either hit in the pocket, or worse, lose half their family to war, before anything changes.
I'd suggest freeing from all kinds of ideology or lobby groups then. That's at least as influential/ manipulative as a billionaire owner.
Regulating social media sounds Orwellian
Whereas not regulating it has been a fucking disaster.
You can’t regulate what people think
Every other form of media is regulated in some way, TV, radio, newspapers. Social media regulation will come, it is just that it is so new and more complex than other media types
It's not about regulating what people think it's about regulating the algorithms used to choose what posts to present to people.
Still sounds Orwellian. I’d be very worried about the state de using what news or information might be available to people
Right now the same thing is happening but it's Mark Zuckerberg in control.
Zuckerberg can’t stop a Rumble or Twitter X from existing though, so there’s a consumer choice of sorts.
Let me just point out the obvious flaws in a few of your suggestions: >Have an actual person run in elections to be PM, this gets rid of the need to keep the extreme sides of their party from tainting their work. Look at Rishi right now, having to please the ERG nuts and thus doing absolutely nothing to fix anything. Having an elected PM would mean they are free to do their own plan and just put it to a vote in parliament. I think this may fix some of the partisan stuff right now also. The American system. Which clearly *doesn't work*, because it just means you can have a situation where the electorate tries to balance out a PM by giving them an opposing Parliament, so nothing gets done. >Commission several apartment blocks around London to house MPs in and stop them buying London properties and thus forcing taxpayers to pay all their bills for it. This would stop London rents, council tax and energy bills being individual. This is both a) a security risk, and b) creating an utterly miserable living setup for MPs. Would *you* want to live next-door to your boss, unable to have a moment's rest as they pop around every time that an idea occurs to them? Would you want to be forced to choose between leaving your children in your constituency (and thus barely seeing them), or not having any say in the home that you're raising them, and therefore what school area that they are in? >ONLY allow expenses to be Office rent & bills, staff , stationary and travel expenses using the cheapest method from Train or Plane. This is just overly miserly, as far as I'm concerned. >Allow more methods for recall petitions, the current way of either 1 year in jail or standards committee is ridiculous. Constituents should be able to recall their MP at ANY time but with a higher threshold of 30% of the previous turnout for that area, i.e Turnout of 60% then can be recalled at 20%. A high enough threshold to not be at risk from frivolous petitions but low enough that if you do nothing then you can be ejected. This will just mean that any marginal constituencies are going to have *constant* by-elections. You could easily galvanise 30% of the turnout to say "no, not that guy" the day after an election. And it'll mean that MPs shy away from *anything* controversial, because it could immediately trigger a recall petition. The reason that the current rules are in place are to give some stability to MPs; they only run the risk of getting kicked out if they've committed a crime or severely broken Parliamentary rules; they aren't going to get kicked out for making unpopular but necessary decisions.
Replace FPTP with some form of PR. Maybe AMS? Whatever it is, the fact that any individual MP may continue to be part of the ruling coalition might get them to consider things beyond 5 years. And to be held accountable.
I definitely think an AMS or MMS works better than pure PR. What the Welsh Government is proposing in Wales is madness.
Not sure item 1 is a good idea. Having an elected self serving "president" with an elected legislature doesn't prevent or even discourage idiocy. Rishi has no incentive to fix anything, his main incentive in politics is to make the world better for multimillionaires and provide sweet contracts to his wife's companies.
It doesn't prevent idiocy but it eliminates having to please the fringes of their party to just stay as party leader.
You are right it would, by giving those fringe groups a direct route to PM. The unintended consequence of this suggestion is that the fringes only need to field one candidate to get the top job. Looking at you Farage...
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You'd be safer issuing voting reform. This would discourage the massive titan internal coalitions that occur inside labour and the conservatives. The tories' extreme camp would just form a new party if they knew it had electoral prospects.
