In praise of Douglas Carswell

I am a Lib Dem but I've always found the partisan nature of UK politics a bit of a turn off. I think most people realise it is largely a facade and that lots of parliamentarians get on very well with their colleagues from other parties. In some cases much better than they do on their own side, after all they are vying with those in their own party for the jobs!

So I was pleased to see Labour Political Betting poster Henry Manson's recent post on David Davis and in a similar spirit I would like to pay tribute to my favourite Conservative MP.

Douglas Carswell was first elected MP for Clacton in 2005 and has rapidly become a widely respected backbench MP.

In 2008 along with MEP Daniel Hannan he wrote "The Plan - Twelve Months to Renew Britain" which sets out his thinking in a number of areas including cleaning up Westminster, direct democracy, repealing laws and radical devolution of power.

I interviewed him about the book in 2009 and was struck by how wide-ranging and ambitious some of his ideas were. Yet reviewing some of them a couple of years on it is interesting to see that a number of them have already moved into the mainstream and are being enacted upon such as secret ballots for select committee chairs, widespread use of open primaries within Conservative selections, elected police commissioners and benefit reforms to name but a few.

Whereas too often, too many Tory MPs appear to be conservative with a small c in their approach, Carswell never seems to give this impression. He is genuinely interested in ideas wherever they come from and has formed alliances across all sorts of political boundaries including on occasion with very left wing MPs.

Perhaps his most famous public intervention to date was in 2008 when he publicly called for the removal of Michael Martin as Speaker. Martin had become a busted flush following his failure to restore public confidence in the expenses system and indeed his complicity in trying to keep a lid on the scandal. Although lots of MPs were muttering under their breath about the situation the clubbable nature of parliament persuaded them to keep quiet. Carswell as is his wont felt under no such obligation and wrote an article calling for him to go. He was instrumental in the final, successful move against Martin in 2009, tabling the no confidence motion and persuading numerous colleagues to sign it against convention.

So he is no traditional conservative. What underlined this most starkly to me was when he confirmed to me that he would in principle be willing to campaign for a change to a multi-member proportional constituency system. As far as I know he was the only Conservative MP before the last election to have gone on the record with such a statement.

I have my political differences with Douglas. Some of the ideas in The Plan seem a bit wrong-headed to me and he does appear to be a little bit of obsessed with what he refers to as "Guardianistas" infiltrating the political process putting him off being even more radical, dissuading him for example from pushing for a written constitution. I also think he has got it very wrong on climate change.

But if the Conservative party generally had half as much vision, backbone and integrity as Douglas Carswell it would be a much better party than it is today. Who knows, they may have even won the last election.

This post was first published on Political Betting.

Other Reckonings - 27th May 2010

• Caron confesses to having iPad envy.
• Lib Dem Voice reports on Tim Farron's bid for the Lib Dem deputy leadership - I think Tim would be brilliant in that role.
• High praise for Iain Duncan Smith from an unlikely source - Labour blogger Hopi Sen.
• And a second happy blog birthday to Tory MP and blogger Douglas Carswell. Given how many of his (and Daniel Hannan's) ideas seem to have ended up as government policy he must feel like every day is his birthday at the moment!

Thursday bonus is David Laws' masterful performance at the dispatch box this week dealing with the spending cuts debate. It's like he was born to be a minister!

NHS debate - Daniel Hannan has not been clear enough

Well as usual when I go away for a few days there is a big story that I have come back to and have had to properly catch up with. This time it is the whole NHS debate kicked off by Obama's attempts to get healthcare reform proposals on the table in the US and brought into sharp focus in the UK by Daniel Hannan's disparaging comments about the NHS on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News (see below for embedded version) combined with the "#WeLoveTheNHS" Twitter campaign.

Allied to this and coincidentally, as part of my holiday reading I read "The Plan" by Douglas Carswell and Daniel Hannan, one chapter of which is devoted to the NHS and how it could be reformed so I have detailed insight into Mr Hannan's thoughts in this area.

As far as I can tell there has been much more heat than light in the "debate" on this so far. As Fraser Nelson points out on the Spectator blog today it has largely been mud slinging. It seems like the left is using this as an opportunity to bash the Tories supposed "real views" about the NHS, despite David Cameron's many on the record pledges to the contrary.

