Salisbury Democracy Alliance

Tag: local government

  • Democracy Café: June

    Numbers were a bit down for this meeting which is probably to be expected on a nice June day. It didn’t inhibit our discussion however which was on the topic of should there be a different way of selecting our prime minister? This referred to the votes by members of the Conservative party on whether to keep Boris Johnson as their prime minister following the magic number of MPs who had submitted letters to Sir Graham Brady and the vote of no confidence in him.

    The point made by the proposer was that the prime minister represented all of us and was the prime minister of the country as a whole. Should it just be left to, in this case Conservative MPs, many of whose futures depended on party patronage or who were on what is termed the ‘payroll vote’ that is were part of the government in some form? The example was given of John Glen, the Salisbury MP and a Treasury minister, who claimed in the Salisbury Journal that he had ‘no discretion’ in the matter. This puzzled some as it was a secret vote.

    Some alternative suggestions were made and discussed including allowing the public to sue or involving the court system generally. People were not generally impressed by this partly because of its cumbersome nature and, who selects the judges? It was pointed out that the House of Commons as a whole can have a vote of no confidence which is likely to lead to the prime minister resigning and even the fall of the government. It was also pointed out that Boris Johnson is still very popular with the public and that many think that ‘partygate’ has been overdone. Many liked his style of leadership which was itself a worry. Involving the public in prime ministerial appointments brought us dangerously close to being a presidential system. We didn’t get the normal response of ‘do you want to have a president Blair?’ at that point but someone did quietly mutter ‘Donald Trump’ which serves as a terrible warning (Trump I mean although …).

    People still felt the current system intolerable but quite what to do about it was less clear. The role of the media (as ever) came into the discussion and their role in influencing public opinion either way. Big money interests support the Conservatives on the whole it was said.

    A general question was posed at this point: how do you select a leader of any group or organisation? Who selected whom should be the facilitator of this very meeting? If we didn’t like him how would we go about changing him? A profound question.

    We moved on to talk about the parliamentary situation as a whole and in particular the current two party system. Although ‘first past the post’ was not specifically mentioned, it was the point behind the comment that the winner takes all process encourages people who can cope with it. Those who might be more collaborative in their approach are discouraged by the party warfare – or should I say warfare between the parties. The two party system was thought not suitable for today’s world it was thought.

    A quirk of the system about voting for the prime minister was that it would only be the voters of Uxbridge and South Ruislip who get to vote for him (or not) in a general election.

    Towards the end of this session, the point that most politicians are not in it for the money was made (although this had not been suggested or inferred).

    Part two of the session moved on to whether at the local level, politicians should not be aligned to a national party. Salisbury was slightly unusual in having a party system – other councils in the area for example Wilton, weren’t. That we do was at the behest of Labour and LibDem leaders it was claimed.

    One of the advantages of people standing with a party label is that the public knew broadly what they stood for. It was a kind of short hand for their likely beliefs. On the other hand, it is likely to lead to assumptions by the public about how a politician will vote which might not always be true. It was also suggested that it also encouraged people to vote. Whether this was the case was challenged with the example of Frome in Somerset where a non-party approach had led to an increase in voter participation.

    It was pointed out that a great deal of council expenditure was determined by government policy and spending limits. Much expenditure was non-discretionary, social services and highways for example. The degree of discretionary expenditure was relatively small and declining: reductions in the support grants also imposed restrictions. One of the councillors present said that in fact most of his fellow councillors across parties, wanted the same sort of things but the disagreements were more about how.

    The second part, which touched on the same sort of areas, was the suggestion that Wiltshire should be split into two counties, north of the plain and south of it. The two halves of the county were very different (the saying ‘as different as chalk and cheese’ referred the two farming types in the county). The two parts looked to different areas: the north more towards Bath and Bristol and the south towards Southampton and Winchester. People living near the borders between counties often lost out because of the postcode lottery. There has always been a simmering resentment in Salisbury that Trowbridge was remote and that they was overlooked. However, it was noted that people in the north of the county similarly resented what they saw as Salisbury getting a bigger slice of the cake, so where did the truth lie?

    Those who wanted something like the District Council back were less keen to have social care back as well it was said.

    Why was voting for, and interest in, local government so low? One answer was that people often do not understand its importance. Well, couldn’t councils do more to explain it better? It was pointed out that some councillors had established surgeries to which no one came. When there was a local issue then perhaps then it was appropriate for councillors to engage with electors.

    Both topics shared a sense of frustration with the political system both national and local. For some, the failure of Boris Johnson to resign was outrageous although, as was noted, many thought the whole story was overblown and they were happy with his performance. The system relied on basic integrity and once that failed, the flaws in our uncodified system became all too evident. Many people were disengaged with local politics and part of this was a lack of understanding of its importance and the limitations on its powers.

    Peter Curbishley

  • 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