The all new PMQs
Prime Minister’s Questions was woeful again this week. An ugly pantomime.
Gordon Brown has let it be known just what he thinks of the whole unedifying spectacle (although he’s part of the problem). Simon Hoggart in the Guardian wonders if Brown ‘has given up on’ PMQs altogether. Mike Smithson at Political Betting floats the idea that Brown could do away with the circus once and for all.
Kill it, I say. Drive a stake through its braying, screaming, brain-damaged clown’s heart. Of course there’ll be a fuss with people complaining its one of the few opportunities for MPs to hold the Prime Minister to account (like they ever do or he ever lets them.) But how about this as an alternative format as a replacement?
Throw it open to the public.
Bear with me.
Everybody, for a nominal fee, let’s say a lottery-tastic pound, can join a register of people wanting to ask the Prime Minister a question. They can sign up on the internet or at the local post office or supermarket. Each week five people are selected from the register at random to put their question to Gordon Brown.
The draw will be two months in advance of the specific question time, giving the lucky citizen chance to book the days off. The pot of lottery-tastic pounds will fund travel expenses and a nice lunch in the canteen at the Houses of Parliament after a guided tour.
The format of the question session will run like this. The half-hour session will take place weekly and the five selectees will have five minutes to question the Prime Minister. The week before the session, the selectees will send their question to the Prime Minister’s office so that he can be briefed on what they will be asking about.
This question will be asked of the Prime Minister at the start of the selectee’s five minutes. The selectee can then ask as many follow-up questions as he likes in his allotted five minutes.
Other than the briefing on the five selectees’ questions, the Prime Minister’s office will have no control over proceedings whatsoever. The session will be overseen by an impartial presenter and timekeeper. The question and only the question will be given in advance, to prevent any temptation or accusation of knobbling the selectee.
The random nature of the selection process should ensure a reasonable spread of views. If that doesn’t work, possibly people’s political affiliation or interest could be added to the selection algorithm to better provide a spread of views and topics at any given session. If an MP wants to ask the Prime Minister as question, he or she can go and queue at the post office with the rest of us.
So, beyond any resistance on the part of the Prime Minister to get too close to the great unwashed and/or serious questions and away from planted questions, political theatre and supine lobby journalists wary of ruining their access, where’s the catch?
Posted on February 8th, 2008 at 8:21 am
| See also • The all new PMQs: still needs some work • More questions than answers • Liveblogging Prime Minister’s Questions |
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Great idea!
There is one problem - a questioner’s question could be “how are you?”. Their followups could then be on any topic whatsoever, defeating the point of briefing the PM in advance. If you just wanted to make the PM look silly, that would be the way to do it. I’m not sure what the policy solution to this problem is, but I flag it up.
Well, you could give the presenter/adjudicator permission to intervene, I suppose. I don’t suppose any system is entirely moron or time-waster proof - we see that every week at the PMQs we have now.
“Where’s the catch?” The media would turn it into a media circus, I reckon. It’d be like Big Brother without the fucking.
I think the key issue with PMQ’s at the moment is Gordon Boring’s inability to actually answer a straight question. It seems, to me, that he is turning it into Leader of the Opposition’s Questions by invariably answering David Cameron’s questions with another question.
Brown hasn’t long in the PM job- I think even the Labour Party know’s that. He’s actually rubbish at the job and PMQ’s exacerbates the problem by shining the white light of publicity on Brown’s failings. M-m-m-m-m-mr Speaker….
Interesting ideas. A little similar to some of the ideas I floated a few weeks ago, and I think we share a similar motivation - the more the public is involved, the better the behaviour is likely to be!
There is a role for MPs to be able to question the PM too though - so I wouldn’t abolish that part completely.
Seems as though on one level or another lots of us are coming around to the same sort of idea of what needs to happen next.
Likelihood of anything changing other than to pretty much shelve the event though?
Possibly the winners could be selected on the basis of finding a Golden Ticket in a bar of chocolate…
The catch would be that the response to each question would be a bout of statistics lasting five minutes.
Well, we could have system like they have in televised debates in the State. Give Gordon a minute and minute only per question. Any attempt to waffle the time out or try and play the system would be jumped on pretty quick, wouldn’t it?
Electric shocks for PM every time he avoids answering?
For a “man” who said he would strengthen parliament and make government more accountable he is a lying bastard and a coward.
But Justin, your suggestion implies that Gordon Brown is answerable to the people. I’ve yet to see any evidence that anyone in government believes this.
Yes, you’re entirely right, Jim. We are of course still too far out from the next general election. I’m sure words like ‘answerable’ and ‘accountable’ will be bandied about again eventually when we’re again invited to ratify Gordon’s manifesto promises that we mustn’t have a ‘legitimate expectation‘ of being implemented.
[...] on the Chicken Yoghurt blog and echoes some of my earlier views about [...]