Douglas Carswell's Blog

What Conservative modernisation ought to mean

“We find ourselves" writes Roger Scruton on Conservative Home "in a country where, despite the prevailing conservative sentiments of voters, our institutions and establishment figures, our civil service and our universities, speak out only for the socialist orthodoxies."

Indeed.

Which is precisely why the Conservatives ought to promote more direct democracy, so that the priorities and outlook of our "institutions and establishment figures" might be brought into line with what the public want.

Directly elected police chiefs overseeing local constabularies.  Whitehall mandarins made to answer before Commons confirmation hearings.  Abolishing the quangos we can manage without, making democratically accountable any we have to have.  Open primaries and recall votes so that all MPs answer outward to the voter, rather than inward to the SW1 machine.

In opposition, we Conservatives seemed to grasp what needed to be done.  Yet, like Ted Heath and his u-turns, in government we have somehow got distracted from the task of making it happen.  Other than the November election of Police Commissioners, too much of the rest of the Milton Keynes agenda has been derailed (see below).

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