I can’t make the grandiose claim that perfection is possible, therefore neither can I say imperfection may be valueless. Yet it seems impossible to ignore the slippery slope that is created by a lack of rigour (I accept I can be as guilty as anyone, though it’s hard to admit).

While it is easy to nit-pick according to the bias of any particular perspective, it is much more difficult to agree improvements (which is my aim, as well as the avowed statement of this site), so I can only ask you what sort of dispassionate suggestions you could make.

To go back to the MPC, yes, it is not overtly independent in function, according to its constituted aims, but this is natural, provides accountability and is good. Neither was this the basis for my criticism that it is not independent in practice – which is a devious way of undermining the accountability of the regulatory function of the system and a barrier to the improved certainty that a fully democratic appointments method would (and would have) provide(d). It certainly appears to have hoodwinked you.

My suggestion for improvement with reference to the MPC couldn’t be spelled out more clearly (yes, I could provide more details, but I won’t) – what is yours?
My argument for the separation of the Trades Unions from Labour should also be clear – do you agree with it?

@ukliberty – Apart from to the HoL, where else are you going to divert, and how else are you going to co-opt the democratic energies of constituent national estates?

As argued above by both M4E and myself, full and perfect separation is unrealistic, so it must be accepted that partial as well as partisan bodies have their forum for representative debate.
By recognising the distinction between the roles of the houses they combine to provide better results, but while government continues to seek to diminish the separation in order to exert its control the wrestling match outgrows the politicking.

Of course the level of separation depends entirely on perceptions of the actual grasp of power of the the Prime Minister (which develops over time) and the status of the current situation is a pure reflection of the success and coherence of the PM’s policies.

Thomas, I don’t understand how a secondary reviewing chamber of the legislature “ensures separation of powers”.

I do worry when posting stuff like that i’ll insult people by saying they are biassed. So hopefully I make clear I don’t mean bias as a slur.

Thank you for a most informative and interesting post.

your first paragraph contradicts itself in that if full seperation is assured by having two houses, and then you nit pick that the two houses are not good enough. Such nit picking is surely possible with any two houses or any system anywhere in the world.

hence my point that while the nit picking might be accurate, the conclusion from that nitpicking that the imperfect is thus absolute failure is beyond reason. For that to be the case we would have to believe there is no seperation or scrutiny in government anywhere in the world.

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in regards to the MPC – it is of course not meant to be independent in its aims – since its twin target for growth and inflation is quite understandably set by democratic government.
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on impotence – I’m refering to the situation of individuals at a given time. Over many decades the public outlook can be swayed.

so in the 1950s when both labour and tories saw national ownership as an answer to problems, those who disagreed were impotent. By the 1980s they were ascendent. But that took a long time and a willingness to engage. (imagine if pro-market Thatcher had never joined or voted for the tories because they were ’sleazy socialists’ in the 1950s.)

likewise in the 1970 both Labour and Tory leaderships were pro-EU, making nationalists inpotent. They have taken a different route to change the public will their way by owning newspapers and establishing their own party. And increasingly the Conservatives are now responding to their view after casting out pro-europeans.

but I disagree that those motivated by fixed ideals are anti-democratic. They are at any given moment impotent and thus frustrated. But they can remain democratic by restraining that frustration and engaging.

Full independence for the constituent isn’t politically desirable in practice, as demonstrated by the membership of the Monetary Policy Committee – sure, they outwardly present all the characteristcs of a body uninfected by governmental creed, but while the term of the committeee’s membership remains shorter than that of the appointment board (the Prime Minister) they effectively become a tool for the indirect control of the higher office. So last week’s decision on interest rates should be seen as an outward expression of Brownite policy, despite his fingerprints being nowhere near the decision itself.

Accountability can only be upheld before a broadly-based body of opinion, such as the national electorate, which is constituted to reflect the widest section of interest, without which there is no guarantee against the damage of bias.

M4E, your description of impotence seems a little short-sighted, as is appears to depend on no partisan pre-judgments being made about the merits of the parties. When it comes to the crunch, higher interests than those of any one party do prevail, as this is what builds alliances for shared actions and is the originator of party structures in the first place.

Democracy is secured by the ability to shift opinion, so those that would claim to be motivated by fixed ideals are essentially anti-democratic in their ideas.

the problem with having an ideology (as most people on here do) is that it creates a degree of impotence.

Your vote (like mine) has lost all (or at least much) leverage by nature of that bias. In this instance it becomes unrealistic for you to expect a socialist party to listen to your opinion when it can’t win your vote. That is mirrored by a socialist who need not be canvassed by a socialist party since they can take that vote for granted.

Your only influence on government therefore becomes that of a campaigner. but because our votes can be ignored we foster personal hatred for government and a notion that politicians are sinister in motive. We detatch from it and thus extend our impotence by misdiagnosis MP behaviour.

