In fact, I sometimes wonder why the government bothers involving Parliament in things at all, given the contempt it seems to have for the institution. It's well known that Tony Blair attended less than 10 percent of Commons votes during his tenure as prime minister, and rarely attended parliamentary debates (even in the debate on the Iraq war, he left after just a few speeches). Gordon Brown did little better as chancellor, and doesn't seem to have changed much since he's been at Number 10.
Of course, I'm not surprised that ministers don't care much for parliament. Although Labour MPs are rebelling with increased regularity, the Commons still more or less does the government's bidding in the legislative chamber. Most of the committees are just as bad, since they have government majorities and – usually – chairs (the Public Accounts Committee being a notable exception).
Indeed, politics these days is almost all about the media – parliamentary democracy being an unfortunate afterthought. Politicians are driven by polls, polls are driven by media coverage (generally, the more 'your man' is on TV, the better your poll rating), and media coverage is driven by action. And that's why politics-by-media means a constant stream of 'initiatives', endless tinkering, and masses of completely ill thought out legislation which undergoes little scrutiny.
Yep. One day constitutional historians are going to look back at the New Labour project in utter amazement and wonder how the country didn't implode.
Although there's still time, I guess.
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