Tuesday 31 March 2009

It's really not a bad idea

If elected, I hereby swear that I will take this advice seriously:

Justice Hugo L. Black once told me that he thought all government departments and agencies should be abolished every five or ten years. Black was a senator from Alabama for ten years and a Supreme Court justice for thirty-four, and he knew just about everything there was to know about how government works. His startling idea—and I think he was serious—was his way of dealing with the encrustations of bureaucracy.
-- Anthony Lewis.


Done deal. If elected, I promise that I will abolish every government department on the spot and do it again before each election.

Update: I also pledge to introduce a sunset clause for each new law proposed. Tip of the clown wig to Mark W in the comments.

4 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

Yup.

Another idea I am mulling is that all laws have a sunset clause (say after five years) and then have to be re-debated and re-enacted or else they will lapse. That way, MPs will be so busy keeping old laws up to date they'll have absolutely no time for thinking up new ones.

JuliaM said...

I'll vote for you!

Both of you!

Nick M said...

Good idea Mark!

Umbongo said...

MW

Good idea BUT given the prevalence of lazy careerist slime in the Commons (particularly on the government benches), "new" and "renew" legislation would go through, undebated and on the nod, in the same way as it since, oh, 1997.