The Conservatives in government claim they are against a big state, but they are still obsessed with holding on to powers that might better be given over to local goverment, or to Europe
The Conservatives always insist they don't want a Big State. So, perhaps it's to their credit that there doesn't seem to be terribly much for parliament to do at the moment. The Lords are having an extra five days off at Easter. MPs may also get an extra week off this year, bringing the number of weeks when parliament isn't sitting up to 24. The Queen's speech has been delayed by a month, suggesting that the government itself feels its plans have no great urgency. One parliamentary insider told the Daily Mail: "Some MPs come down on Monday afternoon and leave by Wednesday afternoon. Everyone keeps quiet about it because they know voters would be horrified."
All of which might explain why the government seems so obsessed with hanging on to the power it still retains, and has so much time on its hands to indulge that obsession. One shudders at reports of David Cameron encouraging Michael Gove to "bear-bait" Boris Johnson. The argument is ostensibly about Johnson's wish to have more control over London schools. Cameron and Gove are against this, because if London wrested more control of schools back to local government level, then other local authorities would clamour for the same thing. A weakening of the control of the Big State? Heaven forfend. Of course, much of this stand-off is really about the threat to the personal power of both men that Johnson, as a popular and populist leader, represents. But much of it is also about what it has always been about – stopping the devolution of power over education from falling into the hands of local democratic institutions that are never controlled by the Conservatives. Whether the transfer of power is upward to Europe, or downwards, either to devolving member countries of the UK or local authorities, the Conservative objection, however it is couched, is always driven by the same motivation – hanging on to the levers of democratic power.
There is one key area, however, in which the Conservatives are not so fond of retaining power. That's when it can be devolved to the private sector, and regulation can be "light touch". David Cameron is well known to be a cheerleader for shale gas fracking. (One can only surmise that the husky he hugged is now feeling very used.) This week, when it was suggested by the National Trust that there should be no fracking in national parks, because of the danger caused to flora and fauna, all ideas of some things being "national" or "sovereign", and therefore the responsibility of the government, went out the window.
Ministers say decisions over where to frack and where not to frack should be made by local councils. That is quite a big responsibility to hand over to people one doesn't seem to trust to run a school. Half the land in the country could be offered for oil and gas drilling during the next year, and national parks are a relatively small proportion of that. You'd think, since the Conservatives have parliamentary debate time on their hands, that the issues raised by the National Trust would at least be worth discussing. But apparently not. Essentially, the Conservatives wish to encourage fracking generally, without getting too entangled in the nitty-gritty of which private company gets what contract.
Yet, if something as potentially dangerous and unpredictable as fracking in national parks is not the business of Westminster, then you have to start asking what Westminster is actually for. Turnouts for local elections are very low, in part because the electorate feels that power is centralised in Westminster. But if local authorities are all that stand between giant private sector concerns such as oil and gas drilling companies and the use and abuse of the land itself, then clearly the democratic focus on Westminster is misdirected. If the Conservatives regard something as debatable as fracking as a local matter, then they should be looking to strengthen local government, which, as is illustrated in the Gove-Johnson standoff, not to mention the question of Scottish independence, they most certainly are not.
Essentially, the Conservatives are arguing that central government control is only good when it suits them. It's good for keeping a lid on the public sector, and bad for keeping a lid on the private sector. For the former, power needs to be devolved up; for the latter, devolved down. This is awful, because it means that the electorate ends up having a say only over how the public sector is run, not how the various sources of power within the country are kept in balance.
As Westminster makes arguments both against centralised power in Europe and against self-determination for Scotland, it becomes painfully obvious that Westminster politicians are mainly in favour of Westminster politicians. An in/out referendum on Europe is promised by the Conservatives, and also by Labour but only, in the latter case, if Europe threatens to remove more of Britain's sovereignty.
