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Devolution revolution?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
John Prescott is set to announce plans for regional assemblies in the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber, and the north-west:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/localgovernment/story/0,9061,978247,00.html
Powers likely to be similiar to those of the Greater London Authority.
A boost for democracy...or just more jobs for bureaucrats and politicans?
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/localgovernment/story/0,9061,978247,00.html
Powers likely to be similiar to those of the Greater London Authority.
A boost for democracy...or just more jobs for bureaucrats and politicans?
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Comments
the Scottish Parliment has cost us millions and has only produced two significant peices of legislation: The ban on foxhunting (boo) and the end to tuition fees (yay). I think regional assemblies will prove to be a similar waste.
- Abolish the monarchy and replace them with a constitutional President. We could then sell off or turn into National Trust buildings all the palaces except Buckingham Palace and Balmoral which would be the President's.
- Reform the House of Lords, still call it the House of Lords and call it's members Lord/Lady X but have it done on a regional basis with say 12 seats in each of the 12 regions - 10 of which would be elected on a normal party basis but on a pure PR system so if you had Labour on 40% Conservatives on 30% Lib Dems on 20% and a smaller party on 10% then Labour would get 4 seats, Conservatives 3, Lib Dems 2... etc etc. The remaining two seats would be elections for independent candidates (Crossbenchers) who would have no party affiliation and so these 2 seats in each region would be much more based on personalities.
- Reform the justice system, re-introduce the Lord Chancellor to act as Speaker of the Lords and appoint judges. Make life mean life by giving more specific sentences unless life means life. Keep the Lords as the highest appeal court in the land where the elected members would act as the judge and jury.
- Reform the House of Commons, change the voting system to the Supplementary Vote where you get a 1st and 2nd preference in an election and reduce the number of MPs back to 650 and keep it there.
- Introduce powerful regional assemblies into all the 12 regions all with the same powers - they could set a local income tax to replace the Council Tax which would vary around the central Westminster rate by 5p in the pound. They would have full policy control over education, transport, health, housing, economic regeneration, the police, basically everything except economic policy, defence and foreign affairs. There would be one Assembly Member for each local council ward to ensure a powerful, local body elected by the supplementary vote system.
- All local councils would be abolished and their powers transferred up to the regional assemblies. This would save money by enabling the government to sell off all the town halls, reducing the number of councillors by 2/3 and reducing the number of admin staff.
Back on topic - I support regional assemblies but I don't think they'll have enough power to do the jobs their electorate will demand of them. I think the government's whole constitutional reform has been a messy disaster with no continuity of thought it just all seems to be cobbled together - no doubt we'll have another load of reforms in 20 years to sort out the mess this settlement will cause.
What I would do:
Keep the Monarchy, but reduce the number of Royal residences to keep costs down.
Abolish the house of lords totally.
Keep the House of commons as the centre of national government, but devolve most of the control over public services to...
...assemblies for Scotland, England, Wales, N. Ireland, the Isle of Man* and overseas dependancies.
An assembly for England could take over the debating chamber from the (now redundant) House of lords.
*I would give the current Isle of Man parliment (Tynwald) the same power as the Scottish, English, Welsh and N. Irish parliments.
Oh yes, and I'd keep local councils the same as they are now.
The Queen is supposed to be above politics.
What benefit do the monarchy bring to the UK? Why can't we democratically elect our head of state?
So where would the safeguard be against legislation passed in the Commons? Wouldn't this just lead to a huge increase in ill thought out legislation? What would be the implications for the justice system?
Largely agreed except for the idea of an English Parliament. England is too big and diverse to have a single body I feel and so it should be regionally based as the regions do have their own characters and identities and also face very different problems.
The problem with local councils is that their members are unknown and people just treat local councils as an opinion poll for Westminster also local councils are expensive compared to regional assemblies. Whereas regional assemblies would I feel increase awareness of local issues and so increase participation.
Is that an executive or figurehead president?
Figurehead, like in Ireland.
I'm quite happy with the monarchy as it is thank you. The Queen is an apolitical head of state, above party politics and is therefore someone everybody can look up to. Would you really prefer someone like George W. Bush as your head of state?
Wehere is the safeguard against legislation passed in the regional assemblies?
With devolution, the commons has less power anyway, so is there still a need for an upper house to keep an eye on them?
I can just see myself becoming first minister of Northumbria.
Well, you have me on that point. As I said with the Strathclyde example, bigger councils have more buying power, so are therefore cheaper. As for awareness, the GLA got national coverage during its elections so you can't argue with that.
So would you like Charles as King? The man is a national joke. Or William - but that would go against the whole principle of a heditary monarchy surely? Besides which William doesn't even want the job. And you monarchists always use the American example when talking about Presidents there are lots of different types of Presidency you can just have a figurehead elected by the people and who says it has to be political? Look at the way the Irish do their Presidency.
The safeguard against regional assemblies comes from Westminster as it is still the main body and can suspend a devolved assembly if they pass anything too extreme. The powers of Westminster are the most important over finance, defence and foreign policy and so there is a need for an Upper House to stop a government with a huge majority ramming through policies which are bad for the country.
I think you mean First Minister of the North East!
No I can't but the GLA is a regional assembly - we still have our borough councils in London which don't get national coverage so you just proved my point splendidly!
