Making politics work for people

Westminster MPs have quite rightly come under scrutiny for their awards of generous expenses to each other with little in the way of oversight.  Mercifully their attempts to keep this secret despite the Freedom of Information Act failed.  Daylight is a good antiseptic and this nasty little episode is coming to an end.  Holyrood had similar issues on a smaller scale, but publication of expenses is the best control we can have.

But expenses is not the only issue.

The Westminster Parliament is often too much under the thumb of the majority government of the day with effectively a small group round the Prime Minister making the decisions.  Moves towards strong Committees able to hold the Government to account would be healthy.

But the biggest change for Westminster would be the introduction of proportional representation. In Scotland, MPs are our least representative elected members.

But closer to home, Aberdeenshire's Democratic Independent Group (to which Green members Cllrs Debra Storr and Martin Ford belong) put motions on issues such as Climate Change, Human Rights at Menie, and Transport, on the agenda to the annoyance of the ruling LibDem/Tory administration.  But rather than engaging in debate and, if we are wrong on the issue, using their massive majority to over-rule us, they decided to restrict debate by making it very difficult for anyone to propose motions.  The Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and SNP were all content to do this.   

Rhonda Reekie, candidate for Aberdeen South, Sue Edwards, candidate for Gordon and Cllrs Martin Ford and Debra Storr are all committed to listening to you and engaging with you.

There is one thing all people, who seek to represent the public, must remember - politicians work for people not the other way round.