Brian's Banners were a Necessary Mess

24 May 2006
I must confess to mixed feelings about antiwar protester Brian Haw and his yards of tatty banners and placards opposite the House of Commons. Although I opposed the Iraq war passionately, the placards are shabby and unsightly. But I do believe in his right to demonstrate peacefully under the noses of MPs, however irritating it is for some of us. So this week's night raid by dozens of policemen was disproportionate. Worse, it was the latest example of the Disneyfication of Parliament.We should all be concerned about the increasing sanitisation of politics.

Year by year, ordinary members of the public have less physical access to their political representatives, except in carefully stage-managed conditions. Huge gates and armed policemen stop the public wandering up Downing Street. A glass screen now separates MPs from the public in the chamber of the House of Commons. And marches and demonstrations outside Parliament are severely restricted.The pretext for all of this is fear of terrorism - but I wonder if keeping the public at arm's length is not just too convenient for the authorities.

Yet Parliament itself is often half empty by Thursday. This is partly because of the changes in the hours. But it also reflects Tony Blair's unilateral decision to have only one session of questions to him, on a Wednesday. When Prime Minister's Questions were on Tuesdays and Thursdays, both were big parliamentary days when the building buzzed with excitement. Now, by midweek the House of Commons is like a parliamentary theme park; a splendid and elaborate stage set but with few real actors. Sanitised politics produces sanitised politicians. Increasingly the people described by the media as "rising stars" in both parties are all former political advisers who have spent their entire careers in the rarefied atmosphere of the Westminster Village.

Who can forget the horror on Tony Blair's face when, in 2000, he was heckled by (of all people) Women's Institute members? So confident in a television studio or with handpicked "members of the public", he entirely lacked the skills to deal with a mass audience and hecklers. And few people going into party politics now have the skills to deal with a mass audience of real people.You cannot practise politics in a bubble. Brian Haw's banners are messy. But the day you drive mess, disorder and direct action out of politics is the day democratic politics dies.




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