Bitter Ashes
24th May 2009, 00:51
In light of the MP's expenses scandal in the UK, public anger has been rising and I heard yesterday, from a co-worker, that she intends to set up a petition demanding that the MP's are charged (what charge they could be given I'm not sure. Fraud perhaps?) by the police and taken to court.
Although petitions have no legal requirement to be listened to by parllment, regardless of the number of signatures, she is adamant that this could get these MP's handed a criminal record and expelled from Parliment, forcing by-elections nationwide. Although not socialist, she does believe that this would unite people which would be a good thing.
Meanwhile I'm not so sure whether I should support this method. Although the MP's have certainly done wrong, we're currently living under the heel of capitalism, where the law rewards people who do bad things like this, not punishes them, making it unlikely that the required response would be achieved. Furthermore, we'd be leaving the responsibility for punishment to an insitution, which of course follows the laws regardless of thier right or wrong. I also think that maybe it'd be better for the public to consider these "unpunished crimes" and allow thier dissatisfaction for representative democracy simmer, rather than allow it to rally support by showing the "success" of the institution to punish the ruling class. Finaly, there is an even bigger danger with forcing by-elections and that is that the public may have lost confidence in the major parties, but not representative democracy and could end up voting in some lunatics like the BNP or something.
So, should I support her, or for that matter, would you support her? I'm personaly thinking not, but I could do with some feedback and maybe some points that I might have missed in defence of handing over responsibility to the police, rather than the entire working class, to punish.
Although petitions have no legal requirement to be listened to by parllment, regardless of the number of signatures, she is adamant that this could get these MP's handed a criminal record and expelled from Parliment, forcing by-elections nationwide. Although not socialist, she does believe that this would unite people which would be a good thing.
Meanwhile I'm not so sure whether I should support this method. Although the MP's have certainly done wrong, we're currently living under the heel of capitalism, where the law rewards people who do bad things like this, not punishes them, making it unlikely that the required response would be achieved. Furthermore, we'd be leaving the responsibility for punishment to an insitution, which of course follows the laws regardless of thier right or wrong. I also think that maybe it'd be better for the public to consider these "unpunished crimes" and allow thier dissatisfaction for representative democracy simmer, rather than allow it to rally support by showing the "success" of the institution to punish the ruling class. Finaly, there is an even bigger danger with forcing by-elections and that is that the public may have lost confidence in the major parties, but not representative democracy and could end up voting in some lunatics like the BNP or something.
So, should I support her, or for that matter, would you support her? I'm personaly thinking not, but I could do with some feedback and maybe some points that I might have missed in defence of handing over responsibility to the police, rather than the entire working class, to punish.