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Hey,
I found out just the other day that there is a legal loophole which means that MPs are allowed to lie to the electorate, and even lie within the houses of parliament…An obvious example of why this is really dodgy is the various bogus reasons to invade Iraq: they could say whatever they liked without any fear of eventual prosecution.
This is not the case with any other sector of society — if a corporation lies to its customers in order to sell a product, it is prosecuted. Apparently our votes are less important than our shopping…
Any thoughts?@maenon wrote:
Hey,
I found out just the other day that there is a legal loophole which means that MPs are allowed to lie to the electorate, and even lie within the houses of parliament…Any thoughts?
Evidence?
Im not sure what Maenon is on about
It is a serious offence to mislead parliament-
however there are some ancient laws around slander etc which fundamentally means you can say what you like about someone in the house of commons and not be subject to common law in defammatory terms(i assume it goes back centuries to when the “commoners” who were appointed to the upper house were actually very very rich landowners)
I’m talking about parliamentary privilege where members of the House of Lords or Commons can talk freely before the houses without having to worry about repercussions stemming from libel. Thus, they don’t have to have solid evidence for their claims and can convince fellow members of things that are purely speculative. There is a committee on standards in public life which is supposed to be a parliamentary watchdog. The only problem is that this committee has to report and make recommendations to the PM who can then decide whether or not to act upon them. Thus, the party in power is self regulating. I think this needs to change.
Also, there isn’t a law to prosecute politicians who deceive the public. The only means the public has of holding politicians accountable for their actions is through voting in the general elections. These are few and far between and it means that once a party is in power it can pretty much do whatever it likes. I think there needs to be a law in place to hold politicians accountable when they deceive the public
@maenon wrote:
I’m talking about parliamentary privilege where members of the House of Lords or Commons can talk freely before the houses without having to worry about repercussions stemming from libel.
You mean, in a land of dreams, cameron the chameleon could describe blair as a gay cruiser?
What fun that would be, be worth watching then.
There is a committee on standards in public life which is supposed to be a parliamentary watchdog. The only problem is that this committee has to report and make recommendations to the PM who can then decide whether or not to act upon them. Thus, the party in power is self regulating. I think this needs to change.
You know you have a dictatorship when you cannot arrest the prime minister on war charges…
Also, there isn’t a law to prosecute politicians who deceive the public. The only means the public has of holding politicians accountable for their actions is through voting in the general elections. These are few and far between and it means that once a party is in power it can pretty much do whatever it likes. I think there needs to be a law in place to hold politicians accountable when they deceive the public
Society would crash if we had that.
@maenon wrote:
I’m talking about parliamentary privilege where members of the House of Lords or Commons can talk freely before the houses without having to worry about repercussions stemming from libel. Thus, they don’t have to have solid evidence for their claims and can convince fellow members of things that are purely speculative. There is a committee on standards in public life which is supposed to be a parliamentary watchdog. The only problem is that this committee has to report and make recommendations to the PM who can then decide whether or not to act upon them. Thus, the party in power is self regulating. I think this needs to change.
Also, there isn’t a law to prosecute politicians who deceive the public. The only means the public has of holding politicians accountable for their actions is through voting in the general elections. These are few and far between and it means that once a party is in power it can pretty much do whatever it likes. I think there needs to be a law in place to hold politicians accountable when they deceive the public
Maenon- to a degree you are right but it is against parliamentary privilege to deliberately mislead the commons- hence whilst they may speculate, an MP may not STATE something has happened unless he has the facts that it has. An MP is also only covered under parliamentary privilege during commons proceedings and hence cannot say what he wants outside of parliament
Todays media always speculate (as opposed to media 50 years ago which reported facts after they’d happened, not before they had) and so it’s not a suprise to hear Mp’s speculate either- i dont trust the media and i dont trust MP’s
But they can make claims before they know whether the truth of those claims has strong foundations. Anyway, I’m more interested in the shaky relationship between what politicians say to the public and the truth. It concerns me that the only way to hold politicians accountable for their actions at the minute is through voting for a different party in the general election. Also, there should be something more than a committee answerable to the PM monitering the conduct of MPs i.e. a law.
The reason why I’m having a bit of a rant is because I was introduced to the following website the other day: http://mo-truth.blogspot.com/. They have created an act entitled the ‘Misrepresentation of the People act’ (http://mo-truth.blogspot.com/2007/03/misrepresentation-of-people-act-mk-2.html) and they are currently trying to find an MP who’ll help them get it passed through parliament. They’ve interviewed various MPs (and the Lord Chancellor!) and put the footage up on the site – all really interesting
Oh ffs get over it, it is built into history we aint ever going to change it, the ruling goes back as far as the records do. It is old folk law, built into the walls. Bitching about it here aint going to do sod all.
Just as slavery and the inherent inequality of women was built into the walls? Oh come on Oss. Things can and do change. Talking about how there should be a law like the ‘Misrepresentation of the People act’ on this website won’t change anything, but if people support the act then parliament might take it seriously. Don’t you think the act is quite similar in sentiment to the Freedom of Information Act? People would have thought that society would crash if it was passed through parliament, but it didnt!
By the way, the ministry have posted a link today to a southern Australian law that is similar to the ‘Misrepresentation of the People act’…and it seems to be working. Here’s the ‘Electoral Act 1985’:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/sa/consol_act/ea1985103/s113.html
and the misrep act, to compare:
http://mo-truth.blogspot.com/2007/03/misrepresentation-of-people-act-mk-2.html
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