Some people in this country, me included, believe there’s something pretty wrong with ‘democracy’ in the UK. It’s blown a gasket. It’s belching stinking pollution. It rattles and it bangs and threatens to seize up altogether at any moment.

Most people just stand around it, kicking the tyres and exclaiming, ‘nah, it’s alright, it’ll go round the clock another couple of times no bother.’ Jack Straw thinks it just needs another coat of paint and it’ll be sorted.

You get the impression that he knows what’s going on under the bonnet but doesn’t want to admit it to himself let alone those of us risking our lives by riding along in the death trap. It needs rebuilding or trading in, if we’re honest.
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With the Christmas festivities safely concluded, I’ve decided to take a little time out from some truly excellent Christmas reading - Christopher Hitchens’ “Portable Atheist” is well worth the investment in book tokens - to tackle one of the most risible pieces of hypocritical political sophistry I’ve seen in some considerable time…

…Iain Dale’s ‘campaign‘ for fixed term parliaments.

Like Matthew Sinclair, I’m by no means averse to the idea of fixed parliamentary terms, but unlike Iain and other new found Tory converts to the ’cause’ of constitutional reform I actually understand the workings of the British constitution, in theory and practice, well enough to appreciate that the introduction of even a seemingly simple innovation, like fixed parliamentary terms, would require a significant restructuring of our entire constitutional settlement in order to prove workable, not least in necessitating a far greater and more substantive separation between the executive and legislature than has existed at any time since the English Civil War. Continue reading…

Last week I wrote this piece for Liberal Conspiracy about how government websites aren’t exactly built to facilitate the new era of positive political engagement with the public we’re told our masters want.

Specifically, I highlighted Lord Goldsmith’s citizenship review, it’s call for the views of the public, and how if you don’t have the resources to print the review’s PDF pamphlets from the website, you are asked to contact the review team.

So, I did. I asked how I obtain a hard copy of the pamphlet ‘The Future of Citizenship Ceremonies‘. On November 6.

Still no reply a week later.

I’ve been giving some thought to positive engagement with political processes - I like the idea of producing a kind of rough and ready primer for the man or woman in the street who wants to get their voice heard.

The Queen’s Speech seems the ideal place to start. So, head to the Number 10 website. Click on the special section all about the Queen’s Speech and select the list of bills, draft bills and statements to see what issues were covered in the speech.

Let’s take a look the Citizenship and Immigration Draft Bill. They’re hot, emotive issues right now. There’s not a lot of detail in the PDF document (what is it about this government and PDFs?) but there is a link at the bottom to Lord Goldsmith’s citizenship review.

Except the link doesn’t work. You can’t click through to the review’s webpage from the PDF document. You can either type the web address manually into your web browser or try another angle.
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