In effect you can’t oppose a government as sinister and then hope an MP that supports that government might listen to your case.

take the 42 day thread further up.

there are some MPs who don’t like the idea of 42 day detention. But they will vote for it. They won’t do so because they are sinister and evil. They will do so because they honestly believe labour is better for the nation than the tories, and that rebelion would help bring about a tory government.

attacking them as evil or power hungry or lacking in concience therefore blunts your capacity to convince.

instead we have to convince them that a rebellion won’t herrald the rise of Cameron – and that it will actually benefit Labour in the long term.

so

the impotence can be overcome – but only by casting off one common consequence of that bias – ie inherrant suspicion and hatred for those that don’t share it.

That’s a fair point, about the distance between ideology and specific policy – I agree with you.

Can you elaborate on ‘impotent bias’? I’m not sure I understand.

if you answered ‘because they are a bunch of sleazy socialists’ then thats an honest statement I could well support.

If you fundementally oppose the philosophy (’sleazy’ socialism) then the government representing it is likely to move the country in a direction you, a ‘non-sleazy’ liberal i assume (based on your name), abhor and thinks makes life worse.

That’s different to saying ‘because they nationalisted healthcare in 1948′

Sure that too was a socialist thing and thus an illiberal thing to do. But it can surely only be a symbol of an underlying truth. That truth is that no policy or policies would sway you either way, because you fundementally oppose the ideology of the party in question.

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The curse of that truth is of course impotant bias. And most people with strong political views can’t accept that impotence.

I can see your point . That said I am sure people generally have more than one reason for not voting for a party, even if they are unable or unwilling to articulate it (and of course that reason might not even be the truth). I think if someone asked me, “Why won’t you vote for Labour?” and I responded, “because they are a bunch of sleazy socialists”, I could come up with a few more reasons if prompted. It’s a matter of time and interest I suppose.

As for the separation of powers, we don’t really have it on paper or in practice in the UK, except with regard to the judiciary, as you pointed out, which seems fiercely independent and rightly so. I think the CPS should be independent from Government too.

I think the Government (big G, the Executive) is too closely entwined with Parliament (the legislature) – as I explain on my blog’s about page, the reason I might appear to mostly attack the Government is because it is the Government, under our constitution, that proposes most new legislation, and most of the Parliamentary time available for debate is spent on Government Bills.

I think the separation of powers is a worthy aspiration, though unlikely (and naturally) to ever be perfected – as you say, utopian.

With regard to Trade Unions, I do not believe they should be given a ’special’ rule, just because they have some ’special’ place in the history of the Labour party. It seems a fairly simple situation to me: ‘organisations’ should be free to donate money to any party they choose; if an organisation is only allowed to donate £n, then another organisation should only be allowed to donate £n.

I couldn’t care less if this ‘breaks’ the Labour party, as I do not think the Labour party is essential, just as I do not think any particular party is essential. I think what people forget (or neglect to remember) is that the main parties we have today were born from particular contexts in yesteryear, and those contexts have been replaced, so perhaps it is time to let those parties die a death (if they are unpopular – but hey, that’s democracy) and let new ones rise up.

It does make me smile when so-called proponents of democracy insist on maintaining the unpopular.

so there is no accountability anywhere in the world?

I ask because although on paper we lack seperation of powers, in practice we have a far better seperated judiciary than Germany or the USA, where on paper the judiciary is 100% independent but in practice is a branch of party politics.

Likewise how can one seperate the executive from the scrutinising role of parliament in a parliamentary system? Do we thus have to scrap parliament in order to establish accountability?

In that case what do we replace it with? Is a president better held to account by the legislator anywhere in the world than a Prime Minister?

I accept that ‘full’ seperation of powers is utopian, but it can and does exist no where in the real world. And that being the case we must surely enjoy the view through what mist of unsperated powers exists.

fortunately that mist is very light in the UK, where seperation of powers is fairly strong, at least compared to almost anywhere else in the world.

Unless you simply feel all politics is pointless as you can never assess any government?

I think it is easy to attack any position with a valid critique without providing a balanced argument (as Sunny seems to be in favour of doing) to compensate for the weakness. That methodology of criticising tends to degrade into a nihilistic spiral which doesn’t offer any solution is one that is a cause of much of the apathy we see growing all around us. It is also the source of the description of the ‘lack of vision’ in the current Brownite regime, and the underlying failure of Melanie Phillips contribution to political commentary. It simply doesn’t aid the intelligence of debate.

Even-handedness often doesn’t satisfy our primal urge to express disgust at identifiable wrongs, and descriptions of it are quickly manipulated into the perception of wooly-minded passivity, so it takes disciplined principles to withstand the inevitable accusations from short-term machinators.

The political movement of trades unionists to gain recognition for their activities was the main impetus for the Labour Party as they remained on the outside of the social establishment, but since Labour successfully rode the wave of this coalescent opinion into power the transition has become complete and Trades Unions can now claim to be an accepted national estate.

For this reason the separation of Labour from the unions has now become necessary, if only we can agree on the representative position they should take in parliament.
I advocate reform of the House of Lords which would account for workplace representation in this manner – after all their original charters didn’t ascribe a partisan bias, nor should they any longer. For the Trades Unions to continue to unfairly influence the common good in this way is for them to undermine the secularism of our society to the detriment of national policy.