I have to say though, having this morning watched Daniel Hannan's appearance on Hannity's Fox News programme he largely has himself to blame. He spends much of the interview decrying the NHS and urging the US not to go down the "socialist" route that the UK has done. He also spends time pointing out (quite legitimately) some of the failings of the NHS. The problem is that at no point during the interview are any of the shortcomings of the US system even discussed. This is partly due to the ridiculous bias of Fox News in general and Hannity in particular who does not frame his questions like this or even play devil's advocate in order to test Hannan's views. But it is also Hannan's own fault for not taking the opportunity in an almost 7 minute interview to spell out what he thinks should happen.

Douglas Carswell has been complaining on his blog about how Hannan's views are not being represented correctly but he did not do so himself!

I will have a crack at briefly outlining the position described in "The Plan" which I presume is what Daniel Hannan thinks in detail is what should happen with the NHS. The chapter explains the shortcomings of the NHS but it also points out some of the failings of the US system, specifically that it is "burdened by too much litigation, regulation and producer capture. We can do better". It then goes on to describe how Singapore's health system works which revolves around a system of health savings accounts. Apparently they have better health outcomes than many European nations but it costs less than half (in GDP terms) what we pay in the UK. There is discussion of how this leads to Singaporeans generally making healthier life choices because it is ultimately their money they have saved that will be spent (or not and hence available for other things or once a threshold is reached no more payments needed). Also, catastrophic health care insurance is used to cover major problems that cannot be covered by the savings. There is then discussion of how a safety net could be applied in the UK to ensure that health care is available to all in a similar way to the NHS currently.

Hannan could have summed this up using his prodigious rhetorical skills in less than a minute on Fox if he had wished. He chose not to instead giving the impression that the US system is the one he favours when he manifestly does not. For the Tories to now complain that the left are misrepresenting him is to miss the point that Hannan has made it very easy for them to do just that and a great opportunity for the interesting ideas in "The Plan" to be more widely debated has been missed.

From my perspective, I think there is merit in "The Plan" idea for health care reform. As Charlotte has pointed out, it does not sound a million miles from what was proposed in the Orange Book a few years back by David Laws where an insurance based system would be used and the patient chooses the provider. That achieves similar ends (proper patient choice) through a slightly different mechanism. I know the contents of that book are the subject of debate within and outside the Lib Dems but my view is that alternatives need to be sensibly considered and I cannot see how the NHS in its current form can continue for the next 60 years. We have to properly debate reform.

Sadly it looks like it aint going to happen this time around. Advocates of reform need however to be much more clear in future to make it harder for their opponents to misrepresent their real views.

Perhaps Mr Hannan could bear this in mind the next time Mr Hannity invites him onto his show as he doubtless will. It may not be exactly what Fox News wants to hear but he should be unafraid to fully state his position.

I am in the "Anyone But Margaret Beckett" lobby

There are a number of other bloggers (e.g. Bernard Salmon, Stephen Glenn and Caron Lindsay as well as others on this Lib Dem Voice thread) who have pointed out that Margaret Beckett, were she to be elected Speaker of the House of Commons today would be the worst of all worlds. She is an establishment figure who is far too closely associated with the government and would do nowhere near enough to refom parliament.

MPs today have a once in a political generation to do the right thing and elect somebody who will truly reform the House. Margaret Beckett is not that person and if they choose her, they will be sending a very clear signal to the electorate that despite all the words about "change" and "reform", they intend to do diddly squat.

I am willing to go with Douglas Carswell's choice of Richard Shepherd as a reforming Speaker although I fear he will not make it through the rounds.

Douglas Carswell announces for Richard Shepherd for Speaker of the House of Commons

Douglas Carswell MP has announced that he will be voting for Richard Shepherd as Speaker of the House of Commons.

This is important because Douglas is the MP who started the campaign to get rid of the previous Speaker Michael Martin and his opinion counts for quite a lot on this subject in my view.

Douglas says:

Firstly, his own expense claims have been very modest. Secondly, he campaigned for Freedom of Information law years before it became fashionable. Together that gives him the moral authority to force transparency on an unwilling tribe in SW1.

Better than anyone else I’ve met in four years in the Commons, Richard understands that sovereignty of Parliament is shorthand for sovereignty of the people.

