Douglas Carswell's Blog

Les Ebdon appointment shows this is just another government

Les Ebdon has today been appointed as the new university access tsar.  I wish him well and bear him no ill will. 

But whatever you think about Prof Ebdon's suitability for this role, it is what this appointment tells us about the government’s attitude towards political reform, not universities, that I find so disappointing.

Prof Ebdon was given the job by ministers only after the relevant (Labour chaired) Commons select committee specifically vetoed giving him the role. In other words, the appointment has been made using executive fiat - and by simply ignoring the views of those you elected to Parliament.  Business in SW1 as usual.

How different it was supposed to be.

Before the last election, all three parties were tripping over one another to tell us how they would make things different.  They would renew our political system by making government accountable to Parliament – and Parliament accountable to the people.

On page 88 of their manifesto, the Lib Dems pledged that “we will increase Parliamentary scrutiny of government appointments”.  In office, Labour set up a system of pre-appointment scrutiny hearings to allow MPs to do precisely that. 

When in 2009, a Labour minister ignored the Education select committee’s decision to veto the appointment of a new Children’s Commissioner, the opposition Conservatives reacted with fury.

Michael Gove reminded the House how Labour had “pledged that major public appointments would be subject to scrutiny by this House”. He went on to ask “why is the Secretary of State now rowing back from that principle?”

I cheered those words as they were spoken.

Today’s decision shows that in government the Coalition has not simply rowed back from that principle. We have scuttled it.  Managerialism as usual. 

How different this Liberal Conservative coalition could have been. How transformative.  Instead, radicalism is everywhere blunted.  The promise of real reform to our moribund political system turns out to be little more that a precursor – a mere hint – of the change that must one day come.

Back to all posts