Political Economy

The Conservative, Labour and Liberal-Democrats do not want to give the people of England their own Parliament. The reasons they give are varied. Some, such as Straw and Prescott are quite happy to insult the English cultural identity and care not that this is a deeply racist action, under the Race Relations Act, and also offensive, confident that their position will give them protection.

Some of them mutter on about England being 80% of the population of the UK and therefore do not need a separate parliament. This argument is either based on an ignorance of Pareto’s principle or an attempt to manipulate people by misquoting it (see my blog at http://www.politicaleconomy.me.uk/2010/01/only-english-mps-voting-on-english-matters/).

None of them mention democracy. liberty, equity, dignity, rights, fairness, self-determination, birth-right, entitlement. All words one would expect a serious and committed parliamentarian to use with respect to this issue. But notice how in this election campaign they have promised “fairness for all” in order to get your vote! How dishonest can they be?

You will, therefore, probably not be surprised that the real reason why they do not want a parliament for England is quite different from the one they give, and infinitely grubbier. Yes, it concerns money, lots of your money and my money, in fact £2,000,000 of our money. Money that they do not deserve, money that they are happy to scam off you and I, just as they did with their expenses

They are trying to kid us that they have cleaned up the financial systems in Parliament, that they are squeaky clean, that it will never happen again. What is “it”? Quite simply “it” is the same greed that made them unable to tell when a rule is immoral, dishonest, or unethical. Remember that MPs caught out ‘flipping’ their houses to make untaxed capital gains off the taxpayer, or claiming repairs to their boyfriend’s house? All said “We were only following the rules” (see my blog at http://www.politicaleconomy.me.uk/2009/10/how-the-rich-and-powerful-scam-the-rules-for-their-own-benefit/ .

Well here is another big, fat, round £2,000,000 rule they are quite happy to follow even though in doing so they are taking money they have not earned, money that comes from me and you, money that they should not be getting. Not that is if they were men and women of integrity.

Many of the plum jobs as Secretary of State or Minister in the Westminster cabinet are for devolved matters. That is those that matters such as Education, Health, Justice and Transport to name a few. These matters have been devolved to national parliaments or assemblies either in part or whole. Westminster Secretaries of State basically administer only England in these matters. They should get paid the same as their equivalent in the Scottish Parliament. In the case of a secretary of state this is £44,000 less, of a minister £24,000 less if they were in an English Parliament (they would also get £7,000 less for their salary). There are around 70 of these plum jobs to be handed out after the 6th May adding up to excess pay of around £2,000,000.

Now you get “it”, the real reason why they do not want an English Parliament. Men of Honour? I do not think they know the meaning of the phrase.

I currently find myself, somewhat late in life, a prospective parliamentary candidate in the Stevenage, Hertfordshire constituency for  the election on the 6th May 2010 for the English Democrats Party (EDP). The EDP are an English party that occupies broadly the same political position in England as the Scottish Nationalist Party in Scotland or Plaid Cymru in Wales.

Being part of a small, fairly new party, the EDP are eight years old, means that you have to do pretty much everything yourself. As a result my wife I found ourselves a week ago on Sunday, with the EDP candidate for Broxbourne, at a car boot sale to raise funds for our campaign. We were onsite and fully decked-out with four England car window flags fluttering in the wind, election posters on the car and our table covered in a large England flag.

Car Boot Sale

The car boot sale proceeded as car boot sales proceed with one exception. We were amazed at the number of  people who came up to us and told us how brave we were to do what we were doing! I was shocked. The individuals all spoke in low voices and were clearly afraid to speak up. How could this be? We were in England flying the flag of England. What could be more normal? And yet to these people, we were doing something dangerous, something that required fearlessness and courage, something that made a forbidden statement, that broke the law, that was somehow illegal, in England!

“There is a forgotten, nay almost forbidden word, which means more to me than any other. That word is ENGLAND.” said Winston Churchill, himself, by birth, half English and half American. Being English you see is not a matter of genes or skin colour. It is a matter of the heart. Say those words again but this time imagine a stream of people coming up to you and whispering how brave you are into your ear. If you are not beginning to be afraid then you have not understood what is happening.

Five days later I was on my own manning a stall in the Town Centre of Stevenage. Once again the table was dressed with bunting and posters. No one came up to say how brave I was. Instead three foreigners, two Irishmen and a Spaniard came and all indepe

Stevenage Town Centre Stand

ndently said much the same thing. “Its about time this is happening, good for you”. “The English allow themselves to be pushed aside too often. Well done for what you are doing”. “This is a good day for England. You English suffer from a totally make-believe guilt. Why, I do not know. What you are doing is good”. Notice that they were foreigners. They had no problem being upfront about telling the truth as they saw it. And most importantly no one could blame them for it. They had no reason to be afraid to raise their voices.

