What does this say about interest in politics?
June 9th, 2007
Is this a boost for Harman and Hain or not?
The above is from the detail of this month’s Populus poll which wasn’t given much attention when it came out. It shows what happened when Populus showed pictures of the six contenders for the Deputy Leadership to 1,006 randomly selected members of the public in a poll.
My concern here is not whether Harman is marginally better known than the rest but what is says about public interest in the whole political process.
For more than a decade, of course, Labour has been so dominated by Brown and Blair that the others have hardly had a look in. But it goes deeper than that.
The audiences for TV news bulletins are nothing like what they were in the mid 90s when only a small fraction of homes had more than four channels. The red-tops rarely move into political coverage - certainly not on their front pages.
Paris Hilton wins over Hilary Benn every day of the week.
There’s a theory that most people’s political choices are based on fleeting glances that they have of the media they see. Is it any wonder then that politicians are more concerned about the much derided sound bite than anything else?
For should the parties see the lack of interest not as a problem but an opportunity. For when turnout goes down the beneficiaries are those that are best organised.
Mike Smithson
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First to comment, hooray! Five a.m. hangover slot.
I don’t quite buy your pessimism. i.e. I don’t quite believe this is an inevitable process: the decline in public interest in politics. Look at the turn-out in the French presidential elections. Look at the increased turn-out, last election, in America.
What the above examples prove is that when given a serious and important choice between genuinely opposing views people are galvanised. This is what British politics lacks. Blair’s policy of triangulation is all very well - and successful after a fashion, (which is why the Tories are copying it) - but it means that the two main political parties are now crowded into the same tiny wardrobe, like kids playing sardines, while the rest of the house is cold and empty.
A referendum on Europe would be one easy, simple and judicious way to electrify British politics. Or a proper debate on immigration. Or a real choice in tax policies. Or a plebiscite on an English parliament.
Another way to get people interested would be a trial of, or some kind of inquiry into, Tony Blair and his cronies on Iraq. Because Iraq is another issue which has disenchanted the electorate: the voters think: he ignored us on this. He lied to us. His whole party lied, and the Tories were dupes. And if a political party like Labour can lie so much about something so important as a war: why should I bother voting? It makes no difference! They do what they like anyway.
Finally we need a revolution in our constitution, returning power to the people - away from Brussels, Whitehall, the quangoes, and all the other unelected bodies which are also making voting feel pointless.
Do some or all of that and people will start to care, once more.
What it says is that people are not stupid. Why would anyone recognise the talentless list of candidates (apart from anoraks)when they cannot vote for any of them? Please remember that the this is the race for a total non-job. Most people think its an election to replace the utterly corrupt and discredited Prescott who everyone knows in a national embarrassment.
This governmnet is simply dead in the water after their show of arrogance and disregard for the elctorate in the shameful interegnum. The public want a say in who is PM and they wont get that so who gives a monkeys who comes second?
It is a positive for Labour that nobody cares about this race because if they listened to the cringing comments made by all except cruddas it would not be positive at the polls. These people are a sad reflection of 10 years of presidential government.
If the public heard john cruddas they may actually like what they here, given he is the only candidate with an opinion on anbything, that would be bad for Labour as well.
The main issue is that people have also twigged that politicians dont listen so why should anyone take any notice of a neutered talking shop with no powers to make law, no powers of scrutiny and where most members cannot tell the truth and regularly break the law.
In the real world people like this are despised.
the cruddas/hain differential tells a very important story. An Orange liar is more recognised than the only candidate with a real opinion by a huge margin.
If Labour had called it the deputy leader (climate Change) then the BBC would be endlessly running the story 24 hours a day
2 “The public wants a say in who is PM”
This of course is one of the key aspects of people’s ignorance of the political process. In our current electoral system you do not vote for this. Of course, by voting for a particular political party you may be expressing a view about the current leader of that party. But all you are voting for is an MP representing that party in a particular area. We don’t have a Presidential system……yet!
I read somewhere that Iain Duncan Smith had 90% recognition. If true what does that tell you?
I would hazard a guess that people in the Labour Party (outside his own area of Essex / East London borders have been on a learning curve with Cruddas. But people not involved in Labour itself are unlikely to know him any more than any other ordinary MP, and that is very little indeed. Anyone involved in the political process knows you have to fight for public recognition, which is sometimes why people say things which if in a private conversation would come over as exaggeration, “lies” etc. I suppose overacting to reach a distant part of the audience is a valid comparison.
5 The “quieter” you are, the more you are recognised? Frog in throat? Perceived as useless by media, but in important position? (cf Graham Taylor as England Manager) Populist but somewhat extreme views about Europe?
I would hazard a guess it is not his visits to Easterhouse, Glasgow, or his recent principled views around “social justice” which led to higher levels of recognition! What do you think Tapestry?
Perhaps IDS remembered who he was 90% of the time.
The momentum in this election is with Harriet Harman.
2 Sean
In response to your idea of an Enquiry on Iraq, which I think ought to happen, I would say I always felt that Labour were cowardly about the “mood for a change” in 1997, and should have instituted a brief enquiry into the damage economic changes had done to Britain during Thatcher / Major period. That would have encouraged people they were genuinely trying to be different, and given them the knowledge base and moral underpinning to look at radical changes. Instead “Thatcherism” was allowed to get away with it, and we are still struggling with the effects.
4. Personally, I believe that a parliamentary system is a good thing, but if that is the public’s view (and to be honest, I’ve not seen any evidence of it - it’s been flagged up since before the last election that Blair would go this parliament and Brown was most likely to succeed him), the general public might have a point. The same argument could have been put against all the Reform Acts of the past, and indeed probably was. ‘Yes, the public might not like rotten boroughs, but they’re part of the system we have etc etc.
The main points have been covered already though. Apart from to those with a particular passion for politics, this is a non-story about a non-job. The public do care massively about politics but the system has drifted away in many cases. The Iraq War was one example, the stifling effect of aspects of political correctness is another.
When people in Northern Ireland were asked to vote on the Good Friday Accord, the turnout was higher than for a General Election: people will engage if they think it matters. The deputy leadership of the Labour Party does not matter, especially as it is being campaigned for by people who have little prospect of ever becoming Prime Minister.
10. The Economic policy of the Conservative Party was laid out in the manifestos of the four elections and acted upon. It was discussed greatly throughout. An enquiry of that nature would have appeared little more than ‘victor’s justice’ by Blair in 1997.
