A review of Leeds International Festival of Ideas – Who does our political system benefit?

Oliver Bhutiani on 23 October 2023

The Leeds International Festival of Ideas is in its third year running, and this year it has massively expanded in size: relocating to the Quarry Theatre in Leeds playhouse with a maximum of 850 Seats, and in its line-ups: from attracting the likes of former home secretary, Amber Rudd, to renown actor Christopher Eccleston. It is organised by the not-for-profit, Leeds BID, who work on development for the city centre and represent 648 businesses in Leeds.

I attended the discussion on “who does our political system benefit?” where a panel of recognisable faces discussed their perspectives on the question, and what could be done to improve UK Politics in relation to this question.

The panel was hosted by Lewis Goodall (replacing Jon Sopel), who helped find agreement between the panellists, and brought the debate from topics such as electoral systems to discussion over simultaneously growing apathy and disgust both with the system and individual politicians. Discussion was (as is now unfortunately rare in modern politics) respectful and thoughtful between panellists, and each had a unique perspective on issues raised, and possible solutions for these.

I was surprised that the figure emerging as a crowd favourite was Scarlett Westbrook – a 19-Year old climate justice advocate – whose more pessimistic stance on the state of politics appeared to resonate with the audience. Rounds of applause given at multiple points, including where Westbrook voiced disillusionment with the primary political parties, and when she commented on the cost of living crisis as being avoidable. This attitude was shown in particular when an audience member in the Q&A segment commented on panellists Amber Rudd and Tom Brake “assuming” that questions were directed at them, giving the first response to questions, and having spoken more than the other two panellists.

Magid Magid – former Lord-Mayor of Sheffield and Green Party MEP – voiced strong reservations both to the First Past the Post voting system, and the lack of cross-party dialogue. He focused both on structural weaknesses of the political system, and the worsening political culture – MPs increasingly treating their position not as a privilege, but as a right.

Tom Brake, who now serves as director of the pressure group, Unlock Democracy (formerly serving as a Liberal Democrat member of the coalition government) highlighted a number of representation problems, with the central message that unfit politicians, rather than democracy itself, were at fault for disillusionment with politics. He gave a number of policy proposals that Unlock Democracy were seeking to implement, including Citizens Assemblies, banning of second jobs for MPs, and lack of transparency or controls on donations to political entities.

Finally, Amber Rudd – former Home Secretary and Conservative MP – came out largely in support of the system: noting that it got rid of two Prime Ministers when they were unable to further serve the country, and stressing that during a period of political abnormality and instability, that our system had survived. Although she does not believe in reforming the voting system, as First Past the Post has produced a coalition and minority government of recent, at times when there was insufficient support for one party to form majority government. She did call for expansions to localism with more power to devolved bodies, and was applauded for defending MPs where they have to deal with abuse and threats.

While I was expecting the audience to be made up of mostly young people with particular interests in politics, the opposite would be the case – the majority were working-age to retired: teachers, architects, and retired people with no major interest in politics all made up the audience. One member I spoke to reflected the attitude shared amongst many – the exhaustion of the current state of affairs, and wish to see a reconnection between people and politicians. This intergenerational attitude of course explains Scarlett Westbrook’s popularity, and may worry former colleagues of panellists in parliament.

I did thoroughly enjoy the discussion – I think it certainly served its purpose of educating the public about the issues of the day, and where the solutions to these may lie. If I were to suggest improvements, I think the biggest weakness was the lack of disagreement: as areas where the panellists did not have consensus could be better explored. Equally, while the panel was impressive, the lack of a Labour Party oriented member does mean a large section of current political debate was absent.

But overall, the panel discussion was a popular success – providing a note of hope for an improved political system. This event follows a growing trend of public interest in politics outside of the two party structure, showing us that while the parties may be losing unconditional support from some members, that public interest in politics is not wavering as a result.

An Impartiality Crisis in the BBC

Oliver Bhutiani on 15 March 2023

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear” reads the statue of George Orwell outside of BBC’s Headquarters in Westminster, unveiled in 2017. Balancing impartiality and free speech within the BBC is not a new issue but this balance has generally been upheld to at least a satisfactory extent – the BBC has employed a range of members from across the political spectrum with few major debates being sparked over an outright bias. However, more recently, increasing questions have been raised over a tendency for the BBC to favour views from the Right to those on the Left – beginning with revelations over the Director-General of the BBC having been a member of the Conservative Party, also including the BBC Chair, who donated £400,000 to the Conservatives and helped facilitate an £800,000 loan to Boris Johnson – and finally erupting with the decision to suspend Gary Lineker over a tweet opposing the Government’s Illegal Migration Bill.

As many have pointed out, it seems unlikely that this suspension would have taken place if the tweet had instead been in support of the Government policy. There are plenty of examples of right-wing tweets sent that the BBC deemed acceptable – not limited to Alan Sugar tweeting a photoshopped picture of Jeremy Corbyn next to Adolf Hitler. Next to some of the tweets and statements made by right-wing members of the BBC, the tweet by Linker seems more acceptable – especially given that the tweet echoed views from actual holocaust survivors on the Government’s policies. Given that the BBC has a problem with political bias that reaches even the top of its directorship, questions have emerged over how the BBC should move forwards from this, and what its enforcement of impartiality should look like.