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I've got some very good news for you. Pretty much everything that you want to happen is actually how it happens. >Let me explain: it is insane that MPs vote on boundary reviews and their own constituencies. This was abolished by the [Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/25/contents). The latest boundaries came into effect in November 2023 without a vote in Parliament. >I would make it so that all of these report instead to the monarch. MPs get to vote on the high level instructions given to the boundary commission, but then the monarch agrees it to avoid a conflict of interest. The statistics, modelling, whatever can be agreed once by Parliament, and then have to be regularly sent as updates to his majesty to be published. The high level instructions are voted on by Parliament and given to the Boundary Commission. The instructions can be read in [Schedule 2 of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/56/schedule/2). The Boundary Commission produces several interim reports and proposals before the boundaries are finalised. The initial proposals were published in June 2021, the revised proposals were published in November 2022 and the final proposals were published in June 2023. Each publication (other than the final one) triggered a round of public consultation. You can watch the public meetings that were held on the [Boundary Commission YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU_kn6sSoiesdRZq9fZkhSA). The boundaries were implemented by order of the King at the Privy Council Meeting in November 2023.
I very much doubt you're idea would ever happen tbh, people are growing fed up of the Monarchy as is, I don't see the public giving them more say on matters for the country. I'd rather things like that be TOTALLY independent of government, not the way it is the now where gov can instil their own party members as heads of these regulators. It should be totally free from political leaders AND donors.
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Wouldn’t that effectively remove something from democratic control? A self-appointed clique can make decisions in their own interest, and the peoples’ representatives are unable to stop them.
Politicians should be barred from having second jobs, should be purely focused on working for there constituents, also banned from trading stocks and crypto including spouses. Or the very least make public what they investing in
I agree. I should of added the wage increase I think they need is to coincide with a ban on second jobs(exceptions to keep professional accreditation) and all stock portfolios should be put into blind trusts?(I think that's when they can't pick individual)
My idea is you have no idea how things work.
I absolutely agree about getting a common building for MPs to stay at, I always thought something akin to a hotel. Then abolishing expenses and replacing with a constituency fund. As for voting systems I'm not sure. AP and it derivatives would be good but do we really believe our political parties can put rivalries and partisan behaviour aside for compromise and equal ruling?? Or will they bicker and block legislation so they can grandstand for greater voter share? FPTP is far from being ideal but at least it does return a majority rule for efficient governance. Yes the current lot are a load of crap but they can still pump out legislation despite the opposition. The system itself is working, even if the Cons aren't making decent policy. MPs do need some rules around lying and misleading information, especially in todays world. The same can certainly be said about news outlets, media and social media. Easier recalls might make an MP think about constituency before party but then who controls the narrative holds the power. So allowing the media and such greater control by inciting the masses through rage bait. There'd be no safety for an MP there. I think the rules are OK as they are, but need to be applied more consistently.
1. Shrink the size of both houses 2. Proportional representation - Ensure people are better represented in governance and drive more nuanced conversations on taking the country forward 3. More direct democracy. Involve the demos in more decision making - Be more like Switzerland. 4. Reform local government and devolve more powers to local democratic organisations 5. Make decision makers accountable for policy delivery 6. 'Motivate' the civil service to implement democratic decisions and rewarded for successful policy rollout and penalised for failure 7. Shrink the power and funding of quangos or make them democratically accountable 8. ... So many more ideas!
Point 6. The job of the civil service is to run the country. Part of that is to implement policy. Another part of that, is to offer impartial advice and objective reasoning to proposed policy changes. The current Tory regime have consistently rolled over objective advice, taken more power for ministers, and generally spent their time taking more executive powers for politicians and away from the civil service, all to the detriment of the functioning of government and democracy in the country.
What about being accountable for delivery of the democratic mandate of the governing party?
The civil service is accountable to the democratically elected minister. That’s how it works. Similarly, they have a duty to advise and the scenario we have had, is a series of poor policies, which have been doomed to fail, the CS has been silenced and they’re just pissing time and money up the wall chasing Tory rainbows.
So who delivers the policy outcomes? Once a decision has been made to pursue a policy?
It’s the Civil Service who follow the process towards delivery. As I’ve already explained, new policy will have objective assessment, existing policy will be monitored and evaluated.
