Pointless Reforms

So Parliament’s best friend, John Bercow wants to push ahead with reforms of PMQs. He is convinced that the public don’t like the current ‘punch and judy’ antics of the party leaders as abuse is hurled across the theatre of debate to the backdrop of MPs of all sides roaring with excitement.
Some say it’s good to give an opportunity for MPs to let off steam, but Bercow is far from convinced. Almost every week he interrupts to tell MPs to quieten down as, “the public don’t like it and neither do I”. Well, no that’s not really the point. For starters most of the general public do not watch PMQs, it’s only politically interested members ofthe public who bother – and that is sadly a very small minority of people. Indeed I know of quite a few people who have stopped watching it because it has become very formulaic and monotone.
Amongst the proposed reforms, the speaker wants to double the length of PMQs to an hour, the justification given that it will provide more time for backbench members to ask questions. Good, that sounds like a reasonable idea, however, maybe not so reasonable when you mix it with the second proposal: He wants to lessen the number of questions the leader of the opposition can ask the Prime Minister, the reason again? Yup, to give more time for backbench questions.
The problem here is that 6 questions might appear a lot in a half hour session, but in an hour long session there would surely be space for more questions, not less. There’s accountability for you.
The idea of question time is to hold the government to account. PMQs does not do this successfully because the questions are preprepared and the answers are prepared in the PM’s briefing folder.
So to summarise, Mr Bercow wants to increase the length of PMQs, lessen the number of questions the leader of the opposition can ask and to dull down the whole affair by making it horrendously boring, not just for the MPs but for the viewer as well.

If Bercow was going to properly reform PMQs he would have two half hour sessions a week where the leader of the opposition can ask four questions at each sitting and the questions are not seen beforehand.

Unfortunately Bercow seems intent on ruining parliament with his pathetic ‘modernisation’ agenda. I agree that changes do need to happen, but his proposals will make PMQs that bit more pointless and so the only natural conclusion one can make of the proposed reforms is that they too are pointless.
I always get concerned when I hear the word ‘modernisation’ as it usually means ‘to ruin a reasonable system that needs tweaking’ and this case is no exception.