Monti - A Lesson In Autocracy

It should not be surprising that Mario Monti, the unelected Prime Minister of Italy, stated that parliaments should be overridden in order that governments could introduce laws thought necessary by Ministers without interference from MPs. This is no doubt a view actively supported by many civil servants including those in the EU. It is certainly a view taken by many in our civil service and by certain politicians. Indeed it was a Labour MP, one Douglas Jay, who once infamously said "the man from Whitehall knows best". There are of course copious examples of where the man in Whitehall did not know best including the ERM fiasco and currently climate change. Hannan has an example of such democratic deficit in the EU here. Monti should resign immediately for his stupid anti democratic remark since if the EU is to survive it must restore (if it ever had it) its citizens' faith in its institutions through deeper democracy not less. This can only happen if the way EU citizens are ruled is changed to follow the Swiss democratic model whereby every time there is a law change the issue is put to a referendum. Without the introduction of such a system the EU must break up since even the Germans are now frustrated by its anti democratic ways as can be seen from Hannan's said post. Politicians have anyway sunk even lower in the minds of many of us for a variety of reasons one being as a result of the behaviour of the Lib Dems. Clegg was given the AV Referendum in exchange for supporting constituency boundary changes but because an unrelated piece of legislation is now not going to go ahead owing to a Tory back bench revolt he will not support the boundary changes. This is like the teacher who threatens to punish the whole class for the misdemeanours of one or two pupils. The electorate will remember this and vote accordingly. Cameron has quite rightly said he will push ahead with the boundary change vote. By doing so he has put Miliband in a bit of a spot. The current boundaries are demonstrably unfair and if Miliband decides the Labour party must vote against changing them he will be tarred with the unfairness brush but he does his party no favours for voting for the changes as to do so will have the effect of diminishing the number of safe Labour seats. Not by much it is true since PoliticalBetting here have calculated that even if the Tories are 2.2% ahead on votes they will still lose the next election. Will Miliband risk the Tories only being 2.2% ahead at the next election? The election is some way off and Miliband would have to be very brave to vote for boundary changes or so sure that he will win the next election come what may that he can afford to be seen to be in favour of fairness and generosity. I do not believe he will take the risk.