Same sex marriage, fox hunting and academies
Gay marriage has been something of a hiding for nothing for David Cameron. He seems to sincerely believe in the principle of equality, which is something I applaud him for and for which he deserves praise. He has won the vote in Parliament, meaning that the bill will move onto its next stage.
He did not manage to persuade the majority of his party to vote with him, however. In the immediate term, he seems to have alienated his party, who now look like bigots to the public. But this saga demonstrates a point I want to make in one of the sessions I've developed: you need to pay attention for who and what you vote for.
I ask this question a lot and everybody comes back with a variant of either a party leader or the party itself. They have an unspoken assumption that they're voting for the person they want to be the Prime Minister and, put simply, they're not. In certain cases, the person you return as your Member of Parliament is equivalent to voting for your candidate PM but it too often isn't.
I believe this is the cause for a lot of cynicism in politics -- that "they" don't do "what they promised". This is true in many cases, but it's the electorate that give them the wiggle room to renege. It comes down to the gap between who you think you're voting for and who you're actually voting for -- this ambiguity means votes have to be interpreted into discussions over mandates.
So you get let down in two points. Invariably, mandates are stretched to the point of translucence and, frankly, you vote for them expecting them to obey their photogenic leaders and actually empower them to vote however they damn well please.
So, in my session I argue there are 6 pressures on our legislators that can lay claim to being the right thing to do. That's what we really want our legislators to do, do the right thing. Those competing pressures are: constituency, colleagues, conscience, career, country and constitution. In other words:
1. Who voted for you?
2. By whose sweat did you get into office? Who selected you? Will you achieve more good by compromising to live to fight another day or by standing firm?
3. What did you come into politics to do?
4. Will you make more of an impact by doing your time now at the bottom, doing unpleasant things, that get you to the top or by putting your neck on the line? Worth risking your job for?
5. What's best for all 60mn people in the UK?
6. What are the parameters of your job?
Gay marriage has MPs lining up on both sides to say they're on the moral side of the argument claiming legitimacy for their positions under one or more of these points. Frequent objections to the bill stated that "the Government has no mandate for this" -- or it wasn't in the manifesto/nobody asked for it/etc. Other than that, they fell along conscience lines -- "defending religious freedom" was a frequent refrain. Undermining society (country).
Supporters pointed to social attitudes -- the vast majority of people want this and want it quickly. They think it's rather unedifying to be trapped in a debate from the Middle Ages about it and consider the debate not a waste of time -- as some on the right have claimed -- but consider those opposing to be wasting everyone's time.
Now, look, for me I find the traditional Tory right, represented by Peter Bone and his ilk, very perplexing. To them, their yuppy friends toasting and hollering for the savage death of a small mammal ripped to shreds by dogs is obviously civilised. But two people who happen to have the same genitals having their living arrangements recognised under the law and suddenly it's Broken Britain.
So, in this instance, it's pretty clear cut that the people voting against gay marriage today are homophobes pretending they're not homophobes. They're adopting the language of legitimacy though -- and there's no science to find out whether they do express the settled will of our society. And while we the public remain silent on a day-to-day basis, you essentially become a ventriloquist's puppet for unscrupulous or simply eager, mistaken legislators for them to justify their positions as they claim you elected them to serve your interests above the country's/the country's interests above yours/use their good judgement/execute the manifesto.
That's all I wanted to say really: the six Cs in brief, ladies and gentlemen -- "Who et mon droit?" Comments most welcome to help me develop this line of thought.