By contrast, Blair not only took this country to war on a lie - a lie to the country and a lie to its representatives in the House of Commons - but the war itself, which was opposed by a significant majority and almost certainly would have been opposed in the Commons had the veracity of the Dossier been known, has made the situation in Iraq far worse, destabilised an important part of the world and left tens of thousands dead. All this to ‘protect’ a one-sided relationship with America.
FWIW, comparing the state of the country in 1979 and 1997, I don’t think the Conservatives would have too much to worry about from that kind of enquiry anyway.
David Herdson wrote the deputy leadership of the Labour Party does not matter, especially as it is being campaigned for by people who have little prospect of ever becoming Prime Minister.
I would go further. If the post had been abolished at the last Labour Party Conference, Our Genial Host would have written one thread about it, tops, and none of us would have given a d*mn, let alone real people!
So what does this say about which one I should vote for (I do have a ballot paper).
13/14 IA/John H. “Innocent Abroad says John Hemming Not a Real Person”
There was shock today in Birmingham when it appeared that a veteran of PB, Innocent Abroad, had declared that the cities Bar Chartist in Chief was in fact a Loony !!
http://www.garmentdistrict.com/store/popculture/montypython/loony_sm.jpg
Meanwhile …. The Beeb has apologised after Kirsty Wark failed in a interview with Alex Salmond to let him get a word in edgeways …. actually that’s quiet some achievement !!!
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=902402007
14 - Presumably, John you are a member of a union.
What text does your ballot paper have eg. “I support the policies and principles of the Labour party, and am not a member or supporter of any organisation opposed to it and pay a political subscription to the body that issued this ballot paper.” Could you really tick the box agreeing to this?
For a change, a David Herdson post that I disagree with. It’s factually untrue that a majority of people opposed the Iraq war at the time of the vote on it - there is significant false memory recall on this, as a look at the polls at the time shows. One can argue that people were mistaken or didn’t have all the facts, but not that a significant majority were against - the figure was 60-40 in favour, IIRC. It’s also IMO mistaken to assert that any lies (which I take to mean deliberate untruths) were involved, but that’s well-trodden ground.
It’s an interesting article on an important issue. There are actually three types of disengagement with politics, disillusion, disempowerment and contentment.
The disillusion bit is well-documented: people think that all politicians cock things up and then lie about it, and this sweeping view is constantly fed by the media. The narrowing of the gap between the parties also feeds this, as seanT notes: all of us who are serious about politics can identify significant differences, but at a casual glance they have largely disappeared. List PR, with the multiplicity of parties that it encourages, would help in this, since if you have 10 parties to choose from with a real chance of winning seats (not really true with AV/STV), it’s quite likely there is one that you really like - cf. Denmark with voting levels up to 80%.
The disempowerment bit is separate. It is factually true that if the only political thing you do is vote (and that’s all most people think they have time for, if that), you will probably never in your entire life decide the outcome of anything at all, since the probability that there is a majority of just one or two votes in your area is so small. It needs a strong sense of the value of collective action to encourage high turnout, and that’s not something we have much of in Britain. I suspect that small countries find it easier - don’t the Nordic countries and Benelux have higher turnouts on average than the big EU countries? A close race is clearly very important too and vastly increases turnout.
Contentment? This is controversial, but the belief that politics doesn’t matter much is out there as well, and people wouldn’t think that if they felt that their daily lives were being ruined by terrible government. That’s why Black Wednesday was so fatal for the Tories - interest rates going up to 16% and then staying in the 10% range posed a real threat to the majority of the population, and people who weren’t a bit interested in politics felt that something really needed to be done to remove this lot. Lots of people are annoyed with Labour for various reasons, but few actually feel that their happiness hinges crucially on who is in power.
But people are quite interested at the moment. They wonder what GB will be like as PM, they note the effort that DC is making to change the Tories and wonder if it’ll work, they think the next election will be close. On Thursday the Tories and we agreed that neither of us had had any trouble getting our vote out - people could see it was close and they were pretty keen. (I met one elderly voter whose doctor had forbidden her to leave the house as she’d had pneumonia - she desperately wanted to vote and, even though I actually told her she shouldn’t, she insisted on going.) That doesn’t mean they need to exert themselves to memorise the faces of every DL candidate!
Maybe posters should only be allowed to post here if they can recognise all those in your banner. That would rule me out - who on earth is the bloke second from left?!
Not surprised people can’t recognise these people. In fact i’m surprised some are so high. 34% for Blears, I only knew what she lokoed like about 3 months ago.
Puts some of the microdebating here on policy and presentation into perspective. This kind of thing also surely explains why the Lib Dems always do quite well irrespective of policies, leader or presentation, all of which make a marginal a difference to the party who are in the end mainly “not-tory and not-labour” and that will always get some votes.
Nick Palmer should comment on the major stories in the papers. Reid carpeting Hain saying HE asked for stop and quiz powers, then pretended to denounce them when he ran for dep leader.
Reid wrote to Blair about it and copied the terrorism committee.
Even if you knew who all the deputy leadership candidates were, I’m not sure you’d want to admit to it. Have Populus included a “shy political anorak” adjustment?
“(I met one elderly voter whose doctor had forbidden her to leave the house as she’d had pneumonia - she desperately wanted to vote and, even though I actually told her she shouldn’t, she insisted on going.)”
Voting against Labour, I presume…
19 - John Yates
It’s about time the banner had a makeover though…
But the DL candidates aren’t being elected by the population at large - it makes sense for them to tour and to tout activists rather than just increase their profile. My issue with Cruddas at 2% overall is that he would surely have morethan that is all the members knew who he was?
GB on the other hand will be facing the electorate sooner or later - and he is surely missing an opportunity to get his message across on his own terms, before the opposition really start laying into him.
And John C @ 19: I believe it’s Inspector Yates, the guy heading up the cash for honours enquiry. But possibly not one of the most significant people in political betting at the moment. How about Frank Luntz on the masthead - he is certainly a key player.
18, Nick P
On the “Iraq war opposition” front,
The Parliamentary vote was on 18th March 2003.
Pollster Survey end For Against Net
YouGov 18/03/03 50 42 +8
ICM 16/03/03 38 44 -6
ICM 16/02/03 29 52 -23
ICM 19/01/03 30 47 -17
ICM 15/12/02 36 44 -8
ICM 22/11/02 39 40 -1
ICM 03/11/02 32 41 -9
ICM 27/10/02 38 40 -2
ICM 20/10/02 35 40 -5
ICM 14/10/02 42 37 +5
ICM 06/10/02 32 41 -9
ICM 29/09/02 33 44 -11
ICM 22/09/02 37 46 -9
ICM 15/09/02 36 40 -4
ICM 25/08/02 33 50 -17
Effectively, only one poll published by the time of the Parliamentary vote (the YouGov one with the survey ending on the same day could abviously not have been published in time to influence the MPs) had been in favour. And that one looks pretty rogue compared to what’s around it.
