An early General Election?

The contributions from the audience at last night's Question Time showed how the justified anger about MPs expenses has turned into something close to hysteria, which the Conservatives and even the usually more principled Liberal Democrats are trying to turn to party advantage by clamouring for an early General Election in case the Labour Party or the economy recover somewhat between now and the middle of next year.

In circumstances where only one party has been grossly corrupt, it is sensible to "throw the rascals out" as soon as possible. Likewise, a party deserves to lose a seat if it has not deselected an individual who has been grossly corrupt. But when the corruption has been as widespread through all the parties, an early election on those grounds will blind many of the electorate to the fact that essentially elections should be about issues rather than individuals; and in the present state of public opinion, fanned by the media in general and by the Daily Telegraph in particular (its contemptible drip-feeding designed to keep the agitation going for as long as possible in order to boost its daily circulation) there is the danger than an early election will not be about the policy issues that face the country, and may even result in the election of a significant number of rabble-rousing demagogues.

True, one of the urgent policy issues that the country needs to consider is the nature of the institutional reforms that are now called for, and one would hope that in their manifestoes for the next election the parties will commit themselves to major and quite specific reform programmes. But it needs some time to develop these in a sensible manner, and more time for a public debate on the doubtlessly very different proposals that will emerge.

And meanwhile the city institutions are no doubt heaving a sigh of relief that the heat is off their vastly more toxic and damaging corruption. If one believes in conspiracy theories, one might even suspect that, behind the scenes, they have a hand in this diversion of public anger.