Real reform of the Lords means giving ownership back to the people

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Real reform of the Lords means giving ownership back to the people

05.03.2010 // by Guy Aitchison

This article appears in today's Independent:

David Cameron certainly knows how to stay one step ahead of the news agenda. Launching his draft manifesto on "Fixing our broken politics" last month, he warned of the "next big scandal waiting to happen" which has tainted our politics for too long: the issue of transparency and the "far-too-cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money".

Fast-forward a few weeks and the Tory leadership is frantically distancing itself from its deputy chairman and largest donor, Lord Ashcroft, following the billionaire businessman's admission that he is a "non-dom" who has been avoiding UK tax. Cameron's failure to apply his rhetoric to his own party is striking, and this scandal distils precisely what's wrong with our democracy.

A non-elected plutocrat making laws and bankrolling elections, whilst refusing to pay taxes towards the society whose politics he aims to shape and influence. Typically, most of the media speculation has been around whether "dom-gate" will harm the Tories' election chances and tip the balance in favour of Labour now that the polls are narrowed. But the real victim of this saga will not be any one party, but our politics and democracy as a whole which sinks even further into the gutter in the public's eyes.

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