If whatever president we have is just a figurehead then what exactly is the point? The Queen is a figurehead, and she makes the economy billions in tourism, either directly or indirectly.
Why exactly is Charles a joke? He has done more work for charity than most people here put together, and in most of his actions you can see him trying to help out the little man, his opposistion to GM crops until the effects are known being one of them.
I've got an idea, why don't we just turn Britain into an American state, or a European state, it's what you really want.
Because in a democracy the people are supposed to decide. We should have the right to choose the head of state who represents us instead of some dysfunctional aristocratic family who have done nothing to earn their right to rule.
The Queen wasn't voted into office. She does not make the economy billions in tourism - there have been surveys of our tourists, they come here for the history and our culture not the monarchy - besides if we got rid of the royals we could open up more palaces for those tourists who did actually care about the monarchy - they never see the monarch anyway so the monarch does not contribute to tourism.
The whole royal divorce and the Camilla Parker-Bowles affair disgraced him in the eyes of the nation - come on would you want a Head of State who said he wanted to be reincarnated as a tampon and hugs trees? The charitable roles of the monarchy could be continued by the President, not difficult to arrange just change them from Royal charities to National or Presidential charities. Charles is a self-serving pig - do you think it's a coincidence he attacks GM crops when he owns one of the largest organic farms in the country? He stands up for rich farmers and the countryside while ignoring the majority of our poor in the cities.
I think I know what I want and I don't want Britain to be a European or American state. I want a Britain where we send out the message that all our people are equal, where we are democratic enough to elect our own head of state.
It matters because an executive president would require a great change to the constitution of Britain. In essence it would mean a shift from a parliamentary to a presidential form of government.
Yes, but no Prime Minister has had the support of the majority of the electorate in decades due to the three party system. Besides it is surely morally better that everyone is entitled to vote in their head of state rather just have an unelected, unrepresentative figure ascend to the throne.
Most of the palaces and estates are owned by the Windsors as the head of state not as the Windsors themselves. Besides I'm sure some sort of deal could be reached they could either give back the palaces or the state would reclaim all their civil list money and the tax they avoided paying for decades.
Charles is politically biased, in hoc to the National Farmer's Union and the environmental lobby. That is not the job of a figurehead leader of state.
So would you say Charles did not disgrace the monarchy in the early 90s? I would say he did. If you support the Windsors then how about the moral argument that it is cruel to them to put them as head of state as they get no choice in the matter and their lives are constantly monitored from birth?
I reckon you're insane if you believe farmers are poorer than the urban poor - some of the farm workers maybe but definitely not the farmers, for one thing they own their land acres of it which they could sell, usually large farmhouses with landrovers that is not poor compared to someone living hand to mouth in a grubby council flat. Farmers plead poverty but the reality is most are quite well off.
So you can see no self-interest in Charles attacking GM crops when he just happens to own a large organic farm?
The current figures show it's something like 60:30 in favour of the monarchy but increasing dramatically all the time - 20 years ago it was something like 90:10 in favour. Most support in favour is based on loyalty to the Queen ask what people think of most of the other Windsors and you'll find a very different viewpoint. I think when the Queen dies there will be a large Republican movement trying to stop Charles becoming King. Although, I reckon he will be King but I sincerely doubt that William will ever make it to the throne - which he doesn't want anyway.
But let's differentiate between income and wealth - yes their income may be small however they have the acres of land they own which is worth hundreds of thousands of pounds if not more, combined with owning their own farmhouse which is another few hundred thousand combined with the landrovers and transporters and farm machinery which is another couple of thousand. So that's several hundred thousand more than the urban poor on the same income living truly hand to mouth. At least if farmers wanted to stop being poor all they had to do is sell of their land for a golf course and life off the interest in the bank while getting another job.
A President wouldn't be political unless it was an executive president. Otherwise it would be purely about who would be best to lead us as a figurehead - who is the nicest person, who could really sell Britain abroad etc. At least if the President was politically biased it would be because we the electorate chose them knowing their views rather than some rich aristo mouthing off and getting national press coverage because of his family.
I don't know how many are owned by the state and by the Windsor's personally but what you have to take into account is while other estate owners have paid the necessary tax and have funded themselves with Windsors have been parasites on the national purse not only from their civil list income but also from not paying tax. So I think it would be fair for them to donate Buckingham Palace and Balmoral to the new Presidency as a sign of goodwill so that the monies they have recieved can also be written off as a sign of goodwill. I certainly don't think it is immoral to take a few palaces off a landed family call it nationalisation if you will, what is immoral is that the British people can't choose their head of state and one family enjoys large riches and influence just because of their birth.
The Head of State should not be allowed to persue their own agenda as Head of State certainly not if they haven't been made accountable by being elected. An elected figurehead President would not necessarily have the same political bias as the executive any more than the royals have the same political bias as the executive whenever there is a Tory government.
i also agree that we should have an english & scottish & welsh & NI assembly,basically a rewriting of exisiting constitution actually stating the role of parliament as representive of english for certain things, of which only certain seats could vote for ie non english ones couldnt, but represents the whole of britain for certain issues, such as foreign policy, laws etc
cant think of anything else at the moment
though i do want to keep the monarchy but reduce the number of actual royalty,i cant see the role of a president being useful even less so than the queen,prime minister does it all anyway, and we can blame the queen cause we didnt choose her :P