Whilst at the University of Chicago in the late 60s studying for an MBA at the business school  I took time out to attend two course in political science given by Professor Hans Morgenthau. Morgenthau was a remarkable teacher. A German Jew who left Europe before the second world war he was a charismatic man whose lectures attracted huge numbers. Given in the largest lecture hall of the time, at the university, you had to get there early if you wanted even a space to stand let alone sit. Applying Morgenthau’s analysis to England to-day the result is clear. We have real problems in our democracy, a major group not only feel but are disenfranchised, violence is existential. It will take just a match to light the powder keg.

Sounds overly dramatic? Think again. A major group do feel frightened and disenfranchised. It is not only I who have noticed it but three different people from elsewhere have as well. The effect is not imagined. What is more, it is happening as a direct consequence of government policy. This is not a mistake. It is real and it is being done on purpose as a piece of viciousness that is difficult to believe. The analysis is valid and credible. I say credible because for a thousand years the only way the English have been able to protect their freedom from the ruling classes has been by violence. And this is not something that happened a long time ago. Only in the last century the women suffragettes, at the start, and the poll tax protestors at the end, had to fight for their freedoms. So it will happen, again.

The people responsible for allowing this state of affairs to happen are, without any doubt, those who have held seats as Members of Parliament (MP)  for English constituencies. Not Scottish or Welsh or Northern Irish MPs, but English MPs. It was their job to make sure this didn’t happen. Why did they not do their job to protect democracy? We now know the reason. Those very few who did stand up for their principles were beaten down and overlooked for important positions. More profitable instead for MPs to ripp-off the taxpayer with their expense claims without, apparently, the integrity to know that it was wrong. Many have claimed that they were merely following the rules, forgetting perhaps that by blindly doing so they were showing themselves open to being corrupted by anyone who chose to create a bribery machine that had ‘rules’. They also showed they were not up to the job. They failed, without apparently even knowing they were being tested. They were totally unsuited to the task, lacking the morale fibre, the power of independent thought and backbone needed by someone in their position.

So I say Shame! Shame on you Mother of Parliaments! Shame!. Bow your head in Shame! I live for the day when you will bow your  knee to the People of England! And by the Grace of God, and the votes of the people of England I will see that day!

As the English Democrats say “Isn’t it Time to Put England First”. Yes it is and a vote for the EDP will do that. So vote English Democrat and if you do not have an EDP candidate standing in your constituency vote for a party that is a member of the “Alliance for Democracy” – there are over 260 Alliance candidates, enough to be the largest party in parliament. If enough of us are voted in to Parliament we may even be able to head off the gathering storm! But that is the view of an optimist. Hans Morgenthau was a realist, his life taught him that!

If you want to know more, and especially if you would like to make a donation go to www.hertsengdem.org. In the mean time as you vote say, to yourself or outloud, the EDP mantra: “Not Left, Not Right, Not Black, Not White, Just English!”

Surprisingly this is one of the questions that divides those who want a Parliament for England. And yet, as a look at the arithmetic od representation shows, the answer is very simple and one on which all sides of this question can agree.

The key here are the number of elected representatives associated with national government rather than local government.  The situation will be as follows after the next election. The House of Commons will have 650 seats.

England            533 seats    82%

Scotland             59 seats       9%

Wales                 40 seats       6%

N.I.                      18 seats      3%

If we are to continue to have an Upper Chamber then the House of Lords will have to go, to be replaced by an elected chamber. A government can then choose its cabinet, ministers and so on from both elected chambers.

The task then is to decide how many MPs will be needed to carry out the much reduced level of government expenditure that will result from devolving much of the work to the English Parliament.

Wading through the statistics of government expenditure is not much fun, nor very easy but it seems safe to make the assumption that about half of the expenditure of the government is associated with devolved matters. Another requirement is that currently a governing party has to be able to provide between 140 and 150 Secretaries of States, Ministers and so on to run the business of government.  To give a reasonable choice, since not all elected MPs will be suitable, the governing party currently needs around 300 members. If this is just sufficient for a majority then there needs to be around 600 members in the House. Around half of these posts will move with devolved matters to the English Parliament. These numbers indicate that the House of Commons can reduce to half its size or 300 – 325 without causing problems. In the USA Congress and the Senate have, in total,  535 members for a voting population of around 216 million. Compare this to the 45 million voters in the UK. This would equate to a House of Commons and Upper Chamber of 112, a vastly smaller number.

It seems then that if we had a harder working Parliament we would need no more than 300 members split 200 MPs to the House of Commons and 100 Senators to the elected Upper Chamber.

How big would the English Parliament have to be? There are around 38 million voters in England. The largest constituency has around 110,000 voters. Bearing in mind that English voters would have representation through their MP and Senator it seems that an English Parliament constituency could be sized between 100,00 up to  150,000 in size. This would indicate that there could be as many as 380 constituencies or as few as 250. Given that to provide the 70 or so Ministers and parliamentary secretaries required by an English Government the majority party would need around 140 MEPs (Member of the English Parliament, sorry but the other lot wil have to rename themselves, MEuPs perhaps!)  The English Parliament would have to be at least 280 in size. On this basis a total of 300 constituencies seems generous.

The question of where these various bodies would sit is now clear. They could continue to sit at Westminster. One debating chamber could be allocated to the English Parliament whilst the other would be shared by the Commons and Senate. Since much of the work of PArliament is done in committees there is no reason why, when one house is using the committee rooms the other cannot be using the debating chamber.

