In my wildest of dreams, Labour would have responded simply by standing up:
“thank you for implementing a Labour budget”
And just sat down.
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Given that my area only has one delivery a week at best, I hate this. They should (be forced to) focus on mail instead of parcels because there is no competing service I could switch to for receiving my n+1 bank card
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Mixed feelings about this.
In some ways I get it - you get the foreign secretary (for example) coming onto BBC R4 and instead of getting grilled on matters pertinent to role they often get repetitive questions about the party.
But in others I really don’t. It lacks transparency and feels like the government isn’t really being able to be held to account. I should note it says they’ll be still be available three mornings a week.
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I’m the same as you but I think I am slightly more on the side of the government here. So many times I’ve been frustrated with media interviews with, say, the Foreign Secretary, where all the interviewer does is pound questions about, say, an education bill. It makes me shout at the TV that they are being stupid.
Ministers should have a broad understanding of their government, sure. But they aren’t jack of all trades.
Only sending out ministers when their department actually has done something sounds perfectly reasonable.
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I think the story is more about the level of control being exercised. Ministers normally decide for themselves when to go on TV. The PM reigning then I’m isn’t unheard of, but it is still significant. It probably means that either he’s worried about internal divisions becoming known, or he’s trying to prevent anyone building up a public profile, or maybe both.
It’s yet another example of the government not wanting to be accountable for their actions. The government wants more control of the narrative and less scrutiny. This is never a good thing.
Politics doesn’t take days off. The impact of minister’s decisions will be felt every single day. Why should it be for the government to decide when they are held to account?
Almost all of the time, the reason the health secretary is asked about education is because there has been a development in education. Therefore, it should be expected that the government minister will be asked questions about education. Either send the correct government minister to do the news, or get whoever you are sending to be prepared to answer questions on this topic.
There will also be government ministers who are essentially never on the news. Should the media therefore never ask questions about the areas covered by these absent ministers?
It isn’t the media’s fault that the government is unprepared to answer questions.
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Agreed. So if the correct minister is not available (shockingly this is actually possible) then nobody goes.
Which is kind of what this is about. So you agree.
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No, I don’t, which my very next sentence shows.
It’s, IMO, wholly ridiculous to expect someone to know full details about another person’s role. You wouldn’t be expected to at work, so neither should they. It’s a simple matter.
Not everything is some massive government conspiracy. Tin foil hats not required on this one folks, it’s just a simple and rational idea that someone shouldn’t be expected to know the inner details of their colleagues completely different role.
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Brilliant. Firstly, you put words in my mouth. Now you accuse me of spreading a conspiracy.
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Are you this dramatic in real life?
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Whilst on the whole i agree with you, I would say that it would be feasible for cabinet ministers, as they can be changed at the whim of the Prime Minister every time they have a reshuffle.
I’d hope that anyone promoted or moved into any ministerial post would at least have some understanding of it.
Wow he really went there. Good on him.
I see the value of a second chamber but when it’s so clearly just full of party donors and friends of the elite, there’s no point in it. It’s a shame, the of appointing experts from a wide range of fields to scrutinise what parliament passes is a good one and there are some great people in it doing some great work, but I agree with him that it’s time for it to go.
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Wasn’t this Labour policy previously? I feel like under or just before Blair.
Either way, 100% on abolishment or complete change to HoL. A PR chamber might be a good way of striking balance between how the country votes and retaining the MP constituency link.
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I’m interested in how they propose doing it. There’s some parts of it, like the law lords, which wouldn’t be suitable fully elected and we can’t really do without those.
I feel ideally it should really retain some sense of what it’s supposed to be, experts from different fields like top civil servants, lawyers, scientists and community leaders - people that can serve a function scrutinising the finer points of law and a balance to the populist main house which has to focus almost all the time on reelection chances, campaigns, how stuff looks etc.
Whether that’s possible and still have it elected I don’t know, but anyway, it basically stopped being that 15 years ago anyway so they can’t really make it worse!
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The Law Lords haven’t been a thing for over a decade. The Supreme Court now exists and the House of Lords doesn’t perform a judiciary function.
But I like the idea of experts in various fields sitting in an elected second chamber.
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July 2009 was that last time Law Lords performed a duty
One of the problems with an elected second chamber is that it opens the question of which is superior - as they would both be elected.
At the moment, the Lords give way to the Commons as they recognise that MPs are elected while they are not.
This could/would just open a new constitutional crisis if/when they disagree.