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Only
radical change will do
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Nick Clegg
Published 13 March 2008 |
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We need a massive
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devolution of power |
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to reverse the |
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centralising excesses |
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of Thatcher, Blair |
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and Brown. |
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Rightly or wrongly, 89 per cent of
British people think politicians put themselves or their party ahead
of constituents and the national interest. There is only one
rational response to learning that nine out of 10 citizens think
politicians are schmucks: change. |
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For too long, however,
most politicians have chosen a different course. The elitist,
Establishment view is this: the people (bless their cotton socks)
are misguided, and should be ignored. Instead of changing politics,
the two establishment parties have pulled up the drawbridge and
fallen back into the comfortable arms of their own vested interests. |
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This strategy will fail. People are
voting with their feet: at the last general election, a third of
voters chose a party other than the Big Two; still more people chose
not to vote at all. The old, exclusive politics, with power and
influence sewn up between a few chums at Westminster, is doomed. It
is time to build something new. |
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I spoke at my party conference in
Liverpool earlier this month about building a new kind of
government. I meant that our entire political system needs to be
reconstructed from the bottom to the top. We need a new voting
system, of course, but that isn't enough.
We need massive devolution of power to reverse the
centralising excesses of Thatcher, Blair and Brown. I am leading
calls for a Constitutional Convention, led by a citizens' jury of
100 people, instead of by the usual great and good. And I want
wholesale reform of pay and expenses so that there is no scope for,
or suspicion of, misdeeds. The second-home allowance should be
replaced, perhaps by a "per diem" allowance for nights spent away
from home, to help stop MPs seeming like they profiteer from
taxpayer-subsidised housing.
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The wish-list is long - and getting
longer as politics drifts further away from ordinary people. The
question is, how to create the momentum to begin this kind of
fundamental change. Once it begins, the tide will be unstoppable. |
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The Liberal Democrats are in a unique
position. Only we can change the system, because we are not part
of it. I joined my party because we were an independent force at a
time when Labour was in the pockets of the trade unions and
Conservatives in the pockets of big business. Both are still in hock
to millionaire businessmen, trade unions, or both, and that is bad
news for us all. When cash determines the rules, they will always be
weighted in favour of people with the largest wallets. That is what
happened in the United States, where the humble voter has long
played 17th fiddle to the big money donors. If Britain is to avoid
this fate, we need to take money out of politics. |
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Tinkering is not enough. We need a
universal system where no donation over £25,000 is allowed. Big
union donations must go, as must offshore finance from Belize. Trade
unions must allow members to donate, through their political funds,
to any party of their choice, not just to Labour. Union donations
that are given on top of individual contributions must be subject to
the £25,000 cap. And no non-dom should be allowed to sit in
parliament. Spending should be slashed, too: no party should spend
more than £10m a year, not just in an election year, but every year. |
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And to put power over parties into
people's hands, as the Power Commission proposed, we should consider
allowing every voter to donate £3, funded from the public purse, to
the party of their choosing, by ticking a donation box on their
general election ballot paper. If people want to support parties, it
should be their choice. And we shouldn't put up taxes or cut vital
investment to pay for it. The money must come by cutting the cost of
politics in other ways: reducing the number of MPs and peers and
cutting the government's £200m advertising budget.
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The establishment parties now face a
choice: join the Liberal Democrats in removing financial influence
from politics, or protect short-term vested interests and condemn
our political system to an early grave. Freeing parties and
politicians to listen to the people, instead of just to their
major donors, will be the catalyst for fundamental change. It is
this change that makes other changes possible. |
Comments (1) |
