On Thursday, MPs asked for ideas from the public on how parliament can be changed and standards raised. To which an inevitable response is that, if MPs want this, they should probably not be starting from here. The furore about gifts and freebies for ministers is rumbling on. Public confidence in politicians, already in decline under past governments, could now hardly be lower.
Much, but not all, of the problem lies in the larger context. Modern governments have not done enough to show they can solve the big public needs – things such as secure jobs, reasonable living costs, housing, care and health – that shape people’s lives. The state has been relentlessly weakened, locally and nationally, for decades. Parliament can sometimes come across as an alien irrelevance, in which politicians spout platitudes offering little hope to stressed lives. If that could change, then so might confidence in politicians.
