Will the next Parliament be any better?

The word on the street is that a new Parliament will purge the old and give the country a new start with its democracy. Parliament can put behind it the mistakes, errors and frustrations of the past five years and suddenly become the Parliament people need and may even want. It will not be that simple. If the new Parliament is to be better than the old, and if the new people are to make a difference, we need collectively to will and require a change in the way we do politics. Parliament should be there to test, to probe, to challenge the government as well as there to pass government legislation. The present Parliament talks about the need to scrutinise the executive – hardly language to send the pulses racing or to get Parliament back in touch with the people it is meant to represent. What we need is a Parliament which keeps Ministers up to the mark, which asks the right...