Opinion swung behind the war after the MPs vote.
Constitutional hacks out there. If Blair has done a deal overthe Lockerbie convict, can Salmond stop it. Does he have the power to stop any transfer.
18. Nick, firstly, thanks for your speedy and comprehensive reply. There is is so often, a lot we agree on. However, I’m afraid the false memory might be on your part - I’ve dug out this poll from ICM conducted a fortnight before the war started:
http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/reviews/2003/notw-iraq-poll-mar-2003.htm
There was a clear majority disapproving of Blair’s handling of the situation, and only a tiny number in favour of action without a second UN mandate.
On the question of lies, that’s not something we’ll ever be able to prove. We know that the public dossier and Blair’s statement to the House did not represent a fair assessment of the intelligence available at the time. That came out in the Hutton and Butler reports and elsewhere. We know that No10, in the form of Alistair Campbell, amended the dossier in such a way as to strengthen the government’s position, despite not having evidence to do so. What we do not know is whether there was any collusion between Blair and Campbell in this or the extent to which the PM had seen the unfiltered reports. If Blair unknowingly misrepresented the situation, then no, that wasn’t a lie. However, the fact that the PM gets the most sensitive intelligence briefings, the importance of the issue in hand and the closeness between Blair and Campbell would lead me to conclude that he did know.
The points about contentment and disempowerment I would broadly agree with, but the way in which the Iraq issue was handled - and the way it has turned out - have done more to increase disillusionment in British politics than anything I can think of. To ignore public opinion is OK from time to time; we have a representative system and the the public can be contradictory or mistaken. To mislead the public is very occasionally acceptable when not doing so would have even greater consequences. But to ignore public opinion, mislead the public and then take the wrong decision - when the public were getting it right despite being mislead (lied to?), is so damaging that it will take years to recover from.
19. Jon C - I’m pretty sure it’s Inspector Yates of the CFH investigation.
I agree that one reason why the deputy leadership hasn’t set the public on fire is that it’s seen as something internal to the Labour Party. Especially as it is not clear if the deputy leader will become DPM - some say Jack Straw is lined up for the job.
What political issues do the public care about? The West Lothian question - it’s no longer a debate for anoraks. On my package holiday in Spain last year I heard heated discussions round the swimming pool. This was from people who, if they read a newspaper at all, read “The Sun” or “Mirror.” When GB takes over the volume of discussion amongst the “non-chattering classes” will only increase.
Damn, that table messed up. Trying again:
On the “Iraq war opposition” front,
The Parliamentary vote was on 18th March 2003.
Pollster..Survey end….For…..Against..Net
YouGov..18/03/03……..50……42……+8
ICM…..16/03/03……..38……44……-6
ICM…..16/02/03……..29……52……-23
ICM…..19/01/03……..30……47……-17
ICM…..15/12/02……..36……44……-8
ICM…..22/11/02……..39……40……-1
ICM…..03/11/02……..32……41……-9
ICM…..27/10/02……..38……40……-2
ICM…..20/10/02……..35……40……-5
ICM…..14/10/02……..42……37……+5
ICM…..06/10/02……..32……41……-9
ICM…..29/09/02……..33……44……-11
ICM…..22/09/02……..37……46……-9
ICM…..15/09/02……..36……40……-4
ICM…..25/08/02……..33……50……-17
(From UK Polling Report)
27 Punter. Scottish law officers make the final decision. So neither Blair or Salmond are the final arbiters.
31. But can Blair use Royal perogative of mercy or anything like that. Put it this way if the deal does cover the convict, the Govt must have a way to enforce it or something like that.
32 Punter. The case was tried under Scottish law and the Lord Advocate would take a position.
The First Minister might ask Liz to exercise the royal perogative, but I doubt it. PM Brown probably wouldn’t want to touch the case with a barge poll !!
20 I liked the last para “Peter’s position is entirely consistent. His criticism is not on the substance of … these powers … rather the way in which they were portrayed as tough, warlike powers in a Sunday newspaper.”
So to be clear: Peter Hain still supports stop & search, and apprarently doesn’t regret his representations for these powers, while also still considering that there is “a grave risk that the new power will act as a recruiting sergeant for extremism”
Does Jeckyll Hain know there is a Hyde Hain around writing notes to the Home Office and the PM?
33 Moi. Royal Prerogative !
Another constit question. What is the last Legal day for the next Election.
Mike, good article, and good points. People are not interested in politics because they don’t see it as relevent.
It is of course, but the media don’t push it as relevent, or at least the media people interact with. What is worse, they red tops don’t do politics fairly so they are not that helpful either.
A difficult problem.
36 - Presumably May 3rd 2010
I’m not sure that it matters whether or not the general public can recognise photos of politicians. I certainly doesn’t mean that they’ve not heard of the politicians.
I’d be far more interested in a survey where name recognition, rather than facial recognition, was used.
36/8. It has to be called no more than 5 years after the last one. I think the campaign can take it up to June 10, 2010 (it might possibly be the week after). The May 1997 election was more than five years after the previous one (April 1992).
40 David. There was the ten year wait for WWII (35-45) and eight years for WWI (10-18)
40. So technically you can “call” it but have a five year General Election Campaign right.
BTW O/T, but how do Parties continue to monitor target Constits between Elections, do they do Polls, or just rely on Local [arties to tell them.
Parliament cannot last more than 5 years so the time starts when the new parliament started - sometime in May 2005. Then add the campaign - I am not sure if there is any rules on how long this should be, but 10th June sounds about right.
Talking to a couple of Lib Dem Party members who are members of Labour-affiliated trades unions last night. They are voting Hazel in an attempt to do their little bit to sabotage the Brown project!
41. Well yes but they had to pass a special annual Bill to allow this to happen IIRC to legally prolong the lives of the Parliaments then running. Is that what you’re advising GB to plan.
Useful to have you here Jack though you must have only been about 15 at the end of the Great War!
41. Yes, but they were delayed by Acts of Parliament (annual in the case of WWII, don’t know about the first one, but they were on septennial elections then anyway). Without checking, I think one in England during the 17th century ran for about 19 years, but that was before limitations were applied.