Historically viewed, Trade Union partisanship is similar to the damage caused by the union of church and government, the military and government or all other recognised estates, be they judicial, medical or whatever else when they were able to exert undue influence over government. And the solution is the same: where the religious councils formed synods and provided Lords Spiritual, so other councils were formed for their field of operation and the most distinguished experts were sent to make their representations in parliament. The Labour Party is afraid of maturing because this would wean it off the teat they have become dependent upon for their survival.

@M4E without full separation of powers the view is clouded, so proper levels of scrutiny is actually made impossible and accountability is prevented in practice. The longer we wait before this is enforced the closer we come to a devastating crisis.

I was not attempting to slur public sector bureaucracies, I was attempting to illustrate that people can often develop strong opinions on a subject, in this case the opinion of public sector bureaucracy as inefficient and wasteful without actually properly analysing the subject.

My actual opinion on the subject is similar to yours, there really ain’t all that much in it.

I should stress that my boiling blood was something of an exageration – and I didn’t mean I sit at home at night stressing out about unknown people out there who have vowed never to vote tory because of the poll tax or never vote labour because of Iraq.

It’s just that I get annoyed when in political conversation with seemingly intelligent people, they come out with that statement, since it shows a lack of depth to political thought akin to never shopping at tescos because one doesn’t like olives.

Sorry to get angry about that. I tried not to assume much about your income other than that your view of the minimum wage suggested you didn’t earn £1.50 an hour in london ten years ago.

but I have a question about your ‘enjoying the view’ comment. How can we hold government to account without ‘enjoying the view’?

Holding it to account, far from being dogmatically negative, actually means assessing government on its actions and results.

We have to be able to look at the debacle of Iraq and condemn, and look at the benefits of the minimum wage and commend.

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otherwise there is no insentive for government to be good – and no basis on which to decide between possible governments at the ballot box.

This is a disgraceful attempt to create a generalised slur without actually providing any figures to back it up. While I agree that governments bureaucracies are more than capable of waste it is pure dogma to suggest the assumed alternative counterpart is necessarily better – it indicates a political agenda is at work.

What is clear is that there are some things that public bureaucracies do better and other things that private bureaucracies do better. The public and private sectors occupy different positions in the economy because they play different roles. Both may learn from each other and there is usually some overlap and confusion caused as each side fills the areas of an expanding economy.

We shouldn’t seek to exclude the benefits that may be provided by either side of any argument without hoping to create a flawed imbalance commensurate with the requirement for future compensation. That is, unless you don’t accept the possibility of self-delusion.

I think those people are silly too.

I’d suspect that M4E’s opinion on this matter is shaped by personal experience and anecdote. But if you think it’s silly, it’s worth bearing in mind how many people get angry about problems without even realising that they don’t know how important it is.

People get angry about immigration, but I’ll bet that most of them have know idea how many immigrants were allowed into the country last year, or the year before , or whether the numbers are going up or down?

People get angry about bureaucracy, but how many of those people actually know how wasteful government bureaucracies are relative to their private sector counterparts?

Anecdote and experience shape our emotions far more easily than facts and figures, it’s a fact of life.

It seems silly to be angry about a problem when you don’t know how important it is.

the consumer mentality is of course ill-defined. I guess we can’t really quantify it.

but I do dispair at people everytime some one says “I could never vote for… because…” and then give one specific policy.

Its that consumer mentality that makes my blood boil. I don’t know how widespread it is though.

It seems possible. I don’t know what proportion of the public has moved away from mainstream to single-issue politics because of a ‘consumer mentality’.

But I imagine more people are disengaged because of the reasons listed in the Power and Phillips documents rather than that mentality.

it’s just a thought – but is it not possible that people back single issue campaigns and charity groups because they fit better with the public’s consumer mentality?

people can engage with a campaign that fits their lifestyle, provides them with the satisfaction derived from ‘making a difference’, and that offers the idealogical purity that makes people feel confident and (lets be honest here) a bit superior to those who don’t have it.

so, a bit like going to tesco, they look at all the world’s problems and all the issues in politics, and pick and choose those that they like, discarding those they don’t.

They need never make a difficult decision that way. They can just like the environment. And that’s about it.

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That’s bad news for political parties that have to have a position on every political issue, no matter how hard, and reflect all 60million people of the UK.

how can a party sell a full political package based on a sensible assessment of the structures and realities of the world we live in – to people who could instead opt for a single ideal to campaign for?

after all – if greenpeace were to campaign as well for greater or lesser religious involvement in education, it too would start to lose members who disagreed with whichever stance it took. Add in an opinion on abortions, the EU, housebuilding, etc, and how many of its members would stick around?

I take it back – we don’t agree – your lack of respect for people is astounding. I have family who, if I put their annual increase in minimum wage into the context of a pint, would hit me. Hard.

I can’t imagine ever being so patronising and disrespectful as you about hard working people on on low wages. (far lower than i’d know how to get by on).

So I think I’ll just let this lie with a suggestion that you get a little perspective and stop letting your notion of perfection taint your opinion and serve as an enemy of the good.