Okay, still digesting this.
Digest away, Mr. McManus.
So what does government look like? Are we literally just electing one person to each ministry?
Well, it’s early days yet … the idea has only just bubbled up from my subconscious with any clarity, rather than lurking there in the background, drowned out by all the Oldthink, so I haven’t got any further than what I’ve said so far.
It depends upon what we think is desirable, why and how it can best be effected.
There’s no reason not to elect a single individual with whom the buck stops and it is the least ambiguous situation.
But a triumvirate could work as well and there’s an argument to be made for, say, a triumvirate, so that (theoretically) more thought is brought to bear on the decision making process. The downside, however, is that blame may subsequently be shifted about as a result. Moreover, if we start saying that there are three members of each department that need electing then, even if we whittle down the posts (removing the Prime Minister, Chancellor,Cabinet Office, ministers without portfolio and various others of questionable utility), we’re looking at at least fourteen core posts … three members of each means we have to pay attention to all the candidates for 52 posts and I don’t know about you, but I just don’t have the bandwidth for that. Keeping the roles of the fourteen clear in my head shouldn’t be too difficult, because their briefs are different and, therefore, I can focus on the candidates’ differences fairly easily because, in each case, I only have to consider what their manifesto is in that specific area, not try and hold all the posts they could fill in mind (I might agree with one of them about the economy but be offended by their views on the environment, for instance, so whom do I vote for, if they could fill any role?). There might be a lot of candidates to consider for each post but, once I’ve made my mind up about it, I can ignore the others and shift my attention to different posts and the candidates for them. Equally, if I watch one candidate’s bid for the post (or even several) and then one (or more) for a different post (or even multiple different posts), there isn’t a confusing overlap between the subject — the first three talked about Law & Order, the next one about Foreign Aid, the next two about Transport … I don’t need to compare between all the candidates and ask myself how I think they’d perform in all the different roles and can compartmentalise each time.
So, I think that, in practical terms, one minister per department is all that’s necessary.
After that, they can pick their SPADs as they do now, but, again, the complete separation of authority between departments means that, unlike Cummings et al, they can’t wield undue influence over more than one minister … so, at the end of the session (or sooner, if we recall them), the minsters’ choices of SPAD will either work in their favour or not and, moreover, in a way that they don’t now: pick a Cummings now and people might be angry about it later, but it makes no difference if 99% of the nation wants to see you out on your ear when only 1% need to elect you … and if your portfolio can be shuffled around then, unless you’re a Grayling/Williamson, it can be very difficult to determine precisely what impact you have had and how much of your failure was down to inherited problems from your predecessor and their SPADs’ poor advice. If you are the minister for a department, solely in charge, then it’s very clear that your choices of advisor as well as policy are yours and yours alone.
I still don’t like the electorate allocating budget,
So, whom would you have decide what my money gets spent on?
I think there will be lots of things that are pretty important that wouldn’t get any money.
So, what you’re saying is that people shouldn’t be empowered to learn from their mistakes?
In what way is it different now anyway? We elect randoms from the populace and they decide what the money goes on. How well has that worked out so far then? Williamson? Hunt? Grayling? Gove? All the rest?
If the electorate apportions its taxes in such a way that significant things don’t have the budget then next time they’ll be able to reconsider their decisions, won’t they? And if they don’t, well, it’s a democratic decision made by the entire nation. You and I might decry the decision, but at least we’d both have some say in it.
Right now we don’t, because the system means a minority can overrule us by voting for all powerful decision makers.
If we elect independent MPs and no parties then it’s still the same, because majority vote carries the day.
If we elect ministers directly but have no say in how the money is spent then, sure, we know whom to blame and can kick them out on their ear afterwards, but we still have no say on how the money is spent and, moreover, require a Chancellor (or something) with ultimate power over the budget … and we’re back where we started, with a broken monorail and kids sharing chairs in schools — added to which the whole issue of “Whose fault is it really?” arises again, because they can say “It’s not my fault; I was hamstrung by somebody else’s decision.”
Also, if you look at the polling, an awful lot of people are in favour of the ‘Corbynist’ approach to nationalising utilities and other natural monopolies, more funding for schools, free school meals, and suchlike. It only appears that the population is entirely made up of a bunch of drooling morlocks, because or governments are elected by a minority of it. Give them a chance … they might surprise you (and even me).
Besides, as I said, the suggestion isn’t that we be expected to decide on a granular level … I said that it should simply be on macro terms (Defence, Education, Housing, Welfare, etc.). It’s up to the candidates to present their manifesto and, in doing so, draw attention to what they consider the pressing issues to be. So, once we’ve elected one of them, what the money gets spent on is still up to them … but we’d have a better idea of what might actually happen, because … as outlined … nobody else would be able to reallocate their (our) budget.
Yeah, people will make poor decisions … but they do already — by voting for people who promise that giving our money to people with offshore accounts, who don’t pay any tax, will somehow benefit all of us. I’d rather have some say in what my taxes fund.
What would the ballot paper look like? A list of government spending, you assign a percentage and the numbers are averaged out?
A list of candidates for the position.
You rank them and assign a percentage of your tax contributions.
The candidate with the highest score (possibly after negative votes are subtracted) is elected and they get the average of people’s budgetary commitments
We fund by department, not specific policy — we elected a candidate based upon their policies, so (up to a point) we’ve already made a decision as to what the money will get spent on and there’s no need for more than a decision of 40% on Welfare, 25% on Infrastructure, etc.
And there’s the question of how dynamic is it? When something like Covid happens, how long does it take to reallocate resources? Or create new departments?
You want me to predict all eventualities?
We’re in a crisis situation now. The government has no more money available to than was collected at the end of the last tax year — we haven’t been subjected to a demand for more taxes to pay for the necessary measures. Redirecting funds from one area to Health doesn’t mean the need for funding the things we originally thought the money was going to be spent upon has magically disappeared … they still need funding — they’re just not getting it.
So … in a time of crisis, I think it reasonable that the departments of the day similarly implement emergency measures and loan funds to whichever departments suddenly have a need for more funding than they have at the time. When the crisis is over, when the next GE is called, the electorate doesn’t need to think about things differently — the candidates will present their manifesto and, at the same time, say “The department is in dept to the tune of X, so, if you want it to do any more than pay it back, you need to assign us Y” … or “Yes, we’ll be getting X back, but, remember, that will only allow us to pick up where we left off, so, if you want us to any more than that, we’ll still need Z.” It’s not rocket surgery.
Who sets tax policy?
What do you mean?
