How to hold governing parties to account
11 April 2011
The “No to AV campaign” election broadcast highlights the cynicism of parties abandoning their Manifesto.
However, voting No to AV in the AV Referendum will not solve the problem. None of the major parties have suggested a solution to this problem.
The Scottish Christian Party has a solution. It will seek to hold governing parties to account by making use of their own Manifesto. Our 2011 Manifesto states:
“The public always feel betrayed when political parties abandon their Manifesto commitments once they are in government, with the excuse that circumstances have changed. This shows lack of foresight, irresponsibility regarding Manifesto pledges, disrespect to the voting public, and the hope that the issue will have blown over by the time of the next election. Governing Parties need to be held to account before the next election.
“The Scottish Christian Party will support debate on legislation to prevent Governing Parties introducing legislation contrary to the most recent Manifesto upon which they were elected.”
This will lead to more realistic promises prior to elections. The electorate should not have to wait four or five years till the next Election to hold the government to account for their own pledges. Evidently this does not apply to opposition parties which need the flexibility to modify their policies in response to the governing party.
The SCP Manifesto also highlights the folly of the AV Referendum itself:
“We believe that the time frame to vote on the UK Parliamentary Alternative Vote (AV) referendum on 5/5/2011 is too short for a meaningful decision. This is another example of the top-down dogmatic approach of the coalition Conservative-Liberal-Democratic Government. Having moved the local government election from the same day, for good reasons, we are at a loss to know the good reason for having the AV referendum on the same day as the Scottish Parliamentary election at such short notice.”
This rush to electoral reform is typical of the rush and grab politics of the LibDems. Having waited so long for electoral success, they are squandering what was so patiently built up by Charles Kennedy. Even the SNP had more sense than to rush forward their Independence referendum in the face of public opposition. This manifests the ineptitude of the LibDem leadership which aimed to have five years within which they could have argued their case more cogently.
To compound the general ignorance of the public about AV, the official parliamentary website explanation of the different voting systems is broken and does not work as this post is being prepared. It acts as a parable of our broken government, which has conveniently put its hasty NHS reforms ‘on pause’ until after the May 2011 elections.
This ConDem alliance is not a safe pair of hands for governing us, far less steering us through this economic crisis.
