Write to your newly elected MP

This is what I've written to my MP, Conservative John Stevenson:

Dear Mr Stevenson

Congratulations on your election as MP to serve the people of Carlisle.

I'm writing to express my dismay at proposals put forward by the newly formed coalition government, in particular the intention to change the threshold at which loss of a Commons confidence vote could trigger a dissolution.This is a proposal that has come "out of the blue" since the election. It was in neither of the governing parties' manifestos and came as much as a surprise to seasoned Westminster pundits as it did to the electorate at large. Before the election, one of the consistent complaints about the Labour government made by your party was its
incremental accumulation of power to the executive and emasculation of the power and independence of Parliament. This proposal to change the no confidence threshold, crucial to the mechanics of Parliament's calling the executive to account, dramatically increases that process of executive domination. Furthermore, given the nature of our constitution, it sets dangerous precedents. I can imagine the outcry from your own party and its supporters in the press, had a Labour led coalition come about and made the same proposal.

The justification that has been put forward for this retrograde step is that it will ensure the necessary "strong and stable government" that has been repeated like a mantra over recent days and weeks. But I put it to you that this proposed change to the constitution signals exactly the opposite: the weakness of the new coalition government, which even before the new parliament has convened, is having to shore up its majority by tampering with fundamental parliamentary process. Members of the coalition negotiating teams have gone on record to admit that the realpolitik of this proposal was to deal with the lack of trust between the two parties: to ensure the Liberal Democrats would not abandon the coalition prematurely. The truth of the situation is that both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have little trust either in each other, or the electorate. It was pointed out by many commentators before the election that none of the three main parties were being honest with voters about the nature of the economic predicament or the specifcs of the necessary tax rises and spending cuts. While talking
glibly of "grown-up" politics, politicians of all persuasions continue to treat the electorate like children. Now the new government is complementing its paternalism with authoritarianism. So much for "change", so much for the "new politics"!

Furthermore, during the final days of the election campaign and during the coalition negotiations, members of your party, including some of your "elder statesmen" who should know better, were talking up the scenario of impending economic catastrophe, first in an attempt to scare voters into electing a majority Conservative government and, when that failed, to scare onlookers into accepting the coalition. Meanwhile anyone who took the trouble to actually watch the movements of sterling, stocks and shares and the bond market, could see that for the time being
investors were relatively relaxed about the UK situation. It seems to me that among experienced and well qualified economists there is a broad agreement that while the budget deficit is hugely daunting it is nonetheless manageable. If it were true that we face a crisis of the proportions put about by prominent Conservatives, surely the best way forward would have been some sort of economic council of national unity with representatives from all the main parties, as was proposed before the election by the Liberal Democrats, but has now been quietly dropped. Again one can't help the impression of narrow party political interest masquerading as the "national interest". Without the shibboleth of "national interest", the whole edifice of the current LibCon project looks decidedly self-interested, and to attempt to make it self-perpetuating by altering the means of its removal is bare-faced self- aggrandizement.

I urge you to use every means available to you to help prevent the implementation of this proposal.


PS I will be publishing this letter on my blog.