Friday, October 05, 2007
What a farce!
Lib Dem Cllr.John Beanse, commenting on the current political situation, said: "The situation over recent weeks has been a complete farce.
Now the phoney war is over and the election that never was is past history. Now we need to get back to the issues which really matter: the environment, Iraq, health, education, and so much more. The whole scenario of intense media coverage and the mass of public opinion polls which fuelled the "will he, won't he?" speculation on whether Gordon Brown would call a General Election was emphatically bad for effective government and bad for Britain.
The real lesson to be learnt is this: we need to have fixed term parliaments in this country with elections held automatically every four years. There is no democratic principle whatsoever which justifies giving a Prime Minister the right to call an election just when it suits him. It's high time we modernised our democracy in this country."
LIBERAL DEMOCRATS TABLE FIXED-TERM PARLIAMENTS BILL IN HOUSE OF COMMONS
The Liberal Democrats have tabled a Bill in the House of Commons to introduce fixed parliamentary terms of four years. The Bill would fix the date of the next general election (as 7 May 2009) and all subsequent general elections (four yearly intervals, on the first Thursday in May), forbid the dissolution of Parliament at times between those dates and allow the House of Commons to change the day of the week on which general elections are held. The Bill has been tabled by Liberal Democrat Shadow Solicitor General, David Howarth MP. [Politics.co.uk]
Now the phoney war is over and the election that never was is past history. Now we need to get back to the issues which really matter: the environment, Iraq, health, education, and so much more. The whole scenario of intense media coverage and the mass of public opinion polls which fuelled the "will he, won't he?" speculation on whether Gordon Brown would call a General Election was emphatically bad for effective government and bad for Britain.
The real lesson to be learnt is this: we need to have fixed term parliaments in this country with elections held automatically every four years. There is no democratic principle whatsoever which justifies giving a Prime Minister the right to call an election just when it suits him. It's high time we modernised our democracy in this country."
LIBERAL DEMOCRATS TABLE FIXED-TERM PARLIAMENTS BILL IN HOUSE OF COMMONS
The Liberal Democrats have tabled a Bill in the House of Commons to introduce fixed parliamentary terms of four years. The Bill would fix the date of the next general election (as 7 May 2009) and all subsequent general elections (four yearly intervals, on the first Thursday in May), forbid the dissolution of Parliament at times between those dates and allow the House of Commons to change the day of the week on which general elections are held. The Bill has been tabled by Liberal Democrat Shadow Solicitor General, David Howarth MP. [Politics.co.uk]
# posted by John Beanse @ 9:24 AM 