It must be noted however, that the BBC provides an invaluable role: it maintains a high journalistic standard in the UK; provides free and balanced information for those abroad – especially in countries increasingly clamping down on free press; and acts as a globally recognised high standard representative of UK journalism, among many other roles. Calls for the BBC to be defunded, privatised, or shut down would massively damage the press standard in the UK – the US clearly showing the damaging results of partisan, biased reporting. Attempts to implement US-Style news programmes into UK television have failed, in part as a result of the BBC upholding high standards of reporting.

Reform of the BBC is therefore necessary to uphold its high standard – not an easy goal to achieve, but a vital one. It is clear that both the Chair and Director-General must step down – failure to uphold their own guidelines on impartiality should not be tolerated. Individuals within the BBC must be permitted to share personal views independently, on their own platforms – as Andrew Neil was permitted to do, sharing his views on Climate Change, Brexit, and the SNP, while adhering to impartiality while on the BBC platform. But these standards must be uniform – views from across the spectrum should be treated equally – Gary Lineker should be as free to express views on the government as Andrew Neil was on Brexit. While Lineker’s suspension has been lifted and the BBC is claiming to review its impartiality guidelines, to ensure lasting change, these guidelines should be enforced by a neutral body from the top. The government should no longer have any role in appointing the BBC Board – instead this must be kept in check by a completely independent standards committee.

Controversy over bias within the BBC is an inevitable issue – and a necessary one. But when cases of bias are as clear and obvious as we have seen in the Gary Lineker case, it is vital for the BBC to enforce its own guidelines, even – and especially – against those at the very top of the institution.

Image Credit: Flickr

Are Keir Starmer’s Plans For Radical Constitutional Reforms Too Ambitious?

Oliver Bhutiani on 9 December 2022

On Monday 5th December, Labour announced a 40-point plan on overhauling the British Constitution, one that promised to sweep away outdated and outgrown structures such as the House of Lords – to be replaced with modern alternatives. It promised to reunite UK Politics around improved structures – furthering devolution to national and local government, which hopes to rebalance power closer to people; enshrining rights, such as right to healthcare; commitments to clean up corruption in Westminster by banning second jobs and foreign money; and finally introducing a replacement for the House of Lords, representing nations and regions at the centre, and granting power to this assembly to protect constitutional rights. However, like the constitutional reforms made by Tony Blair , these risk not going far enough to repair the foundations of our democracy, and one area remains completely unaddressed: the broken electoral system in place for general elections.

The current electoral model is not fit for the modern age – its greatest weakness being wasted votes, where any vote casted for a candidate other than the preferred of the two most popular candidates running will count for nothing, and possibly even prevent a preferred candidate from winning. This has unevenly punished progressives due to there being a wider variety of parties – a Liberal Democrat who would prefer a Labour candidate to a Conservative is given no chance to indicate preference, and their vote could help decide more fairly the most popular choice in the area.

The absence of electoral reform from Labour’s plans, especially when Keir Starmer has been quoted as saying “on electoral reform, we’ve got to address the fact that millions of people vote in safe seats and they feel their voice doesn’t count,” makes this especially disappointing. With a chance to improve democracy for all voters, Labour should seize the opportunity to rebalance voting power in favour of voters.

The plan for a new upper chamber (The Assembly of the Nations and Regions), promises to better represent the whole UK in Westminster: a change that will address the fundamental concerns behind independence movements and disillusionment with the system, and the promise to grant powers to protect Constitutional rights is a welcome one. However, it seems already that this chamber would struggle against the power of a majority government opposing the House, as the power of the Prime Minister to reverse or weaken these changes is not curtailed. To ensure that these improvements are both lasting and workable, Labour must commit to properly balancing power between branches of government, and work to restrict the damage that an overzealous Prime Minister may do to Human Rights, Equality and other fundamental legislation that impacts the most vulnerable in our society.

A welcome change is an updating of the standards that MPs are held to – banning second jobs and passing anti-corruption legislation certainly promises to hold politicians to a higher standard. However, while judgements will be made by independent bodies, decisions will ultimately still be taken by the Prime Minister, demonstrating that the PM’s role can still be abused to support members of government that fail to observe the rules and standards. Reforms to be made concerning standards, while certainly heading in the right direction, fall short of what the public deserves concerning the implementation of punishments against those accountable to us. To properly reform this area of government, Labour must commit to take power from the Prime Minister’s position and allow independent bodies to enforce the standards we deserve.

These reforms are certainly a step towards repairing the trust between people and politicians, seeking move power away from the centre, but they fall short primarily because it still relies on the “good chap” system – the government only being bound by respect for tradition and established institutions. As was seen with the Johnson administration however, this quickly comes apart once there aren’t “good chaps” in power. Labour’s plans for reform are a step in the right direction, but more must be done if we want to fully repair the trust between people and the political system.

Image Credit: Flickr