Friday, May 24, 2024



Cut the parliamentary term

When Labour was in power, they wasted time, political capital, and scarce policy resources on trying to extend the parliamentary term to four years, in an effort to make themselves less accountable to us. It was unlikely to fly, the idea having previously lost two referendums by huge margins - but politicians gonna politician. But now, we have a truly terrible, anti-democratic government, which is hopefully reminding us of the benefits of regular change. The problem is that its not regular enough.

It is clear that a major problem in our political system is that it is not easy enough to get rid of a bad government. We need to make it easier. The way to do that is to cut the length of the parliamentary term from three years to two.

The political class will whine that its "not enough time to do anything". Bullshit. Its exactly as much time to do things as they do now - if they can convince us to give it to them. And that's the problem: they don't want to convince us. And this pack of wankers just wants to stomp on our faces.

In a democracy, the basis of legitimacy is the consent of the governed, though regular free and fair elections. Lets take that seriously, and make it more regular. Make them convince us. More nastily, keep them in constant fear for their jobs and their perks and their luxurious salary packages. They think that works for us - so let's do it to them.