HITTING THE NAIL ON THE HEAD!
Posted on May 31st, 2009Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, England, recently commented on a government crisis currently gripping Britain in an op-ed article he contributed to a British newspaper. Although his thoughts are about Britian’s situation, they pretty much hit the nail on the head when it comes to Canada and the United States as well. Thanks to Christopher Moore’s blog who who drew our attention the following speech:
“We don’t need a constitutional convention. We don’t need to contemplate proportional representation, since that will only intensify the power of the party machines and create even more lobby fodder. We want a new breed of MPs who will consistently tell the whips to get stuffed; who will smash the brutal and intellectually enervating system of party discipline that turns Westminster into a kind of Seventies Leyland car factory, apathetically turning out badly assembled laws to plague the people of this country.
We need far fewer laws and far fewer MPs (400 would do fine). My advice to constituency parties is not to hire candidates unless they promise two things: to read every line of every Bill they are called upon to pass; and to vote according to their conscience, and not according to the wishes or orders of the whips.
That may gum up the machinery of law-making, and that would be all to the good. It may make it impossible for Parliament to produce yet another annual Criminal Justice Bill. It may make it more difficult for MPs to produce yet more laws telling teachers, doctors, nurses and other public servants how to manage their vocations.
If we had fewer MPs, and they were forced to concentrate on what they were actually doing, we would have much less legislation, and I can’t think of a better way of saving us all time, trouble and money.
We need a Parliament of rebels, and we need it now.”