Open primaries: could this be the way forward

12 April 2012

In Parliament, in the City, the high-ups are reeling. They moan to anyone who will listen how hard done by they feel, how misunderstood they are.

MPs talk about the difficulties of the job they do, of having to juggle their constituency duties with life at Westminster.

So some of them make a bit extra from the expenses. So what? Don't blame us, they say, blame the system.

Bankers seek to justify their grotesque bonuses on the grounds that they earn even greater sums for their employers and are therefore worth every penny.

Besides, theirs is a competitive environment - they need to pay people this much in order to secure the best. Don't blame us, they say, blame the system.

What's striking, listening to these tales of woe and more over the past few months, is just how pathetic they seem.

The lack of comprehension, the absence of empathy of the MPs and the bankers with their fellow man is telling - and frightening.

They really don't see how they have done anything wrong. At Westminster, attempts are made to reform the expenses mess - which only leads to howls of outrage from those affected MPs.

Banks have given out orders to their employees not to be seen to be spending too much in public - as if that will solve the problem.

Politicians grapple with ways of reforming the bonus culture, which only invites further squeals of protest from the City.

Clamping down on bankers' pay is not only legally fraught but, coming as it does from the same political class that has been so exposed and pilloried, invites more disdain and a widening of the already gaping schism between those with power, with money, and those without.

So they go on, the two great sagas of 2009, of pigs with their noses in the trough: MPs and their expenses; bankers and their bonuses.

Meanwhile, a third, alarming, tale rears up, of the rise of extremists who prey on the disillusion of the little man, who sell the idea that only they, and not the mainstream parties, are capable of hearing and understanding.

What's clear to me, having worked in both places caught up in the maelstrom - as a journalist inside Parliament and in the City - is how unlikely they are to change themselves.

Indeed, to expect them to do so is naïve and fanciful. They operate as clubs, based on vested interests, and are not going to tear up their rule books and rewrite their methodologies just like that.

It's increasingly obvious the longer this goes on and the more attempts are made "to draw a line" under the scandal of MPs' expenses and bankers' bonuses, that something profound is at threat.

Our faith in authority continues to be eroded, our very ability to have an orderly society without succumbing to the divisive politics of envy is at risk.

We need a revolution, but that's a word that conjures up images of rioting and guillotines. While that may appeal to some, judging by their anger and despair, it isn't our way.

We have to find a solution that accords with our principles of democracy and tolerance. In the City that means examining how bankers are able to make so much money so easily.

Likewise, if we're serious about reforming politics, we must begin by restoring the hegemony of Parliament. To charge MPs with doing it is ridiculous.

We have to go to the bottom, to the very beginning of the process and how MPs are selected.

Which is why a group of concerned, diverse and influential individuals has formed Open Up Now, a campaign to "improve a dire political environment".

They include Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at Oxford, John Lloyd, the TV comedy writer and satirist, and Alan Parker, head of Brunswick, the City PR agency.

Their aim (www.openupnow.org) is "to promote real, positive and long-term changes to the way our country is run; to increase transparency, fairness and accountability in elections and government; and to challenge the culture of patronage that defines our political system today".

How they intend to achieve such a lofty but vital ideal is by selecting political candidates from open primaries - elections before the general election or by-election, in which anyone can vote.

The Conservatives have already advanced down this road, experimenting with a primary to choose their London mayoral nomination Boris Johnson.

In August, they held an open primary to pick their candidate for Totnes in Devon - Dr Sarah Wollaston won the contest and 23.9 per cent of the electorate took part.

Eric Pickles, the party chairman, said: "I hope Totnes represents a new type of politics, which rejects negative campaigning, and sees openness as a way to restore confidence in public life. I hope over time that the primary process becomes a permanent fixture in British politics."

Yesterday, the Tories again sensing the public mood ahead of Labour, announced that Gosport - home to Sir Peter Viggers who is standing down after he was revealed to have claimed £1,645 for a duck house on the pond on his estate (John Lloyd's videos on YouTube for Open Up Now, of Tales from the Duck House voiced by Harry Enfield, are wickedly funny) - would be the next constituency to run an "all-postal" primary to select Viggers's successor to fight the general election.

Labour has been slower to react - the party's leadership has singularly failed to display the same PR savviness as David Cameron on expenses and bonuses - but Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband and former Culture Secretary James Purnell are on the record supporting the open primary idea.

There are weaknesses in the Open Up Now model. Among them is the difficulty of implementing open primaries ahead of the general election, due at the latest next summer.

There's also the possibility that opposing parties may vote for the selection of the weakest candidate, to boost their chances of success in the main ballot.

"In any election, there is the possibility of abuse and fraud. We feel that the vast majority of Britons will cast their primary vote for the candidate they feel will do the best job," is Open Up Now's less-than-convincing rebuttal.

Nevertheless, open primaries is a move in the right direction and is far, far better than what we have at present. And boy, do we need it.

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