Misrepresentation of the People

12Oct07

 [UPDATE: sign the Downing Street petition to support the bill!]

While waiting for my weekly dose of “Heroes”, I was watching a programme last night called “The Ministry of Truth”. It was a wonderfully provocative documentary about a campaign to institute a new act of parliament to stop our politicians lying to us…

You can read about the “Misrepresentation of the People Act” here.

Essentially the premise is this: we the people have the power.
We give that to our elected representative to govern on our behalf.
They are to do this honestly.
Where they don’t govern honestly, we the people have the right to expect consequences.
The act makes it a criminal offence for people in elected office to knowingly deceive the public. The penalty is to be removed from office and prohibited from ever standing for elected office again.

It’s a great idea, and I’m totally in favour. The Government can’t be judge and jury when they are in the dock (all current forms of accountability, such as the Committee for Standards in Public Life report to the Prime Minister, so are essentially self-regulation). Or as today’s Telegraph puts it:

“With laws in place prohibiting everyone from estate agents to company directors from lying to clients and shareholders, why is there no statute requiring honesty from our elected representatives?”

I’d love to support this, but I really have no idea how! The “Ministry of Truth” website doesn’t exactly give you much idea of how to go forward. I want to rally my MP! I want to get you to rally yours! But to what?

Please let this be more than just a documentary…

Filed under: moments   |  
Tags: BBC, Documentary, downing street petition, government, Heroes, last night's TV, lying, ministry of truth, misrepresentation of the people act, MPs, petition, standards in public life, truth