Salisbury Democracy Alliance

Tag: Kruger

  • Assisted dying

    The Bill raises troubling aspects about our democracy

    November 2024

    On Friday 29th November, the House of Commons will debate the private members bill to allow assisted dying. Views about this are very varied. Some, who may have experienced a loved one suffer at the end of their life, may be in favour. Others, and sometimes for religious reasons, are opposed to it. Still others worry that it will be abused and that it is the ‘thin end of the wedge’. Elderly people are known to worry about ‘being a burden’ and might consent to the procedure for quite the wrong reasons. There may be the occasional family keen to hasten the end of a parent with the aim of securing their inheritance sooner. Medical staff, committed to saving life, may be reluctant to be drawn into doing the exact opposite.

    There are matters both of conscience and practicalities. The latter to ensure that there are watertight procedures to prevent abuse of any kind. Recent medical scandals have shown however, that the profession cannot be relied upon to police itself reliably. Medical people who whistle blow are treated shabbily by the NHS and often driven out of the profession altogether. Our judicial system is less than perfect with miscarriages of justice galore. You only have to say the words ‘Post Office’ to see into a world of corruption, incompetence and the mass failure of our various institutions to do the basic business of acting with honesty and integrity. Dare one mention Archbishop Welby exposing yet another institution failing spectacularly. All around, whether it’s government, police, the judiciary, NHS, Anglican and Catholic churches, there are examples of gross failure to protect the vulnerable, to act honestly, to be open or admit failure.

    Given these facts, it is not too surprising that there are some who are reluctant to put themselves into the trust of such flawed institutions.

    However, accepting that there are many – and by some polls, a majority – who would like this to be law, the question is how, as ordinary citizens do we make our views known? In Salisbury, our two MPs are John Glen and Danny Kruger. The latter was exposed in the Observer for allegedly being a kind of ‘front’ for evangelical Christians who have contributed £55,000 to the campaign against the bill. He is being investigated by the Commons Standards body and we must await their findings. We do not know what Glen’s views are but he is also an evangelical Christian and often mentions his faith as a guiding force in his life.

    Is our democracy working?

    This raises interesting questions about our democracy and how it works in our corner of the world. Both these are likely to vote against the bill (Kruger definitely, Glen probably) on the basis of their religious beliefs. Yet, the recent census shows that the number of people who are Christian is now a minority at 46%. It has declined significantly from the previous census. Those who actually take an active part in the religion is much smaller still.

    Do either of them know what their constituents think about this? I very much doubt it. Although some MPs have honourably and assiduously gone around their constituencies and attended various meetings to find out, I am not aware of either of ours having done this. Parenthetically, if it passes its second reading it will go to the Lords where a collection of bishops will have their say: the same bishops who are part of the deeply flawed CofE. There is at last a move to have the bishops removed from the Lords. [It did pass its second reading. Both Kruger and Glen voted against the bill]

    So the MPs, in all probability, will vote against the bill based on their personal and religious beliefs. In a personal capacity – the same as anyone else – they are free to express their views for religious or any other reason. But they are supposed to represent the constituency and not just the religious people within it.

    Citizens’ Assembly

    These arguments suggest that we should have had a Citizens’ Assembly on this matter. That would have enabled an informed debate to take place and for a wide section of the community to take part. The failure to do so, and an almost complete failure in the media and elsewhere to suggest that such a thing should take place, points to a breakdown in our political process. Not only do our MPs not know what their constituents think about this important issue, but many in Kruger’s constituency will be unaware he is being investigated over the matter. Neither the Salisbury Journal nor the Gazette and Herald have reported it. [Correction: 29 November. both G&H and SJ have now reported it on line.] Glen reveals that the majority view of his constituents was for the bill which passed its second reading today.

    This is an important moment and the Assisted Dying bill is the latest example of people being given the power to decide their own fates and it not being determined by church or state. If the bill falls, it will be a long time before it is put forward again. As citizens of south and east Wiltshire, we are surely entitled to have our views known and taken account of. Instead, we have one MP acting surreptitiously, it is alleged, on behalf of a religious group and another driven by his evangelical beliefs. To what extent are they reflecting the views of those they are paid to represent? The answer I suggest, is not at all.

    Peter Curbishley

    UPDATE, 28 November. Mr Glen devotes his entire column in the Salisbury Journal today to this subject. Although not actually saying he will vote against, the tenor of the piece is that he will. It is based he says on discussions with people and medics and doubts some of which are similar to those mentioned above. He also mentions his own family. He makes no mention of his religious beliefs.

