Brown's ignorance shows why we need Commons reform

Watching the debate in the House of Commons yesterday about the Queen's Speech I found my jaw dropping at the rudeness of Gordon Brown. Watch this clip where David Cameron is trying to get Brown to respond to the question of why there was nothing about MPs' expenses in the Queen's Speech:

Twice Cameron offers to give way so that Brown can clarify the position and twice he declines. My problem however is not so much with him declining (although that does show that Cameron had him on the rack in my view) - it is in the way that he declined. He spent virtually the entire time Cameron was raising this issue talking to Harriet Harman. He seemed to be doing his best to be as rude as possible to Cameron by treating his point with such disdain that he made out he wasn't even listening.

I have blogged before about how I think the behaviour of MPs with all the heckling and jeering etc. needs to be much improved and the above sort of rudeness is exactly the sort of thing that needs to be stamped out (indeed it was one of my submissions to the POWER2010 campaign). The Speaker should insist on better behaviour with proper sanctions for MPs who transgress from the chamber. It would probably only have to happen a few times before the embarrassment it caused would ensure all MPs got the message. I am not trying to make a party political point here. The bad behaviour is endemic within the chamber and I have seen examples in the past from all sides.

Can you imagine attending a business meeting where this sort of thing happened? Imagine if you stood up to give a speech at a business conference and had to do so whilst enduring hecking, barracking and rude comments from those you were speaking to.

Coincidentally, Lynne Featherstone has done a blogpost today where she is talking about how the Commons would be better if it was more representative in terms of women and other currently under-represented groups and she has made a similar point to me in that post:

Certainly there are aspects of the way our political system works which typically appeal more to men or are more off-putting to women, but those are not aspects that are engraved in stone and always have to be that way. Take the bear-pit performances (and I use that word kindly - embarrassing shambles might often be more appropriate) of the PM / Leader of the Opposition exchanges at Prime Minister's Questions, with massed ranks of people sat behind each and shouting at each other. That sort of behaviour would be completely unacceptable in a work place - imagine running a meeting at work where people behaved like that. And there's no essential need for PMQs to be like that - look around at how other walks of life and other countries manage to have question times that are meaningful and dignified.

Lynne is spot on. It doesn't have to be like this and it needs to change.

I could barely hear Nick Clegg yesterday at PMQs

The House of Commons behaves disgracefully sometimes.

I usually watch PMQs on the TV but I had to listen to it on the radio yesterday. It was a bit difficult sometimes to make out what Brown and Cameron were saying due to the barracking and shouting and a couple of times when it got too bad the Speaker intervened to stop it.

However when Nick Clegg was trying to speak there was very loud barracking and also people clearly having very loud conversations which were picked up and transmitted by the microphones. Perhaps it is easier to tune this stuff out when you have the pictures too because today I could barely hear what he was saying.

Now I am not really trying to make a party political point here because this sort of discourteous behaviour is on show in the Commons from all sides and against most people who speak, especially when the House is very busy. At a time when politicians are supposed to be listening to what people want to trying to reform politics do they really think this sort of display is what the public want to see? No wonder people are so turned off by politics in this country.

I have written about this before back in January and I know I am not the only person who feels like this.

How PMQs appears to most people

I was struck by this post by Ol from Cardiff Student Lib Dems who has written about a trip him and his fellow members took to the commons yesterday to watch PMQs as a guest of Jenny Willot.

He relates how a fellow student described the "baying crowds" of MPs as "so rude". Shouting down others and laughing, talking during questions and "essentially showing the worst elements of humanity". He also makes a very valuable point about how the government and parliament on the one hand wish to try and influence younger people to have respect for one other and society and yet on the other hand behave like the most juvenile pack of imbeclies.

This is something I used to think myself but over the years I have become so inured to the way PMQs and parliament in general works that I don't really even think about it any more. Indeed occasionally I have found myself chuckling at some of the jokes bandied across the despatch box and generally gettiing a bit too into it. I am not proud of this to be honest. This is no way for a modern democratic chamber to behave and it is sad that it takes a young student to point out what should be obvious to all in politics, that the behaviour of MPs in the chamber falls well short of what is should be.

The treatment of Ming Campbell when he was Lib Dem leader by the house during PMQs was appaling. It seems that he made a slightly misjudged comment on his first outing and after that, every time he stood up it was to a chorus of howling trying to drown him out and humiliate him. This is one of the reasons he ended up resigning as he could not get his points across properly in the chamber. This behaviour by MPs is absolutely reprehensible and yet you do not often hear or read any commentators condemning it and calling for change.

Sadly, I can't really imagine it changing any time soon as the protagonists like it this way. Cameron claimed when he first became Tory leader that he wanted an end to "Punch and Judy politics" but alas he is now as bad as the rest of them.

MPs will however eventually reap what they sew and the disengagement of the general population with politics will sadly continue fuelled by these sort of anachronistic displays in the chamber. Remember this the next time you hear a senior politician bemoan the general lack of engagement with politics - the systems they support cause it!