British government and parliamentary democracy are trapped in outdated buildings and habits. The coronavirus has exposed the need to rethink how they workCoronavirus - latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageLots of things about modern politics would surprise William Gladstone if the 19th-century Liberal prime minister was unexpectedly reincarnated into the Britain of 2020. Things like press conferences, video links and female MPs would all catch him out. Gladstone would, though, be reassured by one thing. He would easily be able to find his way around Westminster. Thatīs because the corridors of power in which politics, parliament and government are conducted in 2020 are remarkably unchanged since he died in 1898. The warren of staircases and rooms in 10 Downing Street and the cramped Commons chamber, with MPs jostling through the division lobbies, would all be familiar to him.Whether Britain benefits or suffers from its traditionalised habits and settings of politics is a recurrent question. But the Covid-19 pandemic poses it in a new way. Parliament went on sitting through world wars and financial crises. Gladstone himself sat through the Great Stink of the summer of 1858, when the Thames became a sewer. But a modern pandemic that has made human proximity unsafe has meant that parliament cannot sit at all, and that MPs cannot do their fundamental job. Business in the chamber became a ghostly charade. Voting by crowding into the aye and no lobbies was deemed too dangerous to attempt. At the height of a national crisis, therefore, many of the checks and balances on government, and parliamentary democracy itself, have effectively collapsed. These issues must be addressed before parliament returns on 21 April. Continue reading...
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