Should we do away with the Whips?

[cressida]

Do you think having the Whips in Parliament is democratic, why should our representatives be harried into voting a certain way?

[andygardener]

Do you think having the Whips in Parliament is democratic, why should our representatives be harried into voting a certain way?

 

I think they should be abolished, might make local mps genuinely accountable to their constituents.

[andyofborg]

you can't really get rid of them

 

they help maintain party discipline, and at the end of the day if an MP is a Member of a party which has funded his election and supported him/her then he should follow the party line and at the end of the day a party which is divided on too many issues can neither form an effective government nor an effective opposition.

 

there may be times when an MP's conscience dictates disobeying the party line and those times can be dealt with as and when they occur. if the whip is correctly applied then those cases should be few and far apart.

 

the perceived power of the whips is a symptom of the real problem which is that our MP's are drawn from small closed sample of people ( public school->university->party worker->special advisor) who have had little contact with real people and never had a proper job and have no understanding of how the world works

[NorthernStar]

Do you think having the Whips in Parliament is democratic, why should our representatives be harried into voting a certain way?

 

Absolutely, party politics does little for the true representation of the the electorate. As for the idea that they can't govern without being part of a grubby organisation is tosh, the elected would either have to grow up or ship out according to the will of their voters.

[onewheeldave]

 

they help maintain party discipline, and at the end of the day if an MP is a Member of a party which has funded his election and supported him/her then he should follow the party line and at the end of the day a party which is divided on too many issues can neither form an effective government nor an effective opposition.

 

While his/her party may have funded and supported them, the real debt is owed to the constituants who voted for him/her- IMO, first loyalty should be to them.

[Harleyman]

Do you think having the Whips in Parliament is democratic, why should our representatives be harried into voting a certain way?

 

I didnt know MPs were into that kinky stuff.

[HeadingNorth]

We used to have a system of individual, independent MPs. Not a single one of them could ever get their wishes through Parliament because every single other one had a different set of wishes.

 

They realised, about three hundred years ago, that the only way to get anything done at all, was to come together as a group on a compromise programme, which didn't give any MP everything he wanted but gave every member of the group at least part of what he wanted, and enabled them to pass bills by block vote.

 

If you want to throw away all of that, and have a few years of utter chaos before the next batch of MPs realise that joining into parties is the only way of getting anything done, feel free to vote for independent candidates. But I don't think much of the electorate will agree with you.

[Rupert_Baehr]

Do you think having the Whips in Parliament is democratic, why should our representatives be harried into voting a certain way?

 

I don't remember giving you a copy of my hymn sheet ... but (I suspect) we're singing off the same one!

 

If I vote for an MP and my choice gets elected, then I expect my elected member (and there are synonyms for 'member'- including [but not limited to] 'pillock') then I would expect my member to act in my interests. To represent those interests in parliament.

 

But there's the 'pillock' bit. The chances are that although I exercised my democratic right to vote, I helped to elect an ochocracy. An organisation which will do what it likes, irrespective of the wishes of those who elected it.

 

I wasn't offered the chance of electing an MP, I was offered the chance to elect a pillock.

 

The choice was: "Which pillock do I vote for?"

 

I got stuck with somebody who will do exactly what his political masters tell him to do and who doesn't give a stuff about my wishes, needs or aspirations.

 

And the above sentence may well apply to voters of all political persuasions.

 

Is there an alternative? - For me, yes. I moved to a small self-governing community. (We don't do parking fines, but otherwise we have many of the powers of a council.) 800 electors (everybody who lives here - even foreigners [like me] gets a vote.)

 

We all pay Federal taxes (obviously) and we pay Florida Sales Tax. And we pay Brevard County property taxes.

 

Once we've paid our taxes, we live as we choose.

 

And we live well! - We run our community.

 

That doesn't mean you get to do what you like! - Far from it. The rules which bind me are numerous (and strict!) But they're the rules which our society (800 people) decided on. They do change ... but only as 800 people - small enough to be a real democracy - decide.

 

Where I live, when we want to elect people to run the place (the Board of Directors) we elect individuals who can do the job.

 

We don't elect 'parachuted in' candidates (and although Cameroon might suggest that it's a 'good idea' to have somebody oversee the candidate list, we don't find that to be a major problem.)

 

Of course, should you wish to run your own society, then security will be of at least some interest.

 

I live in a so-called 'gated' compound. We have Security Men. Large gentlemen who will forbid you entrance if you're not an invited guest.

 

We have 3 gates:

 

Main gate - manned 24/7

 

South gate: - Solid steel, used by ourmaintenance team.

 

North Gate: A barrier (opened by a garage door opener) during the day, closed by a gate at night.

 

We had an 'incident' 3 or 4 brave youths decided thwey would sneak under the nrth gate and burgle a few houses.

 

They did. Without bloodshed. But when they got back to the North gate there was a 'FrackArse" (to put it mildly.)

 

They were invited to stop. They chose not to do so.

 

The old farts who met them at the gate were armed.

 

I do live in a retired military community and - as you might expect - many of us own small arms and are more than marginally competent with small arms.

 

The gentlemen who invaded the place ignored that and received significant injuries. (Below the waist ...most will not have problems with contraception in the future.)

 

Their choice.

 

Apparently, where I live is deemed no longer to be a worthwhile target for local burglars.

[Stoatwobbler]

On the face of it it would be brilliant if parliamentary whipping was abolished. MP's who think for themselves are much more likely to do their job properly and hold the executive to account.

 

However, in reality groups of politicans with common interests will inevitably group together to form parties, and these groups will inevitably come up with something similar to whipping to ensure that they get their way in parliament.

 

So therefore, whilst abolishing party whips is a noble idea in theory in practice it wouldn't work. We could still do with more independent MP's and lots more MP's who think for themselves rather then blindly obeying their party bosses though.

[cressida]

I didnt know MPs were into that kinky stuff.

 

It's Black Rod they are worried about;)