Total Recall
James Burdett
raises an interesting idea:In the US many states have a means of sacking an elected representative, a recall mechanism, most notably this was used in California at which Arnold Schwarzenegger was first elected to replace the recalled Governor of California. Why don’t we import that sort of system to the United Kingdom? I’m sure that there would be many constituents who would like to be able to sack their MP when they learn of their expense claims.
Not a bad plan at all.
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5 comments:
Tell you what. We'll give you voter recall if you give us PM Questions. Would love to see our politicians be forced to stand up weekly without teleprompters and face the opposition, televised.
Course the only problem with that is in our country, the voters may realize neither party is worth a lot..not to mention our politicians, unfortunately, have grifting down to an art. Would hate to see how much they're skimming from political action groups, taxpayers, et.al.
Switzerland has a similar system I believe.
Was discussing this very subject the other night - seems very reasonable, and would certainly keep MPs and councillors on their toes.
Plus it would make the current expenses farrago even more fun, as Brown would be faced with an effective General Election driven by the people. The fear from Number 10 would be palpable.
To be honest, you're overreacting. Expenses abuse is one of the lesser forms of corruption. The election is less than a year away, and you can be sure that the hopeful candidates in constituency will remeber to highlight their claims.
I just get a terrible image of close constituencies where something minor has happened to hte incumbent, then having the opposition keep trying to force a re-run. Turnout is low enough at the moment as it is.
Yeh let's have a system where the people can get rid of their elected representatives once they've discovered they've done something wrong - it could be called something like, err, elections!?
Surely fixed terms would just be a better way of doing things?