Tom Tugendhat on the british system of government
2024-10-11 09:00:00 +07:00 by Mark Smith
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I really enjoyed the latest episode of the Conversations With Tyler podcast, a discussion with UK member of parliament Tom Tugendhat. He is in the running for the Conservative Party leadership.
One bit that stood out was his instinctive and deep understanding of the government machine as it were, how the pieces fit together, and how they are intended to work, their mechanics, to create particular features. Here’s a quote:
Tyler Cowan: Can the british system of government in it’s current parliamentary form, how well can that work without broadly liberal individualistic foundations in public opinion?
Tom Tugendhat: I think it works extremely well at ensuring that truely liberal foundations are maintained. I mean not in the american sense, but in the old liberal tradition that emerges in the UK in the 17-18 hundreds, where freedom of thought, freedom of assembly, the right to own property and all those principles that then became embeded in various different constitutions around the world, including your own.
It does very well at doing it because our system forces you into partnership. There are 650 people who you have to work with in some way in parliament over the next 4-5 years, and there are 4 of us currently going for leadership of the Conservative party. And there is one reason why, despite the fact that we are competing, almost in a US primary system, the way in which we are dealing with each other is very different, is because we are all going to have to work together over the next 4 years. Whoever wins is going to have to work with the other 3, and the idea that you can simply ignore each other isn’t true.
There's only 121 of us Conservative MPs in parliament, and what this system forces on us, is the need to deal with each other in a way that you have to deal with someone as if you have to deal with them tomorrow. And I think that’s one of the reasons why the british political system has endured, because it forces you to remember there is a long term interest, not an immediate one, not just a short term one.
On a related note Tyler then goes on to ask about the House of Lords:
Tyler Cowan: Should the House of Lords be phased out?
Tom Tugendhat: No it shouldn’t. The extraordinary thing about the House of Lords is that it’s not something that anybody would invent, but it works! Well you might, you are the kind of economist that might :). The weird thing about hereditory peers is that there are plenty of changes you can make to hereditory peers, but the weird thing about it is that it’s a system of randomness, that injects lottery into government. I can certainly see an argument for turning that from a family lotery into a jury system, where it’s a temporary lotery.
But the other thing that the House of Lords does, which is very very difficult in a democracy, is to force you to think longer over time. And what the House of Lords used to do, through it’s hereditory principle, was force you to think not only long term over time for yourself, so 20-30 years, but actually think generationally.
If you want to guard the stability of your country, so that your children or your grand children inherit your wealth, then you need to be thinking over 50 or 100 years. And one of the problems that democracies have is short term thinking, and balancing long term and short term thinking is something every democracy should be trying to do [...] the fact that they introduce long term thinking, that they don’t actually have the ability to block anything, and that they force, effectively, a power base beyond the day to day will of the prime minister, I think is a benefit, and I think it has been good to have as a revising chamber. I don’t think it should ever have pre-eminance, and I think that the elected chamber should always have the ability to over-rule it, which we do, but I think having that long term thinking is really important.
I thought this was a really great interview. Tyler asks some fantastic questions. I was impressed with Tom’s clarity of thought when it comes to the engine of british government. Based on this interview, it’s the first time I’ve heard him speak about anything, I’d say he would be a good leader. He instills a certain amount of confidence, you get the sense he’d be rather good at keeping things running.
I do wonder whether he has any big ideas, things ge wants to change. I’ve only heard he’s not too keen on being in the European convention of human rights. That I find kind of worrying. That doesn’t sound like something we should be throwing away too quickly. In any case, even if he doesn’t have any big ideas he wants to implement, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes just being in maintenance mode for a while is what’s needed.
But if he does, and he has the right team around him, I feel like he’s likely in a good position to judge as to what changes might be achievable.
Just a few thoughts I had after listening.
I thought it was also quite interesting in juxtaposition with the latest Rogan podcast with Michael Shellenburger where they get into some of the design philosophies behind the US government, as well as problems institutions are facing. Interesting contrast. Conservatism built into the system vs implemented by the political party, at runtime so to speak.
I don’t really have an opinion on which is better, but it’s certainly useful information, to understand what sort of environments each would be suited for, and something to keep in mind as we try to continue to further a mutually productive relationship with the US.