Let us suppose that, after three and a half years as an MP, Mr Dombey has been so efficient and impressive that Mr Copperfield has appointed him as the new Junior Minister for Transport. Mr Dombey does not sit in the Cabinet, but he does work with the Minister for Transport, which means that he cannot simply act independently as an MP. He has another role.
Here is an example. Mr Dombey is worried about the huge traffic congestion on our roads. He has discussed with the senior civil servants in his Ministry his scheme for solving the problem. Certain very important roads, 'motorways', should become 'toll' roads. Each driver will have to pay a fee for the right to drive along them. The Minister for Transport explains Mr Dombey's ideas in the Cabinet, and because the Cabinet approves, they draw up proposals for turning our Motorways into Toll Roads.
The proposals are debated in the House of Commons, and later in the House of Lords. In these debates the different Party interests become active. The Labour Party Members of Parliament have formed the Opposition to the Government. They, too, have a spokesman on Transport, Mrs Nickleby. When Mr Dombey gives a speech explaining the virtues of Toll roads, the Mrs Nickleby (who will have consulted with her colleagues) explains all the objections. Mr Dombey points out that the money raised from the tolls (or fees) will help to pay for new roads to improve congestion. The Opposition argues that it will cost a lot of money to convert these roads to toll roads, and that the new law would be unfair to poorer drivers. Then another Conservative member says that motorways in Europe have been successfully adapted as Toll Roads, and a Labour Party member protests that our roads have always been tree to all citizens, and that the European motorways were, from the start, designed as toll roads. (I should say that this scheme has been suggested in our country, but has not been officially proposed. Mine is an imaginary but plausible debate.) The debate will be televised. Behind the scenes, the proposals are examined in detail in the Select Committee for Transport, compared with existing laws, scrutinized for financial problems, and slowly turned into a detailed law which is then once again discussed by Parliament. Then the Members of Parliament vote on whether this Toll Road policy should become law. Of course Mr Dombey votes for the new law; he devised it, he planned it, he has argued for it. So the new law - suggested by a junior Minister, discussed in Cabinet, debated in the House of Commons, scrutinized by committees and by the House of Lords - is eventually voted on by the MPs and becomes an Act of Parliament.
How democratic is this system? It certainly works quite effectively: policy decisions are taken, laws are passed, the country is governed by stable government, and citizens sleep safely in their beds. When I was a child we were taught that the British parliamentary system was the best system in the world. (Elsewhere, millions of other children were being taught that theirs was the best system, and like us, they probably believed what they were told - at least for a time.) As we grew up, we began to understand that the system, though stable and reasonably effective, has many weaknesses.
The problems I shall consider are (a) the role of political parties; (b) the methods of election; (c) the powers of Government; (d) the Upper Chamber, the House of Lords; (e) centre versus local government; (f) what influence does the European Union have on our political process.
(a) Political parties A political party in Britain is an organisation of people who share similar ideas about how the country should be ruled and who try to get enough power to put these ideas into practice. Party members are a very small minority of the population because most people are not very interested in politics most of the time. However each political party has a substantial number of supporters who are not as active as members, but who give encouragement and sometimes help at election time.
The chief practical activity of any British political party is to get as many of its candidates as possible elected to Parliament, because the party with the most members forms the Government. Anybody can found a party, publish a manifesto, produce a candidate and try to persuade the electorate to vote for him or her. But the chances of this candidate, however splendid, intelligent, brave, worthy, politically shrewd and charismatic, getting elected are virtually non-existent. Why? Because one successful candidate (or even two or three or four) will never be able to do anything significant in a Parliament where numbers count. The voters know this, so - except on special occasions as a protest vote - they will not vote for the candidates of small idealistic parties, however much they may sympathise with their programmes.
Party members in each of the major political parties tend to be hard-working activists who attend branch meetings, discuss details of policy, and pass ideas and resolutions to the constituency or area. They spend hours at election times talking to voters or addressing envelopes for leaflets and putting up posters. Most of these people are volunteers who care intensely about the way their society is governed. From among their number there are those who are looking for a political career themselves, either in local politics or in national politics. It is not usually too difficult to become a candidate in a local election. It is harder to be selected as a candidate in a General Election because there is more competition; moreover those who are selected are normally given their first 'fight' in a contest where they will lose because the other political party is very popular in that constituency. It is necessary experience but not very uplifting! Then, if a new candidate has fought a good campaign, he or she will, at the next election be chosen to be their party's candidate in a seat which it is possible to win.
How are these candidates chosen? In most cases, party members have the right to take part in choosing a candidate for the General Election. This procedure is itself an internal election, and it is very important to choose the right person. Parliamentary candidates have immense potential power. Out of the 650 successful candidates, several will eventually become government ministers, and almost all the others will sit on parliamentary committees and will explain their constituents' needs and problems to the relevant Ministries.
When these hard-working political activists - of whichever political party - get together to choose a candidate for the election, they are a tiny proportion of the local population. It is not the fault of the political parties who would love to have many more members; it is the fault of the vast majority of voters who would like a 'good MP' but who do not want to take part in the necessary preliminary work. Mr Dombey was selected to be the Conservative candidate for the General Election at a Conservative Party meeting of, say, 100 people. Mrs Nickleby, the Labour MP who later becomes his 'shadow', was selected at a Labour Party meeting of about 100 people. Neither had been chosen by popular choice. Yet thousands of people will vote for them.
This system has one advantage. As an ordinary voter at the General Election, who is not very interested in politics but extremely worried about some new laws which might affect me, I, an Oaktown voter, will vote not for the individual but for the political party whose policies I mostly support. Our voting system does ensure that when I vote, I mark my X against the name of the person who will try to carry out the policies I believe in. I do not choose on the basis of his or her looks, manner, wealth, reputation or charisma. There is no point in doing so.