Saturday 9 October 2010

An Interesting Question

Autonomous Mind posts on the article in today's Telegraph by Charles Moore viz-a-viz David Cameron (link to the article in AM's post), the latter with whom I met yesterday at one of his surgeries.

Whilst my meeting with Mr. Cameron may well prove fruitful - the subject of which was Sheltered Housing, Warden retention, Housing Law being used to subvert Contract Law to remove Wardens and the dictatorial attitude of the Legal Services Commission - I began my alloted 15 minutes with a question to him. In seeking an appointment with one's MP with a view to obtaining support for rectification of what is seen as a problem; in his (David Cameron's) particular case, am I talking to my constituency MP or the Prime Minister - the answer to which was "Both".

That answer raises the question of whether a Prime Minister should also be a constituency MP, because as Prime Minister David Cameron must always temper his 'support' for a constituent's case/complaint with government policy, a government of which he is the Leader. In other words, how can  a constituent rely on his/her MP fighting their corner in Parliament when that MPs views/decisions are dictating policy?

Another 'deficit' in our present 'democracy'?


Just thinking......................

4 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

That has always been a fundamental dilemma - should a politician put principles/national interest first, or the interests of the people in his small area?

For example, let's agree (for the sake of this discussion) that the London-Birmingham HS2 railway is A Good Idea, taking the interests of seven million people in London and another million in and around Birmingham; and minussing off the minor inconvenience caused to a few thousand households along the route.

Should the Tory MPs of constituencies along the route (they are all Tory - the whole of England south of Birmingham is Tory) oppose HS2 with all venom, merely because it sells well with local NIMBYs, or should they be explaining to their constituents that overall, this is an excellent investment (assuming for these purposes that it proveably is)?
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This is another argument for having one house of Parliament along geographical constituency lines and the other being along some other lines (party lines? lottery? individuals? appointees from mass membership pressure groups such as trade unions or churches? I dunno).

Sue said...

Didn't you feel like smacking him?

Witterings from Witney said...

Nice try MW with the NIMBYISM example, but the question remains and that is whose interests is an MP elected to represent - his constituents or his country?

Sue, who am I supposed to smack, MW or DC? If the former, no way - he's a friend and bigger than me!

Sue said...

No, not Mark, he's one of us. That socialist Cameron :)