The Parliament Act was designed to stop an elite band of Lords from preventing the passage of a bill favoured by the people. It is undeniable that the current Labour government have taken advantage of this, and forced through legislation that is at best controversial, and even potentially unpopular with the people, thanks to their huge Commons majority. It’s clear, therefore, that an archaic law is being abused by a modern-day government to the potential detriment of the democratic process. Why, then, don’t we reform this law?

We now live in an age where referenda are relatively easy to organise, especially if held alongside local elections. And when viewed in the context of the Act only having been used seven times in almost 100 years, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to suggest that the Parliament Act should be reformed to suggest that the Commons can only overrule the Lords in the case where the Commons has the backing of the majority of voters in a referendum. In that way, the Act would truly be restricted to being used when the people’s wishes are being ignored by the Lords, and would also prevent the abuse of the Act shown by the Labour government.

Obviously, urgent legislation couldn’t be passed using these measures, but then it is highly unlikely that the Lords would have any wish to delay urgently necessary legislation anyway. This change would appear to give more power to the Lords, and perhaps slightly increase the obstinacy of the Chamber, invoking more use of the Act than at present; however, viewed on another level, it takes power away from the Commons and returns it to the people the Commons is supposed to represent. It’s also possible that the piece of legislation being passed would be one that no-one really cared about, and so wouldn’t really be motivated to cast a referendum vote upon, but again, that’s unlikely as by the very nature of the process the legislation involved is likely to be controversial.

The final consideration is whether this would actually return power to the people, or increase the power of those in the media. Of course, in reality, it would probably do a bit of both – but we manage to get through General Elections every four years or so without worrying whether the votes are those of the people or those of media moguls, so I don’t see why we can’t manage the same in a referendum once every 13 years or so.

Overall, I think mine is a pretty good suggestion, even if I do say so myself. But I’m no expert, and I’m sure there’s some major factor I must be overlooking. So, if you can see the flaw in the plan, feel free to comment and let me know. The future of the Parliament Act needs to be debated – so let’s get on with it 😉

Over the last week or so, you may have noticed a few changes on the site. First off, and perhaps most noticeably, the site’s ‘masthead’ has changed. The main aim of this exercise was to get rid of the old ‘design’, which was only ever really intended as a placeholder until I converted the original sjhoward.co.uk logo into something a little more respectable. What I’ve now ended up with is an amalgamation of features of both designs, which I think works quite well. As ever, your thoughts are also appreciated.

I’ve also tidied up the post title and information thingy, so that they’re now connected, and made some subtle positional changes with the sidebar and paragraph lines to make the posts stand out a bit more, and look clearer and less cluttered. Blockquotes have become rather lighter in every sense of the word, too.

The way comments are displayed has been tweaked, to make things a little clearer, and the sidebar has been lengthened with a few more things added, and archives fully expanded instead of hidden in a drop-down.

The changes are pretty small, but I think they generally improve the appearance of the site. If you think otherwise, then feel free to get in touch through commenting or email, and I’ll try my best to respond to your concerns.

Update
In other good news, thanks to more advanced spam filtering, you now don’t need to enter any graphically displayed security code to post a comment on the site. This provides a major improvement for our visually impaired readers who use screenreaders, which makes commenting rather tricky since they can’t read the graphic. Hurrah!

In a very cleverly written allegorical article for Prospect this month (“Opiate of the masses: It is a highly addictive drug, but governments everywhere encourage its use“), Richard Dawkins grapples with the inherent dangers associated with ‘Gerin oil’:

Gerin oil (or Geriniol to give it its scientific name) is a powerful drug which acts directly on the central nervous system to produce a range of characteristic symptoms, often of an antisocial or self- damaging nature. If administered chronically in childhood, Gerin oil can permanently modify the brain to produce adult disorders, including dangerous delusions which have proved very hard to treat. The four doomed flights of 11th September were, in a very real sense, Gerin oil trips: all 19 of the hijackers were high on the drug at the time.

I’m quite surprised that the Mail hasn’t picked up on this and given Dawkins a pretty hard time for it – but then, perhaps they didn’t get it. Either way, it’s a superbly well written piece, and has some pretty convincing arguments, many of which I largely agree with:

It is easy to regard such people as evil criminals, from whom the rest of us need protection. Indeed, we do need protecting from them. But the problem would not arise in the first place if children were protected from becoming hooked on a drug with such a bad prognosis for their adult minds.

It’s very well worth reading, whatever your point of view, and I think it was quite a brave piece for Dawkins to write. He’s always been one of my favourite scientific authors, and this has certainly done nothing to change that view.

What can really be said about accountability in modern day politics, when the same guy can resign twice from the Cabinet within ten months? Is there any chance he’ll go for a hat-trick in a year? I know I’ve said many, many times that the lack of accountability is the worst aspect of the Labour government, and, of course, they’ve even gone as far as to incentivise their dirty form of government. It is, quite simply, wrong.

That said, it’s quite comical to look through my emails this morning: There’s one from 7pm last night – “I am not resigning, says Blunkett” – one from 9am this morning – “Blunkett preparing to resign” – and one from 10am – “David Blunkett resigns”. Talk about a fast mover.

Of course, the idea of a big pay-off, and the pretty certain guarantee that he’ll be working for New Labour again in the very near future must have made the decision to resign rather easier to take. A culture where a select few are protected and continually rehired after being sacked or resigning in disgrace is not a healthy one, but quite clearly, it’s a New Labour one.