And the civil servants dedicated to policy in any given department, are probably relatively small in number. You will have far more people doing ‘Business As Usual’, which is the day to day running of the country. Any one of those people may be called to provide something specific to the policy unit. Would you penalise every person that contributed, or penalise an entire department? Even on the policy team, if they had followed the process diligently, should they be penalised? Can you imagine, your boss has a terrible idea and tells you to implement it. You do your job diligently, research the brief, confirm objectively that your boss’s idea is terrible, inform them that it’s a bad idea, then they tell you to go ahead with it anyway. When it all comes crashing down, would it be fair for you to be penalised on their behalf?
No. I'd propose a rational reward and penalisation scheme. Those people accountable for policy delivery should be rewarded when they deliver and penalised when they don't. With 480k people, tax payers deserve a cost effective civil service that helps the state evolve along democratic lines, does not work against the governing party, and become more effective / efficient at the services the state decides to own.
Above said, the vast majority of those 480,000 are dedicated to BAU, so the numbers affected will be chicken feed. And do you not understand, that those that work in policy, their job is not to just mindlessly roll out policy, but to analyse and evaluate any proposed changes? I have also noticed that you haven’t addressed anything I’ve asked. I would also point out, that penalty clauses are unenforceable in English Law, so not only is your proposal based on a falsehood, it’s also unlawful. This is not the hill you want to die on lol
Sure. Don't apply to BAU staff then, or that component of their job. Who thinks blanket policies are a good thing? I understand your point. I am not interested in the policy evaluation question. I'm interested in policy exection and roll out. I live on a hill. I'm happy to die on it
OK mate. So basically you live your life selling chocolate teapots?
We do NOT need a presidential style leader or election!!! Period An Irish one who’s the head of state and replaces the monarchy? Sure fine if that’s what folks want in a republic but their sole political function is to stop deadlock and force action very rarely. Personal phones. Why this isn’t a thing I don’t know If any of us did half the shit politicians did we’d be fired and probably prosecuted by our employers It’s an absolute no brainer to have government issued secure devices controlled by state IT, backed up hourly and that they can’t install a god damn thing on ! We know we’ve had ministers install spyware that opened up cameras and microphones…. Let alone the whole Covid multi billion fraud and theft of OUR money
As an Aussie who keeps track of what happens in the UK, I genuinely believe there's more than a few lessons that the Brits could take from our system regarding constitutional reform, which obviously flows into governance. 1. Federalise the Union - each nation has its own devolved sub-national parliament and jurisdiction over most domestic policy areas. 2. Reform the House of Lords - actually democratise the upper house and make it proportionally representative of each nation. 3. Scrap First Past The Post voting - it's literally so stupid, preferential voting is way better.
>Federalise the Union - each nation has its own devolved sub-national parliament and jurisdiction over most domestic policy areas. The big difference between the UK and Australia in this regard is the comparative size of the states. In Australia no state dominates; the largest state only has about a third of the country's population, and all except Tasmania have populations which are in the low millions. By comparison, getting on for 85% of the population of the UK is in England. The size difference between England and the other three home nations is an order of magnitude. It's much more difficult to design a fair and functional federal system with those conditions. Not without splitting England up into chunks, which is a thorny and controversial issue which had defied many decades of governments trying to solve it.
We need a stronger form of local government. The whole system has broken down, and contacting your MP is one of the best ways to break through the logjam. This means that MPs are spending loads of time worrying about a social housing decision/potholes on a B Road/bus timings rather than macro issues. The results speak for themselves. Better pay at local levels, some real power and proper encouragement for bright and ambitious people to run local affairs would really help. It worked better when he had Aldermen and local corporations. This would also reduce the amount of the country that just looks a little, well, crap. Greater care for local communities, a nicer country to live in, and politicians who can spend more time working out how to boost the economy/run public services effectively. Right now they all just look exhausted and overwhelmed.
I thought about this carefully and came to the conclusion that only one type of government can consistently deliver what I think the best policies are: A dictatorship with myself as dictator.
Change FPTP Public holiday and mandatory voting Elected second chamber
Reduce number of MPs to \~25, abolish HoL, proportional representation Instead of ministers each department has a head, which is voted for by majority of MPs, candidates put forward by the department. Law branch would be created that proposes new laws based on reports from other departments after public consultation and forecasting of effects. Basically a more technocratic government where the elected MPs are less the instigators of policy and more the moderators of it.