But if one casts an eye over the arguments against Scotland gaining self-determination, it would appear that Westminster has plenty of sovereignty – so much power that Scotland simply couldn't extricate itself from London's magnetic pull, even if it decided it wanted to. The latest suggestion, from former head of GCHQ, Sir David Omand, is that an independent Scotland would be more vulnerable to terrorist attack. He also suggests that there would be no guarantee that England would be sharing intelligence with Scotland. This seems somewhat churlish.
Which is it? Has Westminster been so undermined by Europe that it has barely a smidgeon of sovereignty left? Or is Westminster so firmly in control of the UK that the extrication of Scotland is well nigh impossible? It's strange, really, how the arguments in favour of a referendum on Europe are so very firmly in contradiction of arguments in favour of a No vote on Scottish independence. Anyway, the EU president, Jose Manuel Barroso, recently claimed that it would be "difficult, if not impossible" for an independent Scotland to be part of Europe. He says that member states who wanted to prevent regions with their own dreams of autonomy from getting too uppity would block Scotland's membership. Which suggests that Europe tends to entrench national sovereignty as it currently stands, rather than weakening or removing it.
In fact, the logic of the Conservatives dictates the very opposite of all the windy statements they make about the threat of Europe and devolution. If central government wishes to free the private sector, then clearly there has to be stronger local government, because that's the level at which the decisions of businesses affect local people's lives and livelihoods. Yet, since these companies tend also to be multinationals, then an international level of government, such as the EU, is necessary to stop a "race to the bottom" in which each region and each country is bending over backwards to attract short-term inward investment, whatever the cost. What we have actually seen during this parliament is a government successfully making itself irrelevant while creating a huge, empty hullabaloo over how it's doing the opposite. What the electorate of Britain needs is to be far more engaged with both local and European political debate, and a little bit less enamoured of the idea that it's only Westminster that counts.
Actually, it's Westminster that increasingly looks like the anomalous layer of government, even though it's the only layer of government that continues to attract real scrutiny. This is the really worrying democratic deficit in Britain, and the one that urgently needs to be addressed. Reported by guardian.co.uk 7 hours ago.
The Conservatives always insist they don't want a Big State. So, perhaps it's to their credit that there doesn't seem to be terribly much for parliament to do at the moment. The Lords are having an extra five days off at Easter. MPs may also get an extra week off this year, bringing the number of weeks when parliament isn't sitting up to 24. The Queen's speech has been delayed by a month, suggesting that the government itself feels its plans have no great urgency. One parliamentary insider told the Daily Mail: "Some MPs come down on Monday afternoon and leave by Wednesday afternoon. Everyone keeps quiet about it because they know voters would be horrified."
All of which might explain why the government seems so obsessed with hanging on to the power it still retains, and has so much time on its hands to indulge that obsession. One shudders at reports of David Cameron encouraging Michael Gove to "bear-bait" Boris Johnson. The argument is ostensibly about Johnson's wish to have more control over London schools. Cameron and Gove are against this, because if London wrested more control of schools back to local government level, then other local authorities would clamour for the same thing. A weakening of the control of the Big State? Heaven forfend. Of course, much of this stand-off is really about the threat to the personal power of both men that Johnson, as a popular and populist leader, represents. But much of it is also about what it has always been about – stopping the devolution of power over education from falling into the hands of local democratic institutions that are never controlled by the Conservatives. Whether the transfer of power is upward to Europe, or downwards, either to devolving member countries of the UK or local authorities, the Conservative objection, however it is couched, is always driven by the same motivation – hanging on to the levers of democratic power.
There is one key area, however, in which the Conservatives are not so fond of retaining power. That's when it can be devolved to the private sector, and regulation can be "light touch". David Cameron is well known to be a cheerleader for shale gas fracking. (One can only surmise that the husky he hugged is now feeling very used.) This week, when it was suggested by the National Trust that there should be no fracking in national parks, because of the danger caused to flora and fauna, all ideas of some things being "national" or "sovereign", and therefore the responsibility of the government, went out the window.
