Monday 25 April 2011

Conservatives "Sacrificed Ministerial Office for the Sake of Coalition" Says Tory MP

If there is one singular argument for a change in the voting system it is the arrogance of the politicians from the two major parties and the way in which they all seem to believe that the democratic process belongs exclusively to them.

Take this quote from Mark Pritchard MP, Secretary of the Conservative 1922 Committee:

"With each of them (Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne) presiding over major government departments they've never had it so good.

"Their personal and political sacrifices are infinitesimal compared to those made by hundreds of public sector workers losing their jobs each week and many of my Conservative colleagues who gave up ministerial office for the sake of the coalition".


Excuse me? Precisely which of Mr. Pritchard's Conservative colleagues "gave up ministerial office" to enter into coalition with the Liberal Democrats?

I was rather under the impression that we had a Labour government prior to the general election of 2010, and that the coalition was a necessary outcome of no party having achieved an overall majority at that contest.

This confused belief on the part of a Conservative politician that his party entered into coalition as some kind of favour rather than due to it not having won enough seats in its own right is not entirely unfamiliar to me. The same sense of shock and indignation was evident on the part of some Conservative councillors during the 2006-2010 administration at the London Borough of Hounslow who genuinely couldn't understand why the ICG had been "given" two seats on the Executive.

Reading the local community forums and witnessing the most virulent mouthpieces for the two major parties, usually engaged in exchanging equally useless soundbites and slogans idiot-style, making common cause against a democratisation of "their" political system is a joy to behold.

I could not have made a better case for a "Yes" vote on May 5th.

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