Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Showing posts with label MPs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MPs. Show all posts

Thursday, December 12, 2013

6 things MPs didn't do before taking a 6-week holiday

In the interests of full transparency and journalistic disclosure, I'm going to level with you, readers.

Try though I might (and I did, I swear) to put together a definitive list on what your MPs accomplished this fall, I just couldn't come up with much in the way of concrete (or even ephemeral) parliamentary achievements.

MPs' pay: rejection of Ipsa proposals would be a disaster, watchdog warns

Sir Ian Kennedy, the chair of the independent watchdog on MPs' pay, has warned it would be a disaster if political pressure led to parliament rejecting his package of proposals including an 11% pay rise.

Writing in the Times, he said: "I know there is a tension between the reasoning and the politics, but we were asked to fix the problem for a generation, not for a news cycle. That is what we have done.

Sunday, December 08, 2013

MPs' 11% pay rise set to embarrass party leaders

David Cameron and Ed Miliband will face embarrassment this week when it is announced that MPs will be paid an annual salary of £74,000 from 2015 despite their calls for "cheaper politics".

The independent parliamentary standards authority, Ipsa, is to reveal its decision to increase salaries by 11% despite a lack of support from the prime minister and the leader of the Labour party. MPs' salaries will then go up annually in line with national wages.