Jonathan Todd

“The expenses fiasco has shown why Parliament must change its ways”, well argues Daniel Finkelstein today. He concludes that “if it doesn’t a succession of disasters will follow”. He asks:

“When the House of Commons is about half full or more, MPs simply bellow and heckle each other, making intelligent debate impossible …  And the things MPs shout are not very nice, either. Sexist, rude, slanderous, irrelevant, childish. How long can it be before someone sits there, writes it all down and puts it on their blog? How long before first one MP, then another, is caught saying something inappropriate? The apologies, the disclipinary action. You can see it all, can’t you?”

I can see it all. But only from behind the parliamentary security screen which relegates parliament to the status of a zoo. Ordinary people can only view in person proceedings in the Commons behind a security screen that makes the sound very much akin to that which they would hear if they were watching proceedings on TV. This means that they are largely unable to hear things which are shouted by MPs other than the one who is supposed to be speaking at that particular time. The screen is supposed to protect the parliamentarians from the people – and the people have much cause to be angry with the parliamentarians at the moment – but the screen has the effect of protecting the people from the parliamentarians as if the parliamentarians are a gang of wild tigers or similar. I am not sure we need this protection and it certainly makes it harder for us to look forward to the blog that Finkelstein anticipates.