Rescuing
Democracy in the United Kingdom from our current Elected
Dictatorship
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Spin, not
face-to-face confrontations with the voters, is the Government's
chosen method of communication. Ordinary
people are dangerous. Ordinary people might ask a question
which throws a politician 'off message'; the Cabinet member
might reveal himself or herself to be a human being like
us, and not a programmed android. Worse still, he or she
might tell the truth.
Ann Leslie - Daily Mail, September
16, 2004
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We
have all been QUANGOED -
What cost £24bn a year, keep Tony's Cronies
in comfy jobs, do nothing for the country? by Edward Heathcoat
Amory - Daily Mail, January 19, 2005
New
Labour loves quangos. They fulfil a number of Tony Blair's criteria.
Their creation allows the Government to be seen to do something.
They permit the Prime Minister to appoint his friends, rather
than inconvenient political colleagues, to key roles. If they
go wrong, Tony Blair can blame the quango, rather than his government,
for the failure.
Small
wonder that the quango state has proliferated under Labour. At
the last count there were 849 central government quangos, more
than 5,000 local quangos, and several hundred temporary 'task
forces' that don't make it into the statistics. Together they
employ more than 100,000 people and dispose of £24 billion
a year, mostly from the taxpayer. They are a massive force in
British life.
The
activity of many of these bodies is shrouded in secrecy. Only
one third of advisory quangos publish annual reports, only 3%
must consult the public, only 42% allow public access to registers
of their member's interests. They take important decisions, but
are not accountable to the electorate. Every year, the Government
publishes less information about their activities.
All
too often the people appointed to these key roles are incompetent.
The Millennium Dome was mismanaged by the quangocracy, and distribution
of Lottery funds more generally has been a comprehensive quango
failure.
Others
are politically biased. A recent report found that four times
as many Labour supporters as Tory supporters have been appointed
to quangos in the past three years, so accusations of cronyism
are not surprising. Given all these Labour cronies appointed to
quangos, it is inevitable that they do New Labour's bidding.
The
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, far from maintaining
the value of exams, has presided over their watering down. The
independent commission on awarding honours has handed them out
to the usual suspects. The Strategic Rail Authority has aided
and abetted the Government's muddle and mess on the railways.
All this makes this week's Conservative promise to scrap a modest
168 quangos and save more than £4 billion all the more welcome.
Below, we list ten quangos which Britain would be better off without.
Agricultural
Wages Board
Earlier
this year, Britain's mushroom growers won a famous victory, securing
the right for their mushroom pickers to be classified as manual
harvest workers, thus allowing lower minimum levels of pay. Agricultural
wages continue to be regulated by a special board - set up in
1917 - and 14 additional review bodies. They are wholly out of
place in Britain's modern market economy, and it is one of those
strange quirks of British government that they have survived for
so long.
Centre
for Management and Policy Studies
A
college for Sir Humphreys, at which civil servants learn the finer
arts of bamboozling ministers and wasting our money. Courses include
Pathways 4, training up a group of senior managers from the ethnic
minorities (cost: £12,500 per person); one day's training
in advance media skills (£775); Become The Leader You Want
To Be (£1,300); Effective Speech Writing (£1,200);
and Managing Your Confidence (£1,010).
Altogether,
this ridiculous institution runs through around £30 million
of public money every year.
Commission
for Integrated Transport
Another
pointless quango set up by John Prescott to oversee progress on
the Government's nonexistent transport policy, the commission
costs taxpayers £1.5 million a year to generate hot air.
Among their suggestions is the Stalinist plan that every car in
Britain should be tracked by satellite, via electronic 'black
boxes' fitted to dashboards.
Commission
for Patient and Public Involvement in Health
We don't have genuine choice in the NHS, but
we do have yet another quango, set up in 2003, to give the illusion
that patients are being consulted before the NHS makes life and
death decisions on our behalf. They administer 572 mini-quangos
- Patient and Public Involvement Forums - around Britain. This
must be one of Britain's most expensive fig leaves, however, since
it cost taxpayers nearly £25 million last year.
Office
for Fair Access
In
addition to forcing ordinary Britons to stump up £3,000/year
in tuition fees to get university education, Labour have introduced
this new layer of bossy and politically correct regulation. Its
job will be to bully those universities the Government believes
are being too elitist - in other words, insisting on some academic
entry standards - and force them to take suitable quotas from
every socio-economic group, regardless of ability. Its initial
budget is only £500,000 a year, but it will do incalculable
damage to our already politicised higher education system.
Office
of Public Services Reform
If
you aren't planning to do something in politics, set up an organisation
whose name suggests that you are. To conceal their comprehensive
failure to reform the public services, the Government set up this
group within the Cabinet Office in 2001. It has cost £12.9
million and counting, has a permanent staff of around 30, and
a brief to make the Prime Minister look good. So far, it has presided
over three years of decline in public service productivity.
Prime
Minister's Delivery Unit
Not
to be confused with the Strategy Unit or the Office of Public
Services Reform, the Delivery Unit is another part of the growing
No 10 apparatus designed to present Mr Blair in the best possible
light. It is headed by Michael Barber, the Prime Minister's Chief
Adviser on Delivery, has been up and running for three years,
has 40 people working for it at a cost of £12.9 million
so far, and has achieved nothing.
