FORMER Liberal Party leader David Steel has launched a stinging attack on modern day politics, hitting out at the role of spin doctors.
He claimed the introduction of TV cameras in the House of Commons has turned Prime Minister’s Questions into a weekly “insult time” session.
The former Holyrood presiding officer also said the Scottish Parliament had gone down the same “adverse trend” as Westminster, saying “belligerence and stridency” are now commonplace there as well.
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The increasing role of spin doctors – such as Boris Johnson’s adviser Dominic Cummings – is to be “deplored”, he insisted.
He spoke out as he made a plea for constitutional reform in the UK, calling for the House of Lords to be replaced with a “more useful” second chamber and for there to be a written constitution.
Steel was giving the Charles Kennedy lecture in Fort William, in memory of the former LibDem leader who died in 2015, shortly after losing his seat in the House of Commons.
He said he wished he – like Kennedy – had opposed the LibDems’ move into coalition with the Conservatives in 2010.
He went on to speak about the “reduction in standards” in politics, arguing the centrepiece Commons exchanges at Prime Minister’s Question Time have now “become Prime Minister’s Insult Time, with the two protagonists exchanging well rehearsed sound bites”.
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Lord Steel said: “The rot set in when the Chamber became televised and Prime Minister’s Questions became the subject of weekly electoral entertainment rather than genuine scrutiny of Government.”
Holyrood has also suffered from “the same adverse trend,” he said, despite the chamber being set out in a semi-circular fashion as part of efforts to make clashes less confrontational
“That seemed to work for the first few years,” he said.
“But no longer – belligerence