42. There’s a limit on how long an election campaign can be as well but I can’t off hand recall the exact details. It basically counts working days only, so excludes weekends and bank holidays. I think it works out at a little short of six weeks.
I’ve also made the assumption above that it has to be on a Thursday, which it doesn’t although convention dictates that it will be.
My daughter was trying to buy a house before the last election and Michael Howard had announced he was going to abolish stamp duty for first time buyers so she was thinking of voting Conservative. “What did I think of the idea?” I told her that she’s have to weigh that against the cost of burying her father after he’d had a heart attack!
So did you offer to pay the stamp duty for her?
47. Yes. It was the “Cavalier” parliament. Charles II was so pleased with his “restoration bounce”, he vowed looking at the youth of the members to keep them until their beards grew.
Last attempt, but can anyone tell me could Maggie have been beaten in Oct 74. 3,000 doesn’t sound a big majority to me. Indeed it seems an unofficial requirement for Leader becaus of the need in the TV age to be in every constituency but your own is at least for the big two a five figure majority. This would have been a serious problem for Huhne and to an an extent Davis had they won. Not that they’d have been beaten, but their opponents would have tried hard to pin them down effectively.
48 Roger. So she voted Conservative then ?? … in the hope of flogging all your vintage champagne and villas in France !!
46 Icarus. I remember some debate over the cancellation of 1915 election. On the whole we felt that the prospect of the absence of Asquith’s and Lloyd George’s bar charts to have swayed the issue !!
50 - Maybe theoretically a problem for Huhne, not being a candidate for Prime Minister. But you’ve got to be pretty stupid to vote against a Prime Ministerial candidate considering the advantages (cash, if nothing else) that are bestowed upon PM’s constituencies.
48. It would depend on the price of the house and the lavishness of the funeral. If she bought a house for more than 250,000 and only had a modest “do” for dad, immediate friends and family, made the sandwiches herself etc, then I think she would be quids in.
50.
Feb 1974:
Thatcher (Con) 18,180 43.70%
O’Connor (Lab) 12,202 29.33%
Brass (Lib) 11,221 26.97%
Oct 1974:
Thatcher (Con) 16,498 44.04%
O’Connor (Lab) 12,587 33.60%
Brass (Lib) 7,384 19.71%
Godfrey (NF) 993 2.65%
It looks, to me, to be a very early example of tactical voting.
53 stjohn. Roger’s daughter might have voted Tory and then buried Roger in a cardboard box !!
An early case of Vote Blue Go Green !!
56. Jack W. That would certainly help keep the costs down! Seems like all we have left to do is choose the hymns. It might be wise to consider a fixed rate mortgage if she can get a good discount as a first time buyer.
54 by whom
48,
Roger in fairness to Howard he was onto something that desperatley needs to be addressed, the plight of first time buyers and affordability.
Labour has been very slow in realising that it needs to push through a major house building programme and quickly.
Hope Brown puts housing right to the top of his new agenda, as many people, even those sat on loads of equity, realise for a new generation this is a major issue.
54 Wonder how history would have turned out had Mrs T lost her seat in that election?
59. PM Willie Whitelaw I think.
60 - not sure. I think without Maggie as a candidate, there may have been other Josephite candidates.
Or perhaps a bright young thing like Geoffrey Howe would have picked up all the Maggie votes.
Latest newspaper ABC circulation figures - the decline continues. The Sun will go below 3 million soon.
I know people say “oh but everyone is reading the papers online”. But I suspect very few are reading the news stories. People are much more likely to stumble over a political news story in a tabloid in the hard copy paper than they are online.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/table/0,,2098620,00.html
Nick Palmer’s point about about a majority of the public supporting the war must not be allowed to stand. This is ridiculus! I agree with everything David Herdson has said, which explains very clearly why it will be Blair’s biggest legacy.
It amazes me even more to hear Ming Campbell say the LDs were prepared to go against the grain of public opinion on Iraq - just to show they’re not a poulist Party!
The attempt by some to re-write history is extraordinary and in Ming’s case, bizarre.
re 48. So as well as avoiding stamp duty she would have inherited as well! Sounded like a good deal.
OT, but hey it’s the weekend.
For the amusement of pb regulars, I thought I’d link to this hilarious review of my book in America. It’s probably one of the best terrible reviews I’ve ever had, if you see what I mean.
Check it out:
http://transcentury.blogspot.com/2007/06/pity-millions.html
61. Impressive performance by the Liberal, lowering his vote by almost 50% in six months. What happened to the Labour man did he become an MP. Bet he could have dined out on how he nearly stopped Thatcher in the movement.
Is that Mike S our esteemed host at this bbq?
http://jonathanwallace.blogspot.com/2007/06/rennard-bbq-video-and-few-more-pics.html
I’m not surprised by the low recognition of the Deputy Leader candidates. Anybody active in politics knows that their interest in politics isn’t shared by the majority of voters. Apart from the PM and the Chancellor every poll shows a less than 50% recognition for any other senior politician. Local MPs are often surprised how few people recognise them or know their name but should we be surprised?
Most people have a passing interest in politics insofar as it affects their lives. That’s why local planning issues can be great generators of correspondence and protests yet wider issues about the area do not resonate.
1 in 5 voters has a reading age of 11 and the majority will have left secondary education at 15 or 16 with few or no exam passes. A substantial number read either the The Mirror, the Sun, The Daily Star or no newspaper at all. For, I suspect the majority of people most economic news on television is a mystery. Stories about the Balance of Payments, The Pound’s relationship to other currencies etc (insofar as these stories now appear on TV news) are incomprehensible to most viewers.
I have lost count of the number of times I have heard two, mutually contradictory views, in the same discussion whilst talking to voters on the doorstep. Many people appear to think that the Conservatives favour nationalisation and the Labour Party opposes it.
I state all the above without judgement as someone who has spent 40 years in politics and was a secondary school teacher.
68. I remember my local publican, a few years ago - a bright canny amusing Geordie - good with money - young, about 24, 25. He ran the Dolphin in Holborn, London. And ran it well.
Anyway, one day we were chatting about politics in the vaguest sense and he said ‘what - you mean I’m allowed to vote?’
He was so ignorant of politics he genuinely thought only posh or rich people, or at least other people, were allowed to vote.
He was an instinctive working class Tory, I suspect.
68 - very true. I have heard old stories of people saying they want to vote Liberal “as they will send all the blacks back.”