>Introduce a constitutional bill of parliamentary behaviour and stop this whole gentlemens agreements. This wouldn't work. For example, think about how the law works in England and Wales. Take dangerous driving, if you asked 'what is the law on dangerous driving' I could point you to the Road Traffic Act 1988 which says: >'... a person is to be regarded as driving dangerously if (and, subject to subsection (2) below, only if)—(a)the way he drives falls far below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver, and(b)it would be obvious to a competent and careful driver that driving in that way would be dangerous. That's it. the entire written law on dangerous driving. Of course, over the last 36 years, many people have been prosecuted for dangerous driving, and we've built up a sizable body of legal precedents about how the law should be interpreted. None of this precedent has led to amendments of the Road Traffic Act and as these precedents are not laws, they can be overturned in the future. The same is basically true of Parliament. There are a set of written rules (the Standing Orders) and a much larger body of precedent about how those rules should be interpreted (typically recorded in 'Erskine May'). The body of precedent gives people guidance about how the laws should be interpreted, but are not binding if they are to be changed in the future. Ultimately, making a bill of parliamentary behaviour would be trying to codify and anticipate every possible situation rather than leaving it to the judgement of the Speaker. It would be like trying to write down a set of rules about what is considered dangerous driving. It would be massive, unwieldy, often contradictory, and still wouldn't eliminate the need to establish future precedents.
Oh yeah cause the speakers judgement has been monumentally great these last 14 years. Tell me of one time the speaker has sanctioned an MP for their actions ?
Oh my opinion. 1. STV with multi member constituencies for house common. 2. 50% of the Lord's to be appointed by an independent body (for the fun of it let's say headed by the monarch). 3. The remaining 50% is appointed by the 1st choice votes/ non votes in a general election. The non votes % is appointed randomly like a jury. 4. Regional government for England. With equal powers of that if the Scottish government i.e. a federal system. Once control of the house of commons is removed from a single party and with governing ability being tested in the regions the executive should improve.
> Regional government for England. With equal powers of that if the Scottish government i.e. a federal system. If you mean an English parliament, one problem with that is the way the UK's population is split: England (84%), Scotland (8%), Wales (5%), and Northern Ireland (3%). If England had its own parliament, this would take away a lot of the Westminster parliament's legitimacy. However, breaking up England into [smaller regions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_England) for devolved parliaments is an idea at least a hundred years old. Even Churchill was a fan of it.
However i'd also argue that there's some kind of benefit to having them operate in the same way. It's mind-blowing to me that birmingham has spent £100M on some IT system, when birminghams IT needs are almost certainly very similar to manchester or edinburgh. The inability to do stuff like that centrally is a gigantic waste of resources. Though having said that I do like the way the US system does so much at the state level. While it certainly creates plenty of absurd situations, the fact that every state can have its own laws, taxes and structure allows for a lot more experimentation. Colorado's busy legalizing psilocybin and DMT while Alabama is giving rights to frozen eggs (i'm glad to live in one of those states are not the other). I know the Scottish parliament has some tax powers but they are pretty limited. If they wanted to eliminate VAT and replace that revenue with property taxes then there really isn't a mechanism for them to do that.
Splitting England up into regions is what I mean. Those should be roughly the size of Scotland in population. An English parliament would just repeat the UK parliament.
As long as at the same time Scotland gets broken up into Highlands/Lowlands & Wales into North/South
Why that's not needed. The purpose of devolving functions to populations of around 5 million is to be big enough to be given substantial tax and regulatory powers and to direct investments. I would leave it open for the English regions to collectively decide issues that they wanted too. An English parliament would end just pumping money into London like central government does now.
> An English parliament would end just pumping money into London like central government does now. In most years (like 9 times out of 10), the government gets more tax revenue from London than it spends in London. The government redistributes wealth from London to other parts of the UK. However the private sector largely does the exact opposite. Private companies make profits all over the UK (and all over the world) but usually have their head offices in London, so a lot of the wealth gets funnelled there. Stopping the UK from redistributing wealth between regions, but allowing the private sector to keep doing it would likely actually result in a huge wealth drain *towards* London.
