Judge and Jury

Sir Paul Judge, a millionaire Conservative donor, is setting up his own political movement called ‘Jury Team’ that aims to get more independent MPs elected.

My initial response was ‘why’? Why would a Conservative donor become so disillusioned that he wishes to finance an entire new political system?

In an article in yesterday’s Telegraph, he said that his aim was to break the traditional party leaderships’ control over the political process, which sounds suspiciously like a disgruntled ‘backer’ who was unable to get his way with the present leadership.

Judge complains that “the way the mainstream parties select their candidates and whip their MPs is “about as undemocratic as it gets”. He went on to say that the new movement will work by raising money and mobilising support behind independent candidates with a strong interest in certain issues but no party allegiance – and Shami Chakrabarti, the director of the Liberty human rights group, is one possible candidate.

Is this a case of one powerful backer who was unable to get his favourite person a ‘hot seat’ and now wishes to fragment the miniscule voting public even further? Sir James Goldsmith did just that with his Referendum Party, and Sir Paul Judge is not in his league financially.

Sir Paul says that “We think independent people can make good decisions. We use that model for juries. If you put a group of sensible people together and show them the facts, they’ll make good decisions.”

The present political parties profess to start governing with an agreed agenda as to how it should be done, and proceed to fight like ferrets in a sack until the next election – it beggars belief that starting with 646 disparate souls whose only agreed agenda is that they need not agree would not be a recipe for anarchy.

Given the cult of celebrity that has overtaken the British Isles, we would have people being voted in on the strength of their particular following. In the case of Richard Taylor MP, his following was the staff and patients of the threatened Kidderminster Hospital, and it was sufficient to get him elected – a good job he has made of it in the main. He, however, was a Hospital Consultant, and he has applied all the education and integrity that lies behind that statement. Could the same be said of Jade Goody, or Max Clifford, were they to stand? They may well get the votes, and no doubt an increased vote given their notoriety, but to what effect?

We don’t need a new ‘party’, we need a new level of accountability and transparency. We need less government and more respect for our own ability to organise our own lives. What is wrong with the present politicians is not the ‘party whip’ but the fact that we, the electorate, do not get the opportunity to apply the whip until the next election, by that time we are so brassed off with them that we dither between stocking up on piano wire or voting for the ‘other’ party just to get our own back on them.

Let’s have Prime Ministers Question Time repeated 646 times round the country every week. Let every MP stand in a draughty Hall for a minimum 2 hours a week and be pelted with rotten questions by the people he serves. Make it a ‘misfeasance in public office’ to refuse to answer questions, punishable by removal of their expense account – totally.

Women are extremely good at worming the truth out of errant husband’s, we withdraw all the benefits of marriage, and if that fails, we divorce them with all the financial penalties that implies. Some quite ridiculous specimens of ‘husband’ have been rendered serviceable by this method – use the same system on MPs, and I’m sure we could make a decent, say, 20 or so, out of the present 646 incumbents, and encourage les autres.

Tagged as: Dodgy governments, Jade Goody, Jury Team, Max Clifford, Richard Taylor MP, Sir Paul Judge, taxpayers