Such a proposal would show a savings of 100% of the current direct costs (members expenses, staff and other costs) of  the House of Lords of around £50 million. In addition with a total of 600 MEPs, MPs and Senators there would be the saving of the current direct costs of 50 MPs and some savings of salaries if MEPs are going to be paid less than an MP as are MSP at the moment. Say a saving of another £10 million or £60 million in total. Finally the House of Lords overflow offices at 1, Millbank will no longer be required. This building could be rented, sold or converted into accommodation for members. The same conversion could be done to part of one or other of the buildings currently also used for office space, Portcullis House and the Norman Shaw Buildings

We started with 650 elected MPs and over 700 members of the House of Lords, of whom, on average, around 400 attend daily. We have ended up with 600 elected reresentatives, with more than enough space to do their work and a not unreasonable level of cost savings.

It isn’t just David Cameron schmoozing this idea. Now POWER2010 http://www.power2010.org.uk have jumped on the bandwagon whilst engaging in a very worthwhile exercise in deliberative democracy. That deliberative democracy is not the solution to our current woes, that it is not without its problems, one being the narrow basis on which policies are selected – a scientifically chosen sample of 130 individuals (my emphasis) – is clear from my rant below. However do not let this dissuade you from going to their site and voting on what you think are the most important issues for democracy today.

One question I would like to know the answer to is who was allowed to vote on this issue. If it was just the  “scientifically’ chosen English amongst the 130 then that is one matter. However if it was everyone then the vote is invalidated straight away – The English have never been allowed to vote on devolution in Wales, Scotland or N. Ireland!

How Power 2010 could have failed to select an English Parliament as one of their issues I do not know. Over 50% of voters in England regularly support the idea in opinion polls. They do so because an English Parliament gives the people of England  a government of the English, by the English, for the English, just as the Scots, Welsh and N. Irish have for themselves.

Having a glorified Commons Committee, subject to the other nations simply because it is a committee of the House, does not provide a government of the English, by the English for the English. And what will happen after the Commons? Will the bill go through to the Lords to be adjudicated on by the Scots, Welsh, and N. Irish?

Does this proposal require that Cabinet Ministers for devolved matters (Health, Education, Transport, Justice and so on) only come from English constituencies? And will these and only these Cabinet Ministers make decisions in Cabinet about English matters, sitting on the English, yet again, sub-committee?

A clearer example of confused thinking and poorly thought out logic is difficult to find.

Currently three, 75%,  out of the four nations, having 16% of the population, have their own government. In round terms 20% of the people have 80% of the democracy! This is a clear and absolute nonsense and no clearer example of Pareto’s Principle need be given http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto%27s_principle.

When Jack Straw (Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice in the Westminster government, that most racist of governments!) claims that the English cannot have a Parliament because they constitute 84% of the population he is not showing his ignorance of Pareto. Misquoting Pareto is a ‘cunning plan’ based on a clear assumption that the electorate are a bunch of ignorant idiots who will not recognise his statement as a misquote, but rather treat it as a clever analysis of the issue, which it is not.

Do not vote for this committee approach. It is disrespectful to the English, it makes the English less equal than the other nations, it is extremely unfair to the English and worst of all it will not work!  Better by far to have a Parliament for the English, an elected House of Lords and a House of Commons with, in total, no more elected representatives than currently are elected or debate matters. No extra cost and much greater democracy!

I suppose Power2010 will come up with the usual excuses for putting forward this idea, along the lines of “It wasn’t us gov.”, or “I was only following the rules” or “The committee we appointed made these decisions” -  (whine, whine, whinge, whinge). Shame on you! This is a disgrace!

David Cameron’s motive for putting the idea forward is clearer. He has already said that he does not want to be “Prime Minster of England”, conveniently forgetting, or perhaps never understanding, that the devolved governments are led by a First Minster and not a Prime Minster – not much respect for the English there, then. The real reason he made the remark is of course about Power. It is correct that most of the work of government occurs in the matters that are devolved; Justice, Health, Education and so on. This means that most of the key levers for getting re-elected or gaining the confidence of the electorate are in devolved matters. Given that 84% of the votes are in the 84% of the devolved English matters you can see how Cameron, Clegg and Brown (and Straw) want to keep these matters within reach of their sticky fingers, close to their greedy hearts and out of Control of the English for ever.

It might be of course that Cameron just wishes to distance himself from Bonar-Law an earlier Conservative Prime Minister, a Scot, born in 1858 in New Brunswick (the Canadian Confederation did not occur until 1867) but raised in Scotland, who referred to himself as the Prime Mister of England [The Making of the English National Identity by K. Kumar, ISBN 0521777364]. Bonar-Law became leader of the Conservative Party  after Aurthur Balfour (also a Scot) and became Prime Minister in 1922 but sadly had to resign in 1923 due to throat cancer. His was the shortest Prime Ministership of the twentieth century and he is known as the Unknown Prime Minister. A name Cameron will not want!