There are even rumours of people who are so ill-informed that they think the Tories support grammar schools!
67. No
57. By February Liberals - becoming October Labour.
errrrr………how about adopting some popular policies rather than the gravy train sustaining crap they serve up
if you want to get a lot of people to vote try one of these
1. Pull out of Iraq and repudiate the blair interventionist doctrine, very clearly
2. restore sovereignty
3. announce a full scale inquiry into the corruption of politics at every level (Ithis is what really drives down interest, why should anyone vote and encourage these odious crooks)
I am not saying any of these are right but if you adopt one of these you will attrract masses of dissaffected voters. maybe not enough to win but imagine you choose the right one! Real power!
who is going to excited by Gordo or cameron spouting soundites…….
by the way…the public dont care if nobody does choose one thats for sure.
Quite a few people vote without considering the situation in their constituency. An apparently intelligent lady living in North Devon told me she wanted to vote Liberal Democrat, but in the end voted Conservative to keep Labour out.
68. You must be pleased at how well the Tories are now doing on your old stomping ground or not.
73. What a crass post. It is morally bankrupt to see injustice and then just pass on to the otherside. There should be intervention in Darfur, Zimbabwe but we are too morally spineless to do anything about it. We much prefer the feeling of self satisfied moral outrage to the real solution of problem and saving lives. In that sense I see the intervention in Iraq as a n oble cause to oust a cruel disctator. To have done nothing would have been to play Pontius Pilate.
Yes the low level of recognition is down to the public’s lack of interest but it is also related to the quality of candidates.
What we have with these Labour “leading lights” are the 2nd/3rd division compared to those who would have challenged for this in 1997. In the USA the 2nd term Govt “ministers” are usually less able than most of their predecessors. The first term has most of the talent and much of it is consumed by the process of Govt. If anything the process seems to take a little longer in the UK than the USA.
So it is with Labour as it was with the Tories by 1991. Lamont for Chancellor, what were the Tories thinking? Labour are now little better in talking about Ed Balls a terrible performer and his wife Yvette being promoted after the HIPS debacle and the slump in house (not flat) building. The fact that the Blairites put up as their candidate (Blears) the person with the highest unfavourable rating, just illustrates how out of touch they have become.
I’m not at all surprised that the audiences for TV news bulletins has fallen. It’s not just the general public that switches off - I’m interested in politics, but find it hard to bring myself to watch the 6 o’clock news or News at Ten.
Consider the stuff they headline with - eg the recent grief-fest about Madeline. They just went over the top - and most of the public understand that they personally couldn’t do anything about the case, that it is unhealthy to obsess so much over one stranger (albeit an appealing child-stranger), and that there is no sense making themselves thoroughly depressed and miserable over it. So they switch off. But that means that any relevant political news that comes as the third or fourth item in the bulletin also gets missed.
I also felt that news coverage about Lebanon was bizarre. It’s well known that Britain is not a superpower, and that we have influence only amongst former colonies, and in the EU. So not sure why the news bulletins led so heavily with “what’s Blair going to do about Lebanon” - only the Americans had influence over the Israelis and only the French had contacts among the Lebanese. Thinking about it, I think the broadcasters were getting addicted to covering wars, and Lebanon was just another fix for them. And they tried to justify the excessive coverage with a “what’s Britain/the govt doing about it” line. (They use the “what’s the govt doing about it” line a lot to justify their news items - eg coverage about obesity is always accompanied with “why isn’t the govt doing something about it”, together with some hapless minister in the studio being grilled about why he didn’t personally prepare nutritious dinners for the whole nation to save them from themselves.)
It’s no wonder people switch off. Apart from being irritating and tabloidly, it’s boring.
I personally find that getting news online from the major news sites plus blogs like this, is better. Reading text is much less emotive, you get far more detail and nuance, and you get people arguing back in the comments. Yes, the comments tend to be biased too, but you are hearing different voices. And you can usually surf and read several sites with completely different views within the hour or so you have for lunch, whereas with broadcast news, you tend to stick to one channel.
76. Rubbish. You deal with people when you have to. Why else deal with people like the Kazakh President or Aliyev in Azerbaijan. Because of the alternative that’s why.
76. John, we haven’t got the money to intervene all over the place. To do what you are suggesting would need a tax rise, or to divert resource from something else. Most American tax goes on their military as did the resources in the old Soviet Union. Americans are content with this - they like being the big cheese and think this is worthwhile expenditure. Brits arn’t the same - I think people here would get very cross at taxes diverted or raised to finance “superpoweritis”. There is a massive contradiction at the moment between people’s inflated sense that we are powerful enough to “do something” and their willingness to pay to do something.
I wish we’d come to terms with the truth that we are merely a medium European power and the most good can be done through the EU where we can share costs with the other western europeans. Eg we are engaged in a massive collective attempt at the moment to raise countries like Poland to western european standards of living (and our increased EU contribution is going specifically to pay for this - all the western europeans are paying extra to send money east in the current budgetary round). If we succeed and manage to raise standards and entrench democracy in eastern europe, we will have done a Very Good Thing (and given how bizarre the govt in Poland is, this is by no means something that we have in the bag yet). I’d rather we concentrated our resources on doable projects like this rather than bits of half-hearted projects across the world. Once we’ve got Europe properly secure (including the Balkans), we can then afford to look south of the Mediterranean (via the EU again so that costs are shared).
80 - what rot! less than 3% of our GDP goes on defence. We could put it back to about 5% and fulfil more of our responsibilities. Even the USA only spends about 4% of its GDP on defence!
80. You’re mighty confident if you think the “costs will be shared.” GB has found from numerous finance meetings how reluctant the French and Italians are to put their hand in their pockets and how resolute in defending the CAP monstrosity.
76
so let me get this right. I am morally bankrupt because i want to correct the total disaster of bliars illegal war. You people are truly shocking. now i understand why 30 + of the country are still voting for them.
talk me through te morality of rendition flights?
Q have any extraordinary flight used UK airports?
A our position on torture is clear?
and shock horror on the day the camps are confimed a police investigation finds that no evidence exists, CIA helpful were they.
If he knew, as only he could that the answer was zero why didnt he say…………
80 Snowflake - sources please for “most American Tax goes on their military” - and what do you mean by most Amercian tax - Federal, State, Local? all of these or part of these?
In 2006 Federal budget budget less than 40% went on discretionary spending - which includes defence - over 50% went on entitlement spending (mostly social benefit spending based on individuals entitlements)
80. But it’s not true to say we are merely a medium European power, like Spain or Italy. I wish Europhiles would come to terms with this.
