were all about implementation. What structure would six hundred random individuals need, to work effectively? In my argument I had no concern about the essential machinery of government, only with its abuse. The civil servants, at whatever level, were doing a proper job. The judiciary was doing a proper job. The police and other services were doing proper jobs. All that was needed, I proposed, was a way to make an effective connection between the new ‘MPs’ picked out from a phone book, and the existing system of national administration.
At that time I had a number of quite wealthy and influential friends, one of whom had, not long before, been subject to what he felt was a gross abuse of power. He had lost out in his bid to renew a long term government administered franchise in a manner which, he felt, raised a number of questions. Whether he was right or wrong is irrelevant for this discussion, but he was furious. Foaming at the mouth would be an understatement. Another was a regional newspaper publisher with very strident views about politicians and their lifestyles. There were a number of others.
I rang around my friends and arranged an informal meeting to discuss the idea which was beginning to take shape in my head.
Six of us met in the summer of 2014. My proposition was that, with the financial and organisational muscle round the table we could have a go at altering the political system. I proposed a two stage attack. The first would be to facilitate the registration of candidates for the 2015 election under one general non-political banner. The second stage would be to get each of these candidates to sign up to an unpublished future course of action, should the project be substantially successful. This second was to ensure that we didn’t just replace one set of self-serving career politicians with another. Our discussions went on for some weeks of late night meetings and, finally, we all agreed to a plan. Those that could, contributed substantial funds into our war-chest. The budget was some millions of pounds. We established an office and started recruiting a small admin team from within our existing staff numbers. It was all very low key.
By the Autumn of 2014 we were ready to go public and, soon after the recruiting of the first candidates commenced.
As you know already, the qualifying candidates were to be non-political in the party sense of the word. Their social politics were relatively unimportant to us, within limits. We were never going to accept those who expressed extreme views, either to the right or to the left, but did want our ‘party’ to be representative of the more general spread of ideas through the population. The thing most important to us was that each candidate understood that they were, in our perfect scenario, only going to serve for a very short time and that any vision of a long term political career should be forgotten.
John Parminter has already taken you through what happened next, so I won’t labour on too much. Suffice to say that we more more successful than we had thought possible and were able to enact our ‘unspoken’ strategy far more quickly than we had ever imagined.
The only major sticking point we had was, at least partly, due to this rapid success. However careful we were in our selection we still managed to end up with a group of new members who, once they had been let into the system decided that they didn’t need to ally themselves with CTD or our programme. At that point we published the agreements all candidates had signed up to and most were bought back into line by their constituents. Those that weren’t were just treated like sitting MPs and ignored, in the full and certain knowledge that they wouldn’t be able to make any difference to the plan.
After the election of 2015, CTD had its first, and last, conference. Over a few days the new members thrashed out the electoral system that has bought you all to Parliament. At the end of the conference CTD was disbanded in favour of the new House Rules, the introduction of which, to law, was the first act of the Modern Parliament.
From this point all decisions taken in the House became subject to certain levels of vote and certain levels of consultation, dependent on their potential effect. You will already know, for example, that there are referenda now and again that require a certain level of voter attendance and a certain level of voter agreement in order for the proposed subject of each referendum to be passed into law. Not that it has happened but, should there be a proposal to send us to war in a third country for example, that would require a seventy percent approval from an eighty percent ballot. A structural change in some level of social security payment would require a sixty percent approval from a seventy percent ballot, and so on. As you know, responding to a referundum is now obligatory. You’ll find out more about the background to these figures as you go on.
That’s about it from me. We’ve got a bit of time left before your next bit of induction so I’ll be happy to take any questions you may wish to ask. Fire away. Perhaps you could introduce yourselves at the same time.’
‘Hello Mr. Ling’,
‘George please’,
‘Hello George. My name is Leonie Chichester, I’m the member for Neath, in South Wales. Until now I’ve been working as a civil servant at GCHQ in Cheltenham. I’m not even sure I’m supposed to tell you that, come to think of it, but perhaps parliamentary privilege overrules the Official Secrets Act? I’m only thirty so, for me, the old system is only a vague memory but, on the other hand, it is something much spoken about at work. Many of the old guard feel that the modern system has made us less able to react quickly to emergencies. What are your thoughts on this?’
‘Well, Leonie, this has been a recurring subject over the past ten years and, I daresay, will continue to be so. I suppose my view is that, historically, the ability of a small clique of government to make far reaching decisions on national security has not been to our advantage. The question relates to one of the CTD’s original mandate principles, vis, the larger the electorate, the better the decision. In the twentieth century, and at the beginning of this century, Britain became involved in a great number of conflicts around the world. Many were just causes, and many weren’t, but all had one common factor. We were sent to war without consultation. This meant that there would always be doubt in the nation about the decision and this could, at the very least, be used by detractors and pressure groups to undermine what may well have been very lucid and convincing arguments for involvement. I think that, if we are going to be involved in anything other than a defense of our own land, it is essential to have the whole country supporting the action through a democratic referendum. One other important element to take into account is the role of the armed forces in our democracy. Previously there was a very close relationship between the ‘generals’ and government. Armed forces, by their very nature, want to go out and show how good they are at fighting wars. So, when asked for their opinion late at night in some crisis room or other would tend to project an optimistic scenario that imagined a nice quick military solution to any given problem. Unfortunately, many politicians of the past were all too willing to agree with these people, and happy to take advice which they could later use in defence of their actions. I prefer a more considered approach.
Incidentally, new members such as yourself who have particular knowledge about something, such as national security, should not be shy to introduce themselves to the various committee groups that meet to discuss these issues. You’ll find a list of these in your induction notes.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘Hello George. My name is Indra Chowdary. I was a call centre worker in Portsmouth, and now I’m here representing that city. I’m thirty two, so, like Leonie, I didn’t have much experience of the old system. I’m the son of Indian immigrants, although I’ve never been to India and consider myself to be completely British.
I live in a pretty run-down part of Portsmouth. There’s a lot of unemployment and not a lot of well-paid work and, to me, nothing much seems to have changed over the last ten years. Can you comment on this?’