Ministers say decisions over where to frack and where not to frack should be made by local councils. That is quite a big responsibility to hand over to people one doesn't seem to trust to run a school. Half the land in the country could be offered for oil and gas drilling during the next year, and national parks are a relatively small proportion of that. You'd think, since the Conservatives have parliamentary debate time on their hands, that the issues raised by the National Trust would at least be worth discussing. But apparently not. Essentially, the Conservatives wish to encourage fracking generally, without getting too entangled in the nitty-gritty of which private company gets what contract.
Yet, if something as potentially dangerous and unpredictable as fracking in national parks is not the business of Westminster, then you have to start asking what Westminster is actually for. Turnouts for local elections are very low, in part because the electorate feels that power is centralised in Westminster. But if local authorities are all that stand between giant private sector concerns such as oil and gas drilling companies and the use and abuse of the land itself, then clearly the democratic focus on Westminster is misdirected. If the Conservatives regard something as debatable as fracking as a local matter, then they should be looking to strengthen local government, which, as is illustrated in the Gove-Johnson standoff, not to mention the question of Scottish independence, they most certainly are not.
Essentially, the Conservatives are arguing that central government control is only good when it suits them. It's good for keeping a lid on the public sector, and bad for keeping a lid on the private sector. For the former, power needs to be devolved up; for the latter, devolved down. This is awful, because it means that the electorate ends up having a say only over how the public sector is run, not how the various sources of power within the country are kept in balance.
As Westminster makes arguments both against centralised power in Europe and against self-determination for Scotland, it becomes painfully obvious that Westminster politicians are mainly in favour of Westminster politicians. An in/out referendum on Europe is promised by the Conservatives, and also by Labour but only, in the latter case, if Europe threatens to remove more of Britain's sovereignty.
But if one casts an eye over the arguments against Scotland gaining self-determination, it would appear that Westminster has plenty of sovereignty – so much power that Scotland simply couldn't extricate itself from London's magnetic pull, even if it decided it wanted to. The latest suggestion, from former head of GCHQ, Sir David Omand, is that an independent Scotland would be more vulnerable to terrorist attack. He also suggests that there would be no guarantee that England would be sharing intelligence with Scotland. This seems somewhat churlish.
Which is it? Has Westminster been so undermined by Europe that it has barely a smidgeon of sovereignty left? Or is Westminster so firmly in control of the UK that the extrication of Scotland is well nigh impossible? It's strange, really, how the arguments in favour of a referendum on Europe are so very firmly in contradiction of arguments in favour of a No vote on Scottish independence. Anyway, the EU president, Jose Manuel Barroso, recently claimed that it would be "difficult, if not impossible" for an independent Scotland to be part of Europe. He says that member states who wanted to prevent regions with their own dreams of autonomy from getting too uppity would block Scotland's membership. Which suggests that Europe tends to entrench national sovereignty as it currently stands, rather than weakening or removing it.
In fact, the logic of the Conservatives dictates the very opposite of all the windy statements they make about the threat of Europe and devolution. If central government wishes to free the private sector, then clearly there has to be stronger local government, because that's the level at which the decisions of businesses affect local people's lives and livelihoods. Yet, since these companies tend also to be multinationals, then an international level of government, such as the EU, is necessary to stop a "race to the bottom" in which each region and each country is bending over backwards to attract short-term inward investment, whatever the cost. What we have actually seen during this parliament is a government successfully making itself irrelevant while creating a huge, empty hullabaloo over how it's doing the opposite. What the electorate of Britain needs is to be far more engaged with both local and European political debate, and a little bit less enamoured of the idea that it's only Westminster that counts.
Actually, it's Westminster that increasingly looks like the anomalous layer of government, even though it's the only layer of government that continues to attract real scrutiny. This is the really worrying democratic deficit in Britain, and the one that urgently needs to be addressed. Reported by guardian.co.uk 7 hours ago.