Perfect parliament - Issue 52 - Magazine | Monocle
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“A Parliament,” claimed the 19th century political essayist Walter Bagehot, “is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.” It is a view that appears to be shared by many. The men and women (though it is still mainly men) that fill parliaments around the world have rarely been so unpopular. In the United States approval of Congress is just 10 per cent; in the UK only estate agents are deemed to be less trustworthy than politicians; across the rest of Europe, recent elections have been greeted with a mixture of frustration and disdain at the choices on offer.

It’s easy for us, the voters, to blame the politicians. And often they are deserving of our scorn. But we don’t always make it easy for them. We dismiss discussions about how to improve the way our parliaments work as boring; we angrily denounce any attempts to spend more money on staff or technology as a waste; too often we simply see parliament as for them, the politicians, not for us, the voters. Parliament is for us though, and it’s about time we gave it a bit more thought. As we analyse some of the world’s most unusual parliaments elsewhere in this issue, we have turned our minds to what a perfect parliament would look like. Over the next four pages we’ll look at everything from the location and the building to how things should actually work on the inside.

The physical structure itself, alongside the home or office of the head of state, tends to be one of the most recognisable buildings in a country. It often says as much about a country as the choice of prime minister or president. Creating a perfect parliament isn’t just about the building and the infrastructure, as important as they are. It’s also about recognising that a parliament represents a country not only to its own people but to the rest of the world as well.

They also have real historical significance. Many parliaments across Anglophone Africa were based on the UK’s House of Commons, from the adversarial design of the chamber to the use of procedures and rules that can trace their origins back to Erskine May’s “Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament”. Fortunately, China’s sudden interest in constructing parliaments across Africa hasn’t translated into an attempt to create Chinese-style forms of parliamentary procedure.

Monocle’s perfect parliament would recognise the historical legacy of a country, while also making sure to embrace its future. It would be a place where legislators could meet in comfort, with all the resources they need at their fingertips – and that includes a proper staff – and in an atmosphere that encourages debate and co-operation.

Crucially, it would also be a place where we could see what’s going on. State-of-the-art media centres with space for journalists from every news outlet in the land – and overseas – plus large public galleries constantly filled by members of the public.

Ultimately though, all the money and all the thought put into design, technology and resources will count for nothing if we don’t choose representatives we’re happy with. When creating the perfect parliament what really matters is the quality of the people inside.

Location

If you want to look like you are serving the people it helps to locate your parliament centrally – you need to give the sense that you are approachable, there for everyone to see. The downside? When things go wrong the mob will be at your doors (as our friends in Athens have found out). One solution is to make sure you have a natural barrier – the Danube protects the parliament in Budapest, the Thames in London (well at least on one side). It’s the dodgier regimes that favour remote locations for chambers (see Burma on page 72).

Architect

The problem with a parliament building, unlike the politicians who populate it, is that, once built, you’re stuck with it. Any building that’s rooted too much in the style of the day, centuries down the line tends to look conservative – London’s Houses of Parliament are one example. It’s important not to opt for too much symbolism, which looks self-conscious and needy (sorry Scots). The blueprint that should be followed is simple (see our Liechtenstein parliament profile on p120) – and use local materials. Our top three tips would be Peter Zumthor, Hopkins Architects and MMBB.

Chamber

Britain addressed this issue in 1943, after the Commons chamber was destroyed by Luftwaffe bombs. Wartime prime minister Winston Churchill instructed that the new chamber remain with benches facing each other, and built too small – he wanted to create intimacy and “a sense of crowd and urgency”. Many other parliaments – such as the US House of Representatives – now favour horseshoe-shaped chambers which give every member what Churchill sighingly described as “a lid to bang”.

While these theoretically promote consensual lawmaking, there are good reasons for keeping opposing MPs apart – Taiwan’s legendary legislators conduct their much-YouTubed punch-ups in an agreeably shaped arena. Britain’s centuries of unbroken parliamentary tradition are tough to argue with – as, indeed, are the words of Churchill. “First we shape our buildings and afterwards, our buildings shape us.”

Resources

In Europe MPs are looking nervous, scared that any expenditure will go down badly with stretched electorates. The risk: best practice will shift to other parts of the world and they’ll fail to keep up. In our fantasy parliament we would make sure there were restaurants serving the best of the nation’s cuisine, a great library where you could find the latest papers and journals from around the globe, an in-house gym, bikes to get you around town and even a laundry and dry-cleaners to let MPs look their best on the floor.

Openness

The people’s houses should of course be open to the people: one of the more woeful self-inflicted injuries suffered by democracies in the past decade has been the increasing retreat of their citadels and officials behind security barriers.

