Parliamentary Reform

An article in the Guardian contains a link to an extremely interesting document which has been sent to all candidates for the office of Speaker in the House of Commons. A link in the article accesses the document which, as the Guardian article says, contains many radical proposals for change.

As has been posted previously, to allow the present collection of MPs, who have been guilty of 'abuse' of their system of remuneration, to elect one of their number to the position of Speaker is ludicrous. It also begs the question that if the electorate are entitled to choose their MP, should they not also choose the Speaker - in which event it can be argued that Frank Field would be a 'shoe-in'.

Presently, all the 'ideas' being suggested to 'revive our democracy', 'clean up parliament', etc lend themselves to accusations of 'tinkering at the edges' and what is needed is a debate on the entire subject of our democracy - a 'democracy' which has been totally ruined by the actions of the present government.

It is also a ludicrous situation whereby Parliament attempts to 'cleanse itself', 'promote transparency', and 'revive our 'democracy' when it does not really 'govern' this country, due to our membership of the European Union.