Page 48 - The Economist USA

UPLOADED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws
48 Britain
Bagehot Back to abnormal
The Virtual Parliament brings a welcome return to scrutiny
n the 17th century parliaments gloried in names such as the
IBlessed Parliament, the Addled Parliament, the Happy Parlia-
ment and the Useless Parliament. The British have long since
dropped the habit of naming parliaments—perhaps because too
many deserved the sobriquet “useless”—but there is surely a case
for reviving it to commemorate the institution’s first collision
with cyberspace. The parliament which met on April 21st could be
known as the Zoom Parliament or the Virtual Parliament or, to be
strictly accurate, the Hybrid Parliament.
The returning parliament is like no other. The Speaker, Sir Lind- initial news of the virus in China by buying tests and kit on the glo-
say Hoyle, presides over a sepulchral chamber. Only 50 mps are al-
lowed in at any one time. Giant screens hang from the empty gal-
leries. Ministers and other politicians have a choice over whether
to appear in person or virtually. In the first Prime Minister’s Ques- not degenerate into gotcha-style condemnation. The case for scru-
tions (pmqs) of the new age on April 22nd, both Dominic Raab,
standing in for Boris Johnson, and Sir Keir Starmer, making his de-
but appearance as leader of the opposition, turned up in person.
Along with most questioners, Ian Blackford, leader of the Scottish
National Party in Westminster, chose to Zoom in.
There will inevitably be technological glitches with the new
system. Screens will freeze. mps will forget to press the mute but-
ton. Speakers will drone on for too long (there is nothing like the
virtual floor to put wind into the windbag). The screens will en-
courage viewers to become obsessed with trivia. Which mps seem
to have employed professional barbers during the lockdown?
Which Tories are burnishing their northern credentials by dis-
playing copies of Viz magazine on the shelves behind them?
The unique atmosphere of British politics has been lost. Parlia-
ment is designed to create as much pressure as possible: the gov-
ernment and the opposition face each other just two sword blades
apart; there are more mps than available seats; the noise shakes the to work quickly under an independent chairman. Government
rafters. The pressure is particularly high at pmqs when the most
powerful person in the country is subjected to mob mauling. Good
government types like to deride pmqs as Punch-and-Judy politics.
But some of Britain’s most powerful prime ministers, including
Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, have been humbled by clever
questions. This week’s were tame by comparison.
Still, even a parliament without the blood and noise is better
The Economist April 25th 2020
than none. For the past month Britain has witnessed some of the
most dramatic events in peacetime without any parliamentary
scrutiny whatsoever. In Parliament’s absence a daily press confer-
ence has filled the scrutiny void. But these conferences have been
more about messaging than public accountability. Journalists lack
the most important tools in mps’ armouries: the power to ask writ-
ten questions which the relevant ministers are obliged to answer;
a detailed knowledge of their local constituencies; and, above all,
the ability to speak on behalf of voters.
The evidence from the one bit of Parliament that has continued
over the long Easter break is positive. The select committees have
subjected both ministers and experts to highly effective virtual
grilling. Greg Clark, chairman of the science committee, ques-
tioned witnesses on why they had not learned from other coun-
try’s successes, particularly South Korea’s approach to testing. Je-
remy Hunt, chairman of the health committee, focused on why
Britain has been slow to introduce track-and-trace. It is regrettable
that the most important of the select committees, the Liaison
Committee, which has the power to call the prime minister and ask
questions that cut across ministerial fiefs, is not sitting because
the government has infuriated Parliament by trying to impose its
own man, Sir Bernard Jenkin, as chairman.
The arrival of the Virtual Parliament is part of a general return
of scrutiny to British politics. The government is losing the halo
that naturally surrounded it in the early days of the crisis. The La-
bour opposition is at last a force to be reckoned with now that Je-
remy Corbyn has stood down and the party’s interminable leader-
ship election has been resolved. The number of urgent questions
that people want answered has increased during the period of par-
liamentary inactivity. Why did Mr Johnson fail to preside over the
first five cobra meetings? Why didn’t the government respond to
bal market? And—the one Sir Keir focused on at pmqs—why has
Britain been so slow to introduce mass testing?
This is all to be welcomed on the condition that scrutiny does
tiny of the government—particularly during a crisis—is not that it
gives people a chance to vent their collective fury. Bashing the gov-
ernment is as idiotic as grovelling before it. It is that it gives the
government a chance to adjust its behaviour in the light of new evi-
dence. mps are particularly well equipped to bring this evidence to
light for both obvious reasons (they represent people in every cor-
ner of the country) and less obvious ones (they bring a wide variety
of experiences to bear). Several mps, including Labour’s Rosena Al-
lin-Khan, an a&e doctor, are working on the front line in the Na-
tional Health Service.
A running start
With that proviso, Parliament needs to do everything it can to in-
crease its powers of scrutiny. Laura Kuenssberg, the bbc’s political
editor, talks of Parliament putting its “digital toe” in the water. The
rest of the body needs to follow. The Liaison Committee should get
ministers have enjoyed some big successes during this crisis. Most
important, the nhs has not collapsed under the weight of the epi-
demic despite predictions to the contrary. But they have also made
some unnecessary mistakes. Better scrutiny, whether physical or
virtual, should improve ministers’ chances of avoiding more mis-
takes or, if they can’t avoid them, their chances of correcting
course as quickly as possible. 7