Because of her history, the importance of London, the size of her economy - fifth largest in the world? - Britain does have serious influence aross the globe. More importantly, because of all the above allied to the pervasiveness of the English language, Anglo-Saxon journalism and popculture, the influence of the Anglosphere as a whole, Britain has a kind of background cultural-political affect on world events which I would say makes us more influential than France, Germany or even Russia.
You sense this when you go abroad, as I do all the time. The local newspapers from Africa to Asia, even in Latin America, regularly report the opinion of London and the British government on events, when they often do not report goings-on in Paris, Berlin or even Moscow.
Of course we shouldn’t overestimate our influence either. And, as China, India and Brazil grow in size Britain may become relatively less important (though who knows - who would have predicted the importance of Japan a hundred years ago, given her history and relative smallness?).
But for the moment it is simply wrong to say we are “merely a medium European power”. This only-little-me-ishness is an argument trotted out by immature Europhiles and self-hating lefties who wish to further subsume our sovereignty in the EU.
Snowflake’s “Most American tax goes on their military” must be one of the most ludicrously erroneous remarks ever made on pb.com.
76.
You think its right go round spreading democracy, creating opportunity liberating the oppressed, helping the needy, human rights, equality blah blah…………..after 10 years of this government havent you worked it out yet. Britain looks utterly stupid with a delusional PM preaching X whilst blatantly doing Y.
the whole world is embarrassed for Britain by Bliars hypocrisy. next you will tell me that selling out to europe is in the national interest.
Goldsmith for president
85 - “self-hating lefties who wish to further subsume our sovereignty in the EU”
Whilst Tony Benn may share your concerns about subsuming sovereignty in the EU, I am not sure that he would regard Merkel, Sarkozy and Blair as self-hating lefties.
In terms of interventionist foreign policy, I have never got a an answer to the question “How come after ‘liberating’ Kuwait in 1991 we did not bother to see a transition to democracy? Just think, it could have been a beacon for the whole of the Middle East to follow.”
And as for Russia? Well, can you name me more democratic countries than Russia that are major net oil exporters? (excluding Norway). What right do we have to lecture Russia on democracy when we deal with the Saudis?
86 seanT - agreed: US spends 3.7% of GDP on defence so snowflake presumably believes the US average tax rate is less than 7.4% of GDP
David H and Andy C: thanks for the correction - as you say, the lapsed memory is mine, and the surge in public support for the war was *after* the MPs’ vote. I did my own survey of as many constituents as I could before the vote (they were heavily in favour, but most of them had read my arguments for leaning that way) and recalled the polls as being at the same time. My mistake, sorry.
Whether the public would support intervention in places like Darfur (beyond a bloodless no-fly zone operation) seems to me doubtful: we debated it inconclusively in Westmnister this week. In fact, one of the more subtle criticisms of Iraq is that it has put people off more obviously sensible operations, like stopping the Taliban lunatics regaining power in Afghanistan to help more 9/11s against the West. Support for the intervention in Iraq rapidly eroded once the internal conflict erupted. In Darfur we’d be intervening in an existing civil war. It might be the right thing to do, but it’d be one week before Respect launched the Troops Out of Sudan campaign and three months before more mainstream politicians and the press joined them.
88. Derr? I was referring to British pols and pundits. Talking about Britain. In Britain. So your comparisons with Merkel and Sarkozy are silly and ridiculous, to put it politely.
Blair is no self hating lefty, he’s a self loving centrist, quite clearly. But I would definitely class him as an immature Europhile, like Snowflake. Witness his narcissistic desperation to take us into the euro, in some strange pursuit of Brussels “influence”, despite all the economic evidence telling him not to.
Blair is a charismatic man, but an immature nitwit when it comes to many foreign policy issues - like Iraq and the EU.
As of this year, I believe the US military spending was $447 billion out of a total federal budget of 2.9 trillion. That’s about 15% of the federal budget.
I think that their federal budget is somewhere in the low 30-s% of GDP (could be wrong), so that would put spending at around 5% of GDP as Rik W says.
“In Darfur we’d be intervening in an existing civil war.”
It’s very difficult to decide what is a civil war and what isn’t. Kosovo? Sierra Leone? Were these not civil wars?
Is Iraq in civil war now? Is it OK to stay there because it is not a pre-existing civil war?
I don’t know the answers. Who’d want to be an MP?
91 - my point, Sean, was that both those on the far left and on the far right (and I mean both the “nice” far right like you, and the “nasty” far right) try to portray the EU as being the opposite of what they stand for. Is it an international socialist or capitalist plot? It is of course, neither, as it is far too bland for that.
89. Yes, I think that, from now on, every time Snowflake comes on here and makes one of her earnest, apparently-well-informed remarks on economics, we should all loudly shout, in unison: “most American tax goes on their military”. Who knows, she might be embarrassed enough to admit she is wrong. There’s always a first time.
If she really is an advisor to Gordon Brown on economics, Gawd ‘elp us.
The problem with interventionist type wars, is they never take place in any where really nice. I mean if there was a reason to intervene militarily in places like the, ‘South of France’ etc. recruiting figures would shoot up.
94. I’m not on the “nice” far right.
1. I’m not nice.
2. I’m not on the far right.
So feck off.
I did one of those put-yourself-on-the-political-spectrum tests the other day, and I came out as to the left of Blair!
I am a libertarian Thatcherite capitalist romantic patriot with a soft spot for the NHS. I’m a kind of anarcho-centrist monarchist.
As regards the EU, I agree with you. It’s not the ogre of UKIP imaginings, nor is it the benign supranational neo-Federal force Europhiles pretend. It is an enervating and undemocratic bureaucracy that needs radical reform before it destroys itself and strangles our freedoms.
86, 95. You will notice that I was talking about the % of tax spent on the military, not the % of GDP. The Americans spend 15% of tax revenue on the Military, we spend 10%. In order to raise the % of tax spent on GDP to American levels, what would you cut? What would you divert money away from? Or would your preferred measure be raising the entire total tax raised? How would you do this? a Penny on income tax? Are Tories seriously advocating a rise in tax to pay for their “superpoweritis”?
98. Snowflake, do you think “most American tax goes on their military”? i.e. do you think more than 50% of American tax - i.e. most American tax - goes on their military?