  • Virtual Democracy Café

    About ten of us met for a Democracy Café meeting on Saturday 8 August via Zoom. I say ‘about’ because one member had a lot of buffering and did not make the second half and one came for the second half only. We are at least keeping the flag flying.

    The proposed topics were all sort of related: the increase in apparent cronyism with contracts going to friends of friends without announcement or tender (wouldn’t be so bad if the projects worked but they don’t even do that); is Black Lives Matter a distraction? and the Tory party’s view of community.

    The week had started with the announcement of a proposed wholesale reform of the planning system by ‘honest Bob’ Jenrick the minister concerned. The ideas is to introduce three zones which would allocate land for various types of development and would give developers a fast track to development (it is claimed). Trevor (who lives in Devizes) said he was hoping to meet his local MP, Danny Kruger, to discuss the issue of community led planning. The Conservatives were said to be keen on the idea although the question was, will they resource it? It does not always seem to be recognised that running and managing ‘community’ events costs money. It will be interesting to hear what Kruger says. The government were once keen on the idea of citizens’ juries but dropped them because many of the proposals emerged from Labour run authorities.

    Local Governance

    It was noted that the government has an almost visceral dislike of local government which has been evident during the pandemic. They are happy to give funds to the likes of Serco rather than support existing LA health teams run down during austerity. Why government is giving out these contracts is being challenged by the Good Law Project. But, it was pointed out, the government had put more into local government recently. Maybe this could herald a change in attitude? We were reminded of the Lansley reforms of the NHS which caused such immense harm and drastically reduced local input.

    Covid-19 had seen a rise in volunteering, community involvement and the activity of local groups and charities. Since local government was not functioning as it should, could the use of community groups be a better way to run things in future? Burke’s idea of ‘little platoons’ had been taken over however by the rise in extreme libertarianism.

    A problem with local involvement it was pointed out was that people often choose what were termed ‘cuddly’ projects to contibute or give money to. Effort and resources may not go to areas of real need if this process was pushed too far. Encouraging people to think strategically was also difficult it was noted. This could be alleviated with proper guidance such as with a citizens’ jury process.

    Linked to this was the issue of ‘infantilising’ of the general public by government ministers. They were aided in this by the echo chamber of social media. It would seem the prime minister and his aids were quite happy to promote this process. Local government was in a pretty poor state and the government should have done more to reverse this: that it hadn’t reflected perhaps its dislike of them and a desire for control.

    Science

    This part of the debate was around influence, the media and social media. I had been listening to the BBC’s How They Made us Doubt Everything (still available) which discussed how the tobacco and oil companies had systematically developed systems and methods to sow doubt on the science. For example, scientists always refer to the ‘uncertainty’ of their results and this was misused to claim that the science as a whole is uncertain. As we have discussed before, the need for balance in TV and Radio reporting meant climate deniers had equal say, leaving the impression that the science was less certain than it is. These arguments are also set out in the book Merchants of Doubt.

    One person said about their son who disbelieved ‘the media’ ie the BBC, newspapers and so on, and preferred to believe what they read on social media. The latter were promoting – or rather allowing the promotion of – anti vaccination for example. Media organisations filter out extremes or wholly unsupported assertions whereas anything can get published on social media which made it attractive to some. It gave them the sense they were getting at the truth which mainstream media was denying them access to. It did give people the opportunity to challenge received opinion.

    Paradoxically, it was noted that the government always said it was ‘following the science’ when it made an announcement. But whose science since the alternative Sage group and WHO often said different things? Maybe it was part of its desire to shift blame with the implied assumption that science is always right.

    We ended with a brief discussion about the future and whether Salisbury Democracy Alliance should have something to say in the local elections. Not to be a party seeking votes but to promote ideas of better government and decisions by using citizens’ juries for example. The meeting took place after the ‘will it, won’t it’ debate about pedestrianisation in Salisbury. [Indeed, one of our participants, Mark, had a letter printed in the Salisbury Journal on this subject (6 August 2020)]. An announcement made, then backtracked and little sign of serious research or consultation. Snafu* as the Americans would say. It was in the long term interests of democracy that better decisions were made. Thus we ended on a positive note.

    Peter Curbishley

    *situation normal all fouled up, although sometimes ‘fouled’ is replaced with something stronger