Budding Nixon?
Sir: Government ministers seem to wish us to believe that this election is going to centre around the issue of 'Who rules Britain?' But observers might ask this question and come LIP with answers which are embarrassing to Heath and the Heathmen — it seems difficult to escape the conclusion that their administration has been an abysmal one for our Parliamentary system. Defenders of our constitutional liberties, on the right as well as the left, have noted with alarm the way Mr Heath has been set on the adoption of a Pompidou-style of government, which inevitably weakens many of our traditional checks on unbridled executive power in Britain. I cite four specific examples: 1) The contempt shown for some of Parliament's prime and sovereign rights in Heath's drive to get us int° the EEC. Not only do the diktats now issuing from the bureaucratic hive at Brussels have the force of law in this country without the need for anY consideration of them in the Commons — itself a grave threat to national sovereignty — but this was done without the 'Full-hearted consent a the British people — in fact without them directly considering the matter at all. This would seem to violate a fun' darnental principle of our constitution, established as long ago as 1295 in Ed" ward l's Model Parliament — "Th8t which concerns all should be approved by all." 2) The transference of government powers over prices, wage settlements etc. to an undemocratic institution like the Pay Board. It is not answerable to MP's as such, and yet its decisions , affect all of us. It is rather like th Tudor use of Proclamations — hute surely the Prime Minister does kw"'
dream of emulating Henry VIII? ,
3) The involvement of our judges in politics and the consequence — bng" ri ing our judicial system into disrepute.. It is bad enough to set up a court like the NIRC which a section of the population see as no more than .3 s political tool; to pretend that somehow not a court by dispenslng with wigs, elaborate procedure. ete.• merely compounds the offence Witt'
hypocrisy. ct
4) The complete lack of respe demonstrated by the Prime Minister for the finer aspects of our parliamen; tary system. His desire to maks presidential-style statements Wa, nowhere more clearly demonstrateu t
than when he made the announcen
about the ill-fated Stage Three; the news was given, not to our elected representatives in the Commons, who of course might have asked awkward questions and have wanted issues clarified, but to a bunch of sweaty newsmen in a TV Press Conference — a striking resemblance to similar events on the Champs-Elysees. am forced to conclude that all those of whatever political persuasion who care that our system of ! Parliamentary democracy should flourish, must oppose the re-election of this Man — and his hangers-on — to the highest offices in the land. It may be a terrible decision for many Tories to have to make, but they must take it another term of Heath might do IreParable harm to our democratic , structures. Against this everything I else, even inflation and the coal strike, tales into insignificance. We are ooking for reds under the bed — we I Must also watch out for the budding I I'lixons.
I‘lev, College, Oxford Gordon Marsden
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