Too many in Westminster see the Speaker’s contest through the prism of self-interest. They seem to want to elect a shop steward for politicians, rather than a Speaker able to restore public faith in the political process.

Richard grasps that change must also mean making those we elect effective at holding government to account. Parliament needs back its purpose. He’s ideas on how it is to be done.

Speaker Shepherd would be no apologist for indolent politicians blinded by a sense of entitlement – but he would make them answer properly to you.

I have to say that when I saw Mr Shepherd on the Newsnight hustings he did not impress me but perhaps that was not the best medium for him. I have to say that I am fearful from the latest reports that Margaret Beckett will be elected and I am not sure she is the right person for the job at all having been so closely associated with the incumbent Labour government.

We shall see later today of course.

Douglas Carswell - Changing his mind on electoral reform

My favourite Conservative MP Douglas Carswell may just have cemented his place in my political heart for good with his latest blog post "Electoral reform - why I'm beginning to change my mind". Here are a couple of snippets:

How best to ensure our MPs face proper competition?

Part of the answer is to hold open primaries and allow a recall mechanism. Since publishing Direct Democracy; an agenda for a new model party, and then making the case on Newsnight and Radio 4 the other week, I suddenly find everyone is talking about primaries and recall.   

Yet perhaps the surest way of having political competition would be to have multi member constituencies too?

The multi members system that they have in Ireland would retain many of the advantages of our existing system – while exposing all MPs to genuine competition. 

There would still be a constituency link. You’d still vote for individual law-makers. You’d still produce working majorities in the Commons. Yet there would be choice and competition between law-makers. Indeed, competition would be within parties, as well as between them, giving us a more authentic spectrum of representation. 

Best of all, why not combine multi member seats, with open primaries to decide the list of candidates? Now that would be a genuinely open source way of doing politics. 

If you are a free market Conservative and you’re still not convinced, ask yourself this: If in 7 out of 10 Parliamentary constituencies there was a local supermarket or restaurant monopoly, we would expect there to be a poor service and high level of customer dissatisfaction.  So why do we tolerate such a system when it comes to deciding how we are governed? 

Conservatives need to apply the principles of choice and competition to our politics, not simply our economy.

What a breath of fresh air. A Conservative who understands how the current system stymies the will of the voter and actually links free-market principles to the electoral system!

Go Carswell!

I might have to get one of these T-shirts now.

Quote of the day

Douglas Carswell on the defenestration of Speaker Michael Martin:

"You can't clean up a cesspit without doing some unpleasant things."

+++ Michael Martin to resign as Speaker today +++

Michael Martin, the Speaker of the House of Commons is to resign this afternoon.

Unsurprising news really after yesterday's performance.

I hope the House of Commons can now select someone who can really reform it. Congratulations to Douglas Carswell for his successful campaign.

In praise of Douglas Carswell MP

I do not agree with all of his political views by any stretch but Douglas Carswell the Conservative MP has really impressed me recently. He seems to have a genuine grasp of what is wrong with politics and is determined to do something about it.

It is he who is trying to drum up support for the motion to have the hopeless Michael Martin removed as speaker. As Mark Littlewood said on 5 live earlier today, it should not fall to a back bench MP to have to do this but the establishment will not move so Douglas has stepped in. Kudos to him for that. It is a brave move and the hierachies of both main parties do not like mavericks so he is potentially damaging his chance of advancement but somebody has to do it. I just hope he now gets plenty of support from across the house. Martin has to go.

But the thing that has most impressed me is his support for electoral reform. Most Tories who talk about reform end up suggesting less MPs or something else that would not fix the system and instead be in their favour electorally. Whereas Douglas is in favour of STV with multi-member constituencies. It is unusual for a Tory to advocate this but he has done so today in a blog post where he also advocates open primaries which I am also in favour of.

I wish there were more Conservative MPs like Mr Carswell who are willing to stand up and be counted as well as seriously and honestly debate the state of democracy and politics without the knee-jerk recourse to solutions that would lead to partisan advantage.

EDIT: I have just spent 35 minutes watching a speech he gave at Oxford University a couple of months ago about what is wrong with politics in this country and I have found that I agree with most of what he says.