Some exceptions remain. Australia’s parliament house is effectively encased inside a hill, which visitors can stroll on (and, inside; there’s a shop and café). Finland’s parliament provides a visitors’ centre. Citizens unable to visit their capital should be able to follow proceedings online (Norway’s Storting provides a multilingual model for this, at stortinget.no). It should also go without saying that every accommodation should be made for the media. If reporting of parliament is made easier, there’s every reason to expect it to be better.

Representation 

The calculation of a proper number of parliamentarians is an inexact science. The world’s smallest democracy – the self-governing New Zealand-associated island Niue – returns 20 of 1,050 voters on its electoral roll to its assembly. The world’s biggest – India – elects 802 members to represent 1.2 billion people. Britain, Canada and Australia have, respectively, a representative for roughly every 91,000, 105,500 and 133,000 people (although at Britain’s next general election, the number of MPs will be cut from 650 to 600). Italy, Europe’s most-governed country, with a representative for every 60,000 or so people, is also one of Europe’s most chronically chaotic. The US has remained the world’s richest and most powerful nation despite not having expanded its House of Representatives since 1912, in which time its population has more than tripled.

American political scientist Matthew Shugart has coined the so-called Shugart Number – a theory which holds that the number of members of a country’s lower house tends towards a cube root of the population. It’s as good a starting point as any, but the key – in this area of endeavour as few others – is quality, not quantity.

Salaries

A country makes no falser economy than when it scrimps on the salaries of its lawmakers. Look at the UK’s expenses scandal in 2009 that sent four MPs and two Lords to jail. They got a relatively poor wage of £65,738/€77,500 (before they start invoicing for duckpond maintenance).

In comparison, Singapore’s politicians receive high wages – in 2010, prime minister Lee Hsien Loong justified his take-home pay of S$3.4m (€2m) by modestly observing that: “our attitude is that you must pay for the quality of the person you want”. Even after accepting a 36 per cent pay cut in early 2012, Loong still earns about four times what Barack Obama gets paid for leading the free world.

There’s a time and a place. Kenya’s MPs in 2010 probably had more urgent priorities than awarding themselves pay rises. MPs should be well rewarded. This is not a realm in which to try demonstrating what one gets when one pays peanuts.

Formalities

At the beginning of this year, the incoming speaker of the Australian House of Representatives, Peter Slipper, prompted a degree of ribaldry by reinstating some long-abandoned traditions of his role, including a long black gown and bow tie – there were even rumours that he planned to retrieve the speaker’s wig. The response of his fellow parliamentarians was, to put it charitably, sceptical. “He wants the respect of the parliament,” said one MP, “but the risk is he will end up looking like a clown.”

Slipper isn’t altogether wrong: running a country is a serious business and ritual can help to remind all present of the gravity of their deliberations. His error was to try to impose British pomp to a country that prides itself on egalitarian informality. Traditions should be organic. Bhutan joined the ranks of parliamentary democracies in 2008 and built a chamber that could represent no other country: deputies wear Bhutanese costume and conduct their business between walls decorated with paintings. A parliament, like its members, should truly represent its people.

Technology

The technology now exists to allow parliamentarians to vote electronically and remotely. Although it would save travel costs and working hours, the temptation to introduce such technology should be resisted, in parliaments as in elections. More complex technology is more prone to failure and fraud. While TV cameras, webcams and radio should be used to broadcast parliamentary proceedings and decisions, it must always be possible, when the vote is called, to see what our parliamentarians stand for.

Stalin’s dictum still holds that it’s not who votes that counts, but who counts the votes. There is no better way of knowing what our representative stands for than seeing them standing among the ayes or the nos – or noting that they couldn’t be bothered turning up.


The maverick MPs

A smattering ofmavericks is useful in any parliament – it keeps the public engaged and ensures tolerance and democracy are properly tested. Order and compromise are obviously both desirable: nobody wants their country ruled by a chimpanzees’ tea party. But nobody, aside from the party whips, wants a chamber upholstered with nodding automatons – genuine debate and bold thinking are important. You need at least one of each of the following types:

  1. An unreconstructible adherent to the noblest founding principles of the ruling party and/ or country.

  2. A member with an incongruous and bizarre extracurricular occupation.

  3. A member who has, at some point, been a member of his opposition party.

  4. A member who bangs the drum volubly for unfashionable or disregarded foreign causes.

  5. A member who was, before taking up politics, a proper war hero.

  6. A member who is a great orator. Rousing Churchillian rhetoric always has a place.

  7. A member with a volatile temper. The odd verbal ruckus is good for propelling candid debate.

  8. A member with perfect comic timing. There is always a place for well-judged humour in the dispatch box.

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