The List gets longer
The MPs we've interviewed to support the Misrepresentation of the People Act are being put through the editing grinder. The list grows longer on a daily basis - Jack Straw, Harriet Harman, David Davis, George Osborne - we'll be posting them shortly.
Needless to say - none of the above were terribly for the Act. All accepted the principles behind it ;
We, the people, are sovereign.
We grant this sovereignty to our elected representatives in Parliament.
Whilst representing our sovereignty, our elected representatives have fundamental obligations to be honest, transparent and accountable to us.
Most have even accepted the fact that at the moment, we have no formal, legal, independent means of redress. We just can't get one of 'em to step up to the bat.
Their main counter arguments run along the lines of...
1) There are other ways of holding MPs and Ministers to account - the press, Parliamentary questions, the Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards (we'll be posting what he had to say next week).
2) Judges aren't elected (more examination of this to follow)
Your well-informed comments on these are very much desired.
if 'the people' are ever going to have sovereignty, then every official in the judiciary system will have to be elected
ReplyDeleteBut it surely stands for something that 81% of the public trust the judiciary compared with a lame 23% who trust government ministers to tell the truth?
ReplyDelete