Should we sack MPs?

Mar 17 2008 by Jim Hancock, Liverpool Daily Post

DEREK CONWAY continues to represent the burghers of Old Bexley and Sidcup despite being found guilty of flirting his son Freddie megabucks of our money for apparently non-existent research. A group of Tory backbenchers are floating the idea that a recall petition should be available when voters feel their MP is not delivering the goods.

They have such a system in America as Gray Davis can testify. You may well ask, who he?

That was the point really. He was the Governor of California in 2003, but lived up to his first name a little too well. Low profile and ineffective, he was unlucky enough to be challenged in a recall ballot.

His opponent was a man who had shown us, on the silver screen, that he could look after himself and any opponent who got in his way. Democrat Gray Davis had his career terminated mid-term by Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. The people had spoken.

So should the people of Old Bexley be able to speak? How about the people of West Derby in Liverpool?

Bob Wareing lost out to Stephen Twigg in the contest to be the Labour candidate in West Derby at the next General Election. In protest, Bob decided to leave the Labour Party and now sits as an Independent.

I have a lot of time for Bob Wareing. He has been targeted by New Labour for years. Indeed, before the 2001 General Election, there were rumours he’d be ousted from West Derby by modernisers in the party.

I went to see for myself, found his local activists supportive, and broadcast a report with the title “Wareing Well”.

And so he has, till now when he continues to sit in the Commons, but not for the party he stood for in 2005.

Campaigners are calling for MPs to face the voters mid-term if they change parties, like Bob, or are kicked out by the Whips.

In addition, they want a mechanism to trigger a recall petition where there is widespread discontent with an MP’s conduct.

Peter Kilfoyle sees dangers in this.

The Walton MP fears that a system of recall petitions could be manipulated by people with an agenda and lots of cash. Some of his colleagues are also concerned that it would be a vehicle for enemies of the MP rather than a true expression of constituents’ wishes.

These are valid points but as Robert Burns said: “Oh wad some Power the giftie gie us,

To see oursels as ithers see us!”

The general reputation of MPs, already low, has taken a further battering this winter with constant stories about expenses and party funding.

It depresses me because most MPs work hard and want to make things better for people. But their desire to operate under the arcane rules of the House of Commons with no effective external scrutiny, has resulted in a PR disaster for the democratic process.