A puzzler for a Sunday evening; would the Chris Huhne affair, or the David Laws expenses issue, be enough to allow their constituencts to re-call them under the new provisions being laid out by David Cameron and Nick Clegg?
Mr Cameron has said in the past that re-call would be option where MPs have been "guilty of wrongdoing." Would this include, as some people have suggested today about Huhne, misleading your constituents over your private life?
Personally I hope not, and I have concerns that the re-call function would be too easily triggered (10% is required in any given constituency - one party alone could probably manage this in most seats). We need to know, and know soon, what safeguards will be put in place. This is crucial and very difficult question, and I don't have an answer, because those safeguards are needed for 2 reasons - for MPs against mob-rule and for the public against wrongdoing MPs. Can we manage both?
No comments:
Post a Comment