Busted flush

Spectator, The, Sep 18, 1999 by Vestey, Micheal

In the spring I was listening to Radio Four's excellent coverage of the European election results when I heard that Bill Newton Dunn had been returned as a Tory MEP. Scents of foie gras and butter-soaked asparagus festivals had my nostrils twitching as I recalled a period reporting for BBC Radio in the Eighties on what the European Parliament in Strasbourg wasn't doing.

Bill Newton Dunn: how Betjamanesque it sounds. ,Bill Newton Dunn, furnished and burnish'd by Alsatian sun...' (Apologies to the late, great J.B., 'A Subaltern's Love Song' and 'Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,.) It was Newton Dunn who once told me in a radio interview that real power should reside in the European Parliament and that Westminster should be little more than a county council, leaving me open-mouthed.

Bill Newton Dunn, Bill Newton Dunn

How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won.

The limo is waiting, the flunkies line the hall

The pictures of Delors are bright on the wall.

At least he was frank. ahead of his time and he might now be, for all I know, a passionate Haeueite. Of course since then, when the European Parliament was just a ghastly talking shop, MEPs have acquired more power under successive treaties at the expense of Westminster. But does that mean that our very own Parliament is finished?

Anne Perkins on Radio Four last week seemed to think so. She was presenting the first of a series of documentaries under the heading, Matrix of Power -the House of Comnmons (Thursday), exploring how Britain will be governed in the years ahead. She completely swallowed the fashionable view in certain quarters that Westminster `has become an empty shell . Trapped in their Victorian palace like fossils in the golden glow of amber, MPs hark back to a glorious past when the backbencher had such power that he or she could make or break governments.' But, she went on with relish, power has been slipping away from Westminster to Europe and devolved assemblies in Scotland and Wales.

Aside from the exaggeration of her analysis, she is certainly right about powers seeping away to Europe. Newton Dunn was prescient in that respect. Using the best Birtian methodology, though, Perkins assembled contributors to support the programme`s thesis, that Westminster is a busted flush. Ken Livingstone complained that no one took it seriously any more, the debate had shifted to television.

Tony Benn was nearer the mark when he described devolution as a cover for centralisation because Labour MPs who'd upset the leadership were prevented from standing in Scotland and Wales. Labour MPs were terrified of saying something unacceptable to the government. Sir Edward Heath criticised Tony Blair for his presidential ambitions. 'He wants to be president. He hates coming to the House of Commons. He has scant respect for Parliament as such.'

Perkins: `It seems no one can find much to recommend in the way the Commons works. Hardly surprising that power is ebbing away from it or that the TV studio and Today programme have long replaced the Commons as the cockpit of the nation.'

While there is an element of truth in this it is by no means the whole story, and the only contributor who seemed to have a sense of proportion was the senior Labour MP Clive Soley. Acknowledging the problems involved in scrutinising legislation, he thought the Commons was too big. The number of MPs had to be reduced from around 650 to more like 450, to make it more efficient. We can all agree with that. Let's start with the Scottish and Welsh MPs.

I began to realise with a groan where Perkins was heading. Paddy Ashdown admitted he didn't much like the place and restated his view that proportional representation was the long-term answer. This allowed Perkins to conclude: 'But maybe no amount of reform is going to put the Commons back at the centre of the national stage. Its days as the cockpit of the nation are long gone. Who wants to watch two brainless birds fight to the death, anyway? What the nation needs is a jury, less dramatic, more consensual and more effective.' By 'consensual', she presumably meant the discredited European systems of proportional representation.

The first of this new Mfanix of Power documentaries was disappointing, less rigorous than the earlier series. Were Perkins and her producer really unable to find contributors who might make a more robust defence of our Parliament? There are plenty of MPs and pundits who don't share her assessment. Yes, Parliament has lost a great deal of sovereignty. to undemocratic and corrupt European institutions but the resistance fight goes on, both inside and outside Westminster. Despite its faults it offers more direct representation than any other system in the world. Do we really want to roll over to the Newton Dunns and Romano Prodis? No, Westminster isn't dead yet.

We sat in the galler,v till quarter to one And now I'm enslaved to Bill Newton Dunn.