feather wrote:
Because he still believed it could be changed and repaired.
Remember he changed the peerage system of restraints himself by sheer persistence and adherence to principles.
I guess he expected the same from others.
There's nothing like living in hope...it's just extremely hard for me to understand how you could believe, given what I've observed in my lifetime, how anything good could come out of that system. That's leaving aside the fact that it's fundamentally elitist anyway, and was never intended to 'represent the people'. That should be clear based on the oath that it still sworn by every MP.
For me, when I was sitting there after decades of being a Member of Parliament, observing that poor people are worse off than they were a few decades ago, the division of wealth is more heavily ingrained in favour of the super-wealthy than ever before, that there is an ever increasing underclass, and the party of which I am still a member has completely repealed its identity, implemented some truly disgraceful policies and made some disastrous economic decisions which have only exacerbated the aforementioned processes, I would start to question why I’m still a Member of Parliament and what good it’s doing.
I understand that he still believed in the political process, I just don't understand why.
In fact, according to his Wikipedia page his said the following:
Compared to this, the pressure brought to bear in industrial disputes by the unions is minuscule. This power was revealed even more clearly in 1976 when the IMF secured cuts in our public expenditure. [...] These [four] lessons led me to the conclusion that the UK is only superficially governed by MPs and the voters who elect them. Parliamentary democracy is, in truth, little more than a means of securing a periodical change in the management team, which is then allowed to preside over a system that remains in essence intact. If the British people were ever to ask themselves what power they truly enjoyed under our political system they would be amazed to discover how little it is, and some new Chartist agitation might be born and might quickly gather momentum.
Why still be an MP then? What's the point?