Strategy
Unit
Yet
another unit within No 10, this was set up in 2002 and to date
has cost £14.8 million. It specialises in organising strategic
thinkers' seminars, publishing pointless papers such as the Strategy
Survival Guide, and fighting turf wars with other units in the
growing Downing Street complex.
Unit
Learning Fund
Set
up in 1998, this is a back-door mechanism for handing out taxpayers'
cash - £40 million over the current three-year period -
to Labour's paymasters in the Union movement. Under the guise
of extra money for 'learning', this has given massive extra funding
to the union movement, who are the sole beneficiaries. As the
TUC has acknowledged, this financial support has led to rising
union membership.
Wilton Park
There
are many fine conference centres located around Britain, but the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office is apparently too grand to use
such commercial institutions, and maintains its own fine country
house conference location. This remaining example of Civil Service
luxury costs taxpayers in the region of £4 million a year.
For
the health of our democracy, we, the people of the United Kingdom,
must find a way to force Mr Blair to resign
Such
defiance of the democratic process and the will of the majority
of we people of the UK, must be exposed by voters as a matter
or urgency, and not just in the two by-elections we have had this
July and the European elections in June 2004. But how can this
be done?
The
most effective way of getting our deceitful PM to resign would
be to mobilise the army of Labour MPs currently in the House of
Commons and get them to demand it, the loss of their seat to be
a penalty if they did not. All voters in Labour-held constituencies
need to write a letter along these lines to their local Labour
MPs:
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Dear
Despite
his absolute and unequivocal assurances over the past year
of the serious risk to our security of Saddam Hussein's
'weapons of mass destruction', Prime Minister Blair
has admitted, that the threat was non-existent. For that
critical error of judgement and for his gross incompetence
in handling this very important issue, I ask you to take
immediate steps to ensure that Tony Blair does the honourable
thing and resign without delay..
I
would therefore be much obliged if you would propose and
help mobilise a Parliamentary vote of 'No Confidence' in
Mr Blair which, despite Labour's huge majority, would leave
the PM with no option but to resign.
If
I get no reply to this letter, I shall assume you will continue
to support Mr Blair as our Prime Minister. In such circumstances
I shall not vote for you in the forthcoming General Election.
Signed:
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Simple,
non-violent, protest letters along these lines on a variety of
issues could be the basis for re-vitalising our democracy and
increasing voters' interest and participation in politics. Download
a printable copy of the above letter here.
There
is another way for the voice of the silent majority to be heard,
a voice that made sure broken promises would not only be revealed,
but punished in subsequent elections.
In
the year available before the General Election expected in 2005,
many topics are available as ammunition, each one asking questions.
A weapon for our purpose will be the results of Opinion Polls
in individual constituencies using ICM, NOP, Gallop, Mori
or YouGov.
Questions
suggested for this purpose are listed here.
CAST
YOUR VOTE ON A VARIETY OF OTHER IMPORTANT ISSUES HERE.
Current
and prospective Parliamentary candidates of all Parties running
for election could share a platform at public forums in every
constituency. They would be presented with the results of
polls on this issue expressed by the majority of voters in that
constituency.
The candidates could be asked if their own views and that of their
Party manifesto corresponded with the polls, and if not, how they
intended to represent the will of the majority of local voters.
Local and National Press, Radio and TV coverage would be arranged
and the results published on this web site.
Here
is another powerful strategy for using your vote effectively in
the forthcoming General Election. Send your sitting and prospective
MPs a letter defining your requirements if they want your vote.
This example deals with the proposed
EU Constitutional Treaty.
Your
letters would end: "If you do not answer
this letter, I shall take it that you intend to follow the Government
line. I shall act accordingly in the forthcoming General Election.
Or
why not create a questionnaire that you send to all the candidates
in your constituency, getting them to give yes/no answers to questions
of your choice, and ending it with the same paragraph(above).
Download
a printable example of the questionnaire.
It
is high time for the people of this United Kingdom to stop allowing
themselves to be manipulated by politicians. We need our representatives
in Parliament to genuinely reflect the view of the majority in
their own constituency, even if this means going against their
personal and/or their party's policy. While they may argue their
case, hoping to change the minds of the majority in their constituency,
they should ultimately be obliged to reflect the majority view
of those who elect them.
It
will be argued by politicians of all parties that most voters
don't have the knowledge necessary to express an opinion on important
subjects at issue, and that our vote is a form of delegated democracy.
We should argue that it is their duty to ensure that we voters
do have ready access to such information as is necessary to form
an intelligent opinion. That, after all, is one main purpose of
Opposition Parties in our Parliamentary Democracy.
Most
important of all, such proceedings would rekindle in voters their
latent interest and obligation to cast their vote, knowing that
the candidate of their choice would be more likely to act in accordance
with their wishes. A much higher turnout in elections would be
the result.
Contact
your local Party Chairman. Gain his support for setting up public
forums in your constituency on these, as well as any other relevant
topics, well before the next General Election expected in 2005.
You should then, depending on the integrity of the candidate of
your choice, feel fairly certain that your view on any subject
being debated in Parliament will more accurately be reflected
by your representative in that assembly.