Put it another way, do you believe “the majority of American tax is spent on defence”? do you think “more than half of tax raised in America goes on the defence budget”? Do you believe that more than half of tax revenues raised in the United States are given to the Pentagon?
lol
97. SeanT - am surprised that “thatcherites” like yourself hate the EU so much. Don’t you know that it was Thatcher who turned the free-trade area that was the EEC, into the EU, with harmonisation of standards etc (and she gives a robust defence of harmonisation in her autobiography). In fact, the whole change from the EEC to EU was instigated by her - she wanted co-operation that wasn’t in the original Treaty of Rome, so a new summit had to be convened to discuss the changes.
It’s quite bizarre that Tories hate the EU so much - if Labour’s main contribution to post-war Britain is the Welfare State, the Tory contribution is involvement in Europe - both contributions utterly changing the way we live. You’d never find a Labour person ashamed of the welfare state, so why are Tories so ashamed of what isb and remains, your finest achievement?
100. I refer you to my post at 99.
99. I shouldn’t have written “most” I should have written “more”. If you want our defence expenditure to equal the Americans, where would you find the money from? What would you cut? Or would you have the gumption to raise tax? Or are you just one of those hot-air armchair warriors who like to talk big, but don’t want to pay for it?
Most Brits don’t want to pay extra tax to finance “superpower” type military adventures abroad and they don’t want existing services to be cut to divert money to defence either. And Tories are already promising more money for services - Cameron has pledged to increase occupational therapists, to never ever hold hospitals to budgets but to spend more, and so on. And now you want increased military expenditure too? Where is the money to come from?
101. You haven’t said why you hate Europe so much, when it is plainly the Tories finest achievement. When they do the definitive “what the post-war Tories have done for us” show, Europe will figure strongly. Ted Heath took us into Europe, Thatcher played a major part in turning the EEC into the EU, complete with the strengthening of the role of the Commission that was a major part of the Single European Act. And Major gave us Masstricht. Britain’s current involvement in Europe is a major Tory achievement, possibly their most important.
102. My goodness, an admission of error from Snowflake5!
That wasn’t so hard, was it love? Now put the kettle on.
Only teasing. It’s good to know you are human, rather than some strange talking robot in the Treasury basement.
I’m not that energised by the debate over defence spending; I think it needs to go up somewhat, I would cut our contribution to the EU to pay for it! Blair cut a crappy deal in Brussels on the Rebate. He got nothing for something. I would say to our partners - if you want our agreement to a Constitution, then we want opt-outs and our Rebate back. It’s time to play hardball. What are they gonna do, throw us out? Oo-er missus.
I don’t hate the EU, I just despair of it. It should be so much better. On nice warm days in Siena I rather like it, or at least what it could be - after dramatic reform, the scrapping of CAP, the ending of legal immunity, the closure of Strasbourg, the end of the CFP, a big dose of serious subsidiarity, and a total injection of true and serious democracy.
103, snowflake,
On the EU front, it’s possibly because it’s an organisation that is heavily bureaucratic, over-controlling, undemocratic and unaccountable. God only knows when it’s accounts were last cleared, it’s external trade policies are downright unpleasant (like threatening to hike taxes on imports from one of the nations worst hit by the 2004 tsunami unless they increased there order for the new Airbus).
If the EU were to have to apply to join itself, it would fail on democratic grounds.
The concept of intenational co-operation within Europe is truly wonderful. The possibilities are enormous. Unfortunately, the reality of the EU is hamstrung by national desires and horse-trading to the point where it is truly questionable whether or not it does any good. As seant and Gladstone have independently said - it needs root and branch reform urgently. It could be wonderful - but instead it is near-fatally flawed.
104. You misunderstand the whole “rebate” argument. It was originally agreed when the UK was the second poorest country in the EU (Ireland was the poorest), and it was felt by the others that because of our relative poverty, we shouldn’t have to contribute that much to building Spain, Greece, et al as a result (the prosperous Germans took that load).
The situation now is that we arn’t poor any more (thanks to New Labour’s economy), and the latest budget was about sending money to the eastern europeans. All the old EU-15 western europeans are now substantial Net Contributors (including France, which means they are effectively paying for their own CAP receipts plus sending money east). The extra money is heading east. So the argument is whether you think it is worthwhile money going east or not. It was not feasible that the Germans, French, Spanish and Irish were asked to contribute more, when the UK was not (due to the rebate).
I personally think that yes, money going east is worthwhile. It’s very bad to have poor countries in Europe, it destabalises things for the rest of us. It would be wonderful if we could turn Poland and the Balkans, into a version of Ireland. If we are going to be handing out money, this is where I think it should be going, we get a greater bang for our buck building the eastern europeans up, than in writing off debts for Uganda (when we last did that, they promptly spent the money on a new fleet of planes they didn’t need).
98. “The Americans spend 15% of tax revenue on the Military, we spend 10%”
No we don’t. In 2005/06, UK defence spending was 5.4% of UK government spending.
http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/Organisation/KeyFactsAboutDefence/DefenceSpending.htm
105. Most EU decisions are taken in the Council of Ministers, which is formed by the elected governments of the member states. They have considerable power to either veto decisions and stop things in their tracks, or to opt-out of decisions. Not sure why you think that is “undemocratic”. Essentially, when we have general elections, we are electing our representative to the Council of Ministers.
We could switch and start giving more power to the European Parliament - but for that to be effective, it would need more cross-european co-operation among political parties. There is good co-operation among the socialist groups across europe (which include Labour), but on the centre-right we have this bizarre situation where the Tories want to leave the EPP and sit alone. How would that square with your desire for greater accountability if you gave the directly elected parliament more power, but by playing “I hate Europe” and refusing to participate in the EPP, you are essentially disenfranchising centre-right Britons (because sitting on your own in the European parliament in isolated splendor means you have zero influence in the outcome of any of it’s decisions)?
107,
In which case (looking at Defence Spending minus things like Forces pensions), shouldn’t we deduct similar figures from the US totals?
Plus, the TME includes local government spending, so isn’t directly comparable to federal budget spending.
Plus, I’d query those figures. According to the 2007 budget report, TME for 2005-2006 was 484.2 billion, not the £520 bn claimed.
Taking RDEL and CDEL from the budget report, Defence had £33.4bn + £6.4bn = £39.8 bn, rather than the £30.888 bn (rounded down to £30.1bn and then to £28 bn ) on the mod link.
£39.8 bn / £ 460 bn (total Defence spending for 2005-6(excluding AME which isn’t given) / TME for central Govt = 8.7%
106. “The situation now is that we arn’t poor any more (thanks to New Labour’s economy)”
If people make comments or quote statistics without simple checks to ensure accuracy they lose credibility.
