Britain’s media, particularly the BBC, is shamefully closed to new ideas. Sky News should be more like Fox News
“How long would we stay in the European Union if our representatives had to take our views seriously?”
If only Britain was a real democracy like America, where the Tea Party has shaken American politics to the core and the views of the majority cannot be denied.
Look at the miserable system we have. The ConDem coalition, which nobody voted for, says it will govern until 2015. That’s five years without any accountability at all. We have a second chamber which used to be ruled by inherited power now “reformed” by the Labour Party and controlled by geriatric, appointed losers. Just tune into a Lords debate and weep at the sight of these corrupt old failures dozing on the benches at our expense. And most importantly, Parliament, charged with calling the government to account, is in hoc to it.
There is no apparent end to the number of shameful actions done in our name which most citizens abhor, but which they can do nothing about. The latest is the news that the European Court of Human Rights can dictate to us that criminals must have the vote. Our limp-wristed prime minister shrugs his shoulders and says nothing can be done. What a lie. Of course something can be done. Pull out of the treaty which set up the court. Tell the court this is an affront to our freedom and democracy and we will not comply. The ongoing insult to democracy that is the European Union is never going to be changed under our current system, where, like the House of Lords, the European institutions beckon as well paid non-jobs for British failures.
The Tea Party movement in the U.S. was also helped by the fact that America has a much more diverse and comprehensive media than us. Forget all this garbage about the BBC somehow being the best in the world. No, the BBC, in its corrupt, all-encompassing monopoly of our airwaves, stifles dissent. Only tired old cliché arguments can be heard. It’s always traditional arguments that are set up between Labour and Conservative and occasionally the LibDems. In America, Fox News allowed the Tea Party to air its views, with media star Glen Back championing their cause. On the radio, Rush Limbaugh every day allows dissenting voices against the conventional wisdom to have their say. All we have is NewsNight for about 45 minutes a day, and Radio 5 live giving the unemployed and the unemployable rant time when most people are working. In America there are multiple channels allowing all kinds of opinions, from the soppy Marxists on MSNBC to the libertarians and freedom fighters on Fox News.
Token vote
The trouble is, in Britain citizens will never have any sway over our government, except for the five-yearly token vote, unless we undertake some serious reform. Let’s start with primary elections. If you have been following what happened in America, it all started with the primaries, and not the anodyne version proposed by David Cameron. He wants “open” primaries. What a disaster that would be, almost guaranteeing that a compromise, wet and inoffensive candidate would be adopted. And how can you have open primaries when there might be multiple parties? No, primaries must be introduced so that registered party members of all the parties can vote for their nominations. Not the behind closed doors version that we see now, with Conservative central Office dictating who the candidates will be. In America, this is where the Tea Party was able to bring pressure to bear, and made sure that RINOs – Republican In Name Only – were defeated and proper conservatives selected.
In California there were two women running for governor and senator for the Republican Party. There was former e-Bay CEO Meg Whitman running for Governor, and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina bidding for a Senate seat. These women had proved themselves in the world of business and sought to bring this experience into government. They won through because of primaries. They didn’t time serve at Central Office straight from University. They were out in the real world achieving. The likes of Cameron, Miliband and Clegg are seriously lightweight. Look at “Baroness” Warsi – unelected, appointed and an unaccountable mover and shaker in the ConDem government. Sadly, Whitman and Fiorina lost, only underlining the fact that bankrupt California is in the state it’s in because of its boneheaded electorate. It is little consolation for the losers that California is so broke, it will have to take a begging bowl to Washington. After the election results, Washington will certainly say, no way.
Vote for the Lords
But back to us ill-governed British. The House of Lords must be elected. Nobody seems to disagree, but nothing is done. We need to make some serious changes in the way Parliament holds the government to account. It is plainly ludicrous that Parliamentarians charged with this task are the movers and shakers in government itself. We need to insist that government members cannot be MPs. Any MP offered a government job would have to resign. This would make our system more like America’s, where the President appoints a Cabinet, whose members have to be approved by Congress/Parliament. Government policy in the U.S. is subject to powerful committee review, unlike our system, where the monitors of government actions are often seeking to suck up to the government for jobs and advancement.
So here’s a start to reform. Elect the Lords, introduce proper primary elections, and restore Parliament’s authority over the government. Stripping the BBC of its monopoly would be a big help too.
How long would we stay in the European Union if our representatives had to take our views seriously?
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