The West End not Westminster

By Olly Deed

I must apologise in advance for the scrooge like tone of this article. Wednesdays tend to make me an angry man. So before you read on, I beg for your forgiveness.

Prime Ministers Questions; That wonderful political institution that we have come to adore. Well, sorry to be a party-pooper, but I don’t adore it. The word loses all meaning and all eyes shift to Westminster. The Leader of the Opposition proceeds to tear into the Prime Minister and ask unanswerable questions which results in extremely evasive answers set in a backdrop of laughing and giggling school kids (oh no, wait, grown men and women), who for half an hour a week lose their capacity for maturity. It is absolutely cringeworthy best, yet for some reason I still tune in every week to watch it.

What constructive purpose does it fulfil? People will argue that it gives opposition benches a chance to bring the government to account, well I say rubbish. PMQs has descended in to a squalid fight to secure political points and newspaper headlines the following day. There are far more constructive ways in which to bring the executive to account without resorting to this. Pundits never talk about the issues discussed; rather they talk about who has scored the most points and who will set the headline writer’s tongue wagging.

I have two possible suggestions, which I believe to be better than the current system. The first is the most obvious one. Make PMQs longer and allow more time for questions and most importantly debate. Tony Blair had the right idea, although for the wrong reasons, when he amalgamated PMQs into one 30 minute slot rather than two 15 minute slots. If PMQs was 2 hours long rather than 30 minutes, it would allow the opposition to question the Prime Minister more constructively and would result in far more debate. The current system results in opposition politicians asking questions dictated to them by the Whip in order use the time more effectively. Extending the time would alleviate this. My second suggestion would be to set up a committee, modelled on the current select committees that exist in Parliament. On the select committee would sit the Leaders of the second and third largest parties in the House of Commons and other members, who are selected by the speaker after submitting questions prior to the sitting. This would certainly be more conducive of the constructive debate that we need in British Politics.

Perhaps I am being a killjoy but as far as I’m concerned Politics is serious and we should conduct it accordingly. Playground politics has no place; it only serves to disengage the general public even further. Punch and Judy Politics should be consigned to the past. The outlook is serious and our Politics needs to be too.