EU GDP per head in 1998 (I can’t find 1997 figures):
EU average 100
UK 102
Italy 101
France 99
Spain 81
So it is not true to say “we arn’t poor any more (thanks to New Labour’s economy)”.
We were above the EU average by 1998.
https://www.eustatistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/Expodata/Spreadsheets/D3605.xls
107. UK govt spending and UK tax revenue are two different things. Govt spending is higher than tax revenue, and some comes out of borrowing. We were borrowing a lot in 2005/6 (though the budget deficit is starting to fall now). But it just highlights the issue of where is the money for extra defence expenditure to come from. We really can’t afford more, and anyone saying otherwise is in cloud cuckoo land.
110. Mike L - why pick 1998? What has 1998 got to do with the argument about the rebate? When the rebate was agreed it was the early 1980’s, more than a decade before 1998, and we really were poor compared to the French and Germans then. And in 2006, when the last EU budget was agreed and the rebate let go, we were much richer, as were the Irish. We’re substantially ahead of the Italians now for instance (thanks to New Labour!).
90. That will be one of the biggest consequences. It is inconceivable that the Bush/Blair doctrine will be followed by their short or even likely medium term successors. Even more problematic, is as Piers Morgan points out dealing with countries like Iran, which unlike Iraq does have active nuclear program, which does fund anti Western terror groups and attacks Israel, when a PM now steps up to the plate and says look we have to do something people will just go yeah and that’s whatr we were told abour Iraq as well, now sod off. In short Liberal interventionism is finished for decades.
NATO spending is here:
http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2006/p06-159.pdf
108. The EU Commission has the sole right of initiating legislation in the EU. It is essentially the executive, the government. It is unelected. It cannot be thrown out by voters. Commissioners don’t even put forward manifestoes. They just get “appointed”. Not only that, half of them are failed politicians already disgraced in their own countries - like Mandelson.
A quasi Federal superstate governed by unelected and provably corrupt officials? And you don’t think that’s just a touch undemocratic?
Try this one, too. How do I get an EU law repealed? Do you even have a clue? Does anyone?
If I don’t like a British law I write to my newspaper and complain, I join a political party, I vote against the party that proposed the law, I can even start my own party to change the law.
How do I get a European law repealed? where do these laws come from? Who starts them? How can they be stopped? Duh?
The whole thing is so distant, opaque and labyrinthine it is a parody of a satire of democracy. It’s beyond a joke. And there is no demos - no public opinion - to stop it. It is just rolls on and on, crushing dissent by sheer obscurity and weight.
That you are defending it, along with the strange errors of fact you have made elsewhere today, is making me seriously question your maturity and judgement. I used to think, before, you were at least quite serious. Now I wonder.
112. I know the rebate was agreed in the early 1980s.
I was responding to your comment that “we arn’t poor any more (thanks to New Labour’s economy)”.
My point is that our GDP per head was above the EU average when Labour came to power (using 1998 figures) so it’s not “thanks to New Labour’s economy”
108, What’s happened to the European Commission? The unelected “executive branch”. Can we bin that, then? That’d make it better.
If the power was handed to the European Parliament, you’d not have the current status quo - thus the conditions that have lead to the Tories desiring to move out of the EPP (but note, not to the “obliterate the EU” type of groupings - they still want to try to reform that which exists rather than to extiguish it) wouldn’t exist.
Make it more democratic, cut back its powers, remove the CAP and CFP, close Strasbourg (as Sean suggests, because ’tis a silly idea to shift around like that), get the finances and accounts sorted out, and maybe we’d have something useful.
11 The terms of debate you started was on tax revenue, think your claim has been blown apart there.
We can afford more either through borrowing or deciding not to spend it elsewhere. It’s a political decision. You might as well say we can’t afford to spend more on the NHS. You may consider that some of Gordon Brown’s less effective and inefficient spending programs are sacrosanct, others may not.
115. I suppose you know the ghastly method Baghdad’s Doctors have for telling which corpses are Sunni and which Shia. The decapitated ones (favoured) by insurgent groups are Shia, and the ones tortured to death with electric drills (favoured by Shiite death squads) are Sunni. The medieval barbarism there chills the blood completely.
111 - typical disingenuous Labour spin! You dont have to cut one thing to spend more on something else. As the economy grows you can change priorities and grow one area more than another. What did Gordon Brown cut in order to spend more on health???
However, I would cut overseas aid, cut the cost of the EU (c£11bn), cut the money wasted on NHS bureaucracy, cut the number of MPs, scrap the ID card scheme and scrap the Regional Assemblies and RDA’s. Is that enough for you to get some idea where more money could come from immediately!?
115, 117. The EU Commission was given more power by the Single European Act (Thatcher’s baby), in order to make the harmonisation of standards more efficient.
It’s true that they have the power to initiate/propose legislation - but it is the Council of Ministers that decides. The Commission can propose whatever they want, but if the Council of Ministers says NO that’s the end of it. For instance, when CAP was last renegotiated in 2002, the Commission proposed a drastic change, with many intervention prices slashed. They didn’t get their wish - the Council of Ministers decided otherwise. Yet it is the Commission that gets blamed for the lack of reform of CAP, which is bizarre.
The Commission is essentially the civil service of the EU (and their powers are similar to that of civil services everywhere, in that by concentration on detail they can swing things one way or another). You seem to think that they are appointed out of the blue - but actually they are appointed by the elected heads of governments, who take responsibility for the appointments. All 25 member states have to agree which appointee then becomes head of the commission.
The European Parliament has the power to sack the entire commission - which they did with the Santer Commission. But as things stand, they can only sack the whole commission, rather than individual commissioners. One of the changes that the constitutional treaty was going to make was to give the European Parliament the chance to sack individual commissioners - but of course people like you objected vigorously to this, while at the same time moaning that the commissioners can’t be sacked. Lots of changes in the constitutional treaty were about increasing the powers of the European Parliament to scrutinise the commission and hold them accountable. If the EU isn’t working to it’s max, it’s because it’s citizens have such contradictory ideas about it (demanding change and scuppering the same changes, at the same time).
We spend £3.9 bn per year on the Department of Constitutional Affairs. On what? What would be the consequences if they went down to £2.9 bn?
The DTI. £7 bn. Now, for all I know, there could be good reason for this. Or maybe a couple of billion could wander away from here - how would they cope with just £5 bn