More Power To Parliament, More Power To The People

So, Gordon wants more power for Parliament and for the People, does he? Good for him. Just for a start, he should try the following:

1. The restoration of the supremacy of British over EU law, and the use of this to restore Britain's historic fishing rights;

2. No EU law to apply in the United Kingdom without having gone through exactly the same parliamentary process as if it were a Bill which had originated in our own Parliament;

3. The requirement of British Ministers to adopt the show-stopping Empty Chair Policy until the Council of Ministers meets in public and publishes an Official Report akin to Hansard;

4. The election of Britain's European Commissioner by the whole electorate from a shortlist of two submitted by a secret ballot of MPs;

5. The disapplication in the United Kingdom of any ruling of the European Court of Justice by resolution of the House of Commons (giving this country the same level of independence as is rightly enjoyed by Germany through her Constitutional Court), and the non-application of any ruling under either the Human Rights Act or the European Convention on Human Rights unless and until ratified by such a resolution;

6. Repeal of the Civil Contingencies Act;

7. Repeal of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act;

8. Restoration of the situation whereby a Bill which runs out of parliamentary time is lost at the end of that session;

9. Repeal of existing erosions of trial by jury, and of existing reversals of the burden of proof;

10. Abolition of majority verdicts (which, by definition, provide for conviction even where there is reasonable doubt), raising of the minimum age for jurors at least to 21, restoration of a minimum property and/or educational qualification for jurors, restoration of the pre-1968 committal powers of the magistracy, and abolition of stipendiary magistrates;

11. Each MP who took his or her seat to be given a tax-free allowance of a fixed sum of money, publicly transferable to the registered political party of that MP's choice, conditional upon matching funding by resolution of a membership organisation (the name of which would then appear in brackets on the ballot paper after the party designation next to that MP's name), with party spending limited to twice the number of MPs multiplied by the amount of this allowance, thus precluding any state funding such as would necessitate state involvement, no doubt through some ghastly commission of the ruling class, both in policy formulation and in candidate selection, which would enable that class to dictate, even more than at present, both what may be discussed, and by whom, with no role for trade unions, i.e., no role for large numbers of working, tax-paying people and their families, the length and breadth of this country;

12. The introduction of a system whereby each constituency party submitted a shortlist of two potential parliamentary candidates to a binding ballot of all registered electors in that constituency, and each party at national level submitted a shortlist of two potential Leaders (i.e., putative Prime Ministers) to a binding ballot of all registered electors throughout the United Kingdom, not least because this would help to protect the First Past The Post electoral system at both national and (therefore) local level;

13. Each branch of each party (including branches of affiliated organisations in Labour's or its successor's case) to suggest up to three policies, with members at branch level to vote for one, with the three receiving the highest numbers of votes from each branch going forward, with the ten highest scorers nationwide then going out to a ballot of the whole electorate, with each voter entitled to vote for up to two, and with the top five then to be included in the subsequent General Election Manifesto;

14. Continual exposure of the ruling class's pathological hatred of local government as in fact an undisguised hatred of people other than themselves, and as expressing itself in the ridiculous view that councils ought to be "commissioners rather than providers" of services, as if efficiency or accountability had somehow been increased by a village primary school's no longer even employing its own caretaker, or by giving private companies unconditional licenses to print public money in return for risk-free "investments" in, say, emptying the bins, or preparing school food, so that the sooner that this whole process of the last 25 years is halted and reversed, the better;

15. Everywhere to be covered by a Parish or Town Council, or an urban or suburban equivalent, with greatly increased powers and resources;

16. Election of the BBC Governors for a fixed term of five years from among those licence-payers in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and each of the nine English regions who are politically independent (sufficient to be eligible in principle for membership of the remuneration panels of local councils), with each licence-payer (including members of political parties) voting for one candidate, the top two per area being elected at the end, and the Chairman being appointed by the Secretary of State with the approval of the relevant Select Committee;

17. No one to be permitted to own or control more than one national daily newspaper, more than one national weekly newspaper, more than one television station (including any of the ITV regional stations), or interests in both sectors, a move which, if made at the start of a Parliament, would just be a fact of life by the time that another General Election came round;

18. As many trade unions as possible to ballot their members as to a potential member of the House of Lords, and then to challenge the Government en bloc to ennoble those thus elected, or else explain in each case what was unacceptable both absolutely and by comparison with Jeffrey Archer, Mike Watson or the Levy Mob;

19. Programmes of one-year House of Commons internships for the highest-scoring A-level candidate at the centre serving each ex-LEA's poorest catchment area who was willing to take them up (most preferably funded by that ex-LEA, and in the office of the local MP) and for a graduate of each of the post-1992 universities (most preferably funded by that university, and in the office of the local MP), thus beating the ruling class at its own game; and

20. The development of an accredited qualification for older "non-graduates" with life experience who aspire to become MPs.

As I say, just for a start.