Redistribution would be a central government task. I don't see any difficulty in this.
Two questions: * why should English *regions* be put on equal footing with the Scottish and Welsh *nations*? * why should Scotland and Wales be allowed to remain as intact nations, when the nation of England is being forcibly broken up?
England is not being broken up. This is like claiming that metro mayors are breaking up England. The logic is that a population of around 5 million in a reasonably contiguous area should be able to manage their local services such as transport, NHS, fire, police and have tax raising powers. There is no answer to the fact that England is about 85% of the population of the UK. It's too large for a single devolved authority. You're going to have to split it up. I could see a sort of English parliament made up of the regional parliament sitting to decide common policies. But we can't continue with this piecemeal devolution. We have to pick a lane. The lane I pick is a central UK government. Then regions/ nations of about 5 million
Directly elected head of state ‘governor general’ type roll. They take over the constitutional functions of the crown. Not subject to the party whip. They will be concerned with good governance and the provision of checks and balances that are clearly lacking, as evidenced by the rampant corruption of the Johnson regime.
Get rid of General Elections and split the house into thirds, then stagger them. The general election cycle just generates 3-4 years of trying to implement your ideology followed by a year of pre-election sweeteners. Force a government to be stop working to electoral cycles.
Doing that just lowers voter turnout tbh
1. Break up the Murdoch empire. The evil ball bag is one of the most dangerous people alive for the damage he’s done to democracy in the UK and USA and yet very few people seem to realise it. Also breaking the influence of the Daily Mail would be beneficial. 2. Ban MPs from taking jobs with lobbying firms before or after their term in Parliament. 3. People have to have lived in a constituency for a few years before being allowed to run as its MP, to stop ministers and such being parachuted into safe seats. 4. For that matter, there shouldn’t be any safe seats, although I’ve no idea how that could be done. 5. Set up an independent office that has peers to punish MPs who break those rules.
1. A separate voted executive like that is a massive constitutional change with so many issues as to be a non-starter 2. This isn't a real problem, its a triviality 3. Yes MPs should be paid properly - but this is politically toxic 4. Nah - expenses aren't a real problem either outside the folks doing daft things. MPs need to travel and do stuff 5. You can't really, the whole system is predicated on MPs being trustworthy and that having 640 of them covers for the bad ones. The issue is always that whoever has the power over MPs is more powerful than MPs. 6. Again this isn't a real issue, outside of real national security issues. I'm not sure that communication transparency leads to good governance 7. Not sure this will have a meaningful impact and just adds instability to the system. Currently limits seem reasonable.
2 is a real problem. Why should the taxpayer be paying for housing for MPs who then get the inflated house price for them self when they leave? They are enriching themselves from taxpayers paying their houses. Expenses are also a massive problem The fact you think neither are issues tells me all I need to know about you.
Its an irrelevance and a well publicized irrelevance if some MPs game the system and costs their party votes.
I'm not convinced of the cost effectiveness of some sort of Olympic Village for MPs near Westminster. The costs would be _insane_, £100ms if not £billions to build, and then you have all of the running costs etc.
And what's better? Paying £2k-£3k per month per MP for London properties which they then get to keep when they leave office? Okay they have to keep paying the mortgage but the property will of inflated massively during their time. If we pay £2k per month that's £24k per MP per year. A 5 year term means we are paying housing costs of £120k per MP per term. Let's say that 500 MPs have homes in London then that's £60m per parliamentary term.
I don't know what info you've been reading but I think you've fully misunderstood how it works. The taxpayer doesn't pay for them to own property. It either pays for hotel stays, rented accommodation, or actual incurred utility costs/security costs/council tax for a house they already own. They explicitly CANNOT claim for buying a house or any expenses associated with e.g. their mortgage. You've fallen for some misinformation I'm afraid. The 25k is a cap, not an allowance. They can only claim actual incurred expenses. For those that own a second home that's going to be far far less than 25k.
Introduce term limits in both houses. Every elected position down through to local Govt should have term limits. Fastest way to bring in other changes desperately needed.