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A parody of governance
 Michael Martin, the Speaker of the Parliament, in following rules of a sort to tell David Cameron that he could not ask questions as to Tony Blair's preference for the next leader of the Labour party, exposed an increasing sensitivity on the part of the Labour party. The Labour party has become increasingly twitchy about the interchange of the word "government" with the name "New Labour" or "Labour party" since the word government projects governance and state whereas Labour party sums up what we are really dealing with, the Labour party running roughshod over the majority because it has an absolute majority in parliamentary vote, in spite of its embarassing absolute minority of electorate support.
By way of example, the recent "debate" on Iraq served to illustrate the Labour party's drive to avoid any association between the Iraq debacle with Labour party short-sightedness, bloodlust and foreign policy incompetence. They tilted things towards a vision of all of this as being an issue of "The British government", the "the interests of the people" or even the nation on the one hand and of their enduring concern for the people of Iraq. And yet this "debate" showed just how how far from the national interest the Labour party's preferences lie. They stonewalled and openly resisted accountability to the people of the country with an alarming arrogance. They were able to do so because of the inability of the parliament to do anything because of the Labour party's built-in illicit majority. This absurd majority is the result of the first past the post electoral system which Labour and the Conservative parties fully support. Therefore in their jealous pursuit of power both the Labour party and the Conservatives support a system which can provide either with an unrepresentative absolute majority at the expense of making any resulting government answerable to the people.
The unfortunate conclusion is that beyond the argument put forward by the opposition parties, all of which was good, the parties themselves have become an irrelevant anachronism because they play out their well-rehearsed comic stunts in the Westminster Theatre of Tragi-Comedy with an impressive gravity and an intonation which almost convinces anyone listening of their self-importance. Unfortunately the box office closed down some time back because of loss of public support for the show. One of the best one-liners from the Speaker's stand-up, and sometime half-sitting down, comedy routine is, "We must have respect for Parliament". If such a system is so unacceptably unjust in preventing people to bring the Labour party to account, then it has even less merit as a system for election of those who decide to commit armed forces in support of a murderous rampage in the name of the people of Britain.
The British electorate ...
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Stop Press: Historic British inter-party whips' agreement !
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The Labour party and the Conservative party want to have things both ways. When in opposition they bray about holding the "government" to account but refuse to do anything which would enable the representation of the people in parliament achieve this.
Parliament is, under present circumstances, not even a debtaing chamber since the vote carries no authority in terms of the electorate. There is no free vote for the pernicious whip system has these aperatiks sniffing around with the objective of intimidating MPs who might risk some individual thought or action on behalf of their constituents. The people of Britain are treated with considerable contempt, as an unworthy rabble with no understanding of what is important to them. There is no real attempt to reflect their interests because the Labour party do not know what they are. So "governance" fraudulently pronounces distorted self-interested interpretations of events as the views of the people. This system of governance is no more than a political faction forcing onto the majority what it thinks serves its own ends and which, just at the moment, includes preventing independent enquiries into its affairs on behalf of the people.
The Labour party has studiously busied itself on issues of constituency, most of this being half-baked. The single most brazen and significant cause of Britain's constitutional crisis, remains ignored and untouched. This is the House of Commons. This institution rolls together the functions of government, party, constituency representation, legislation and voting parliament floating in an aimless fashion on the tide of a completely unrepresentative majority; an irrational mess. However, political parties do not want to change this. They sustain this brazen corruption in their own interest and at the direct expense of the representation and security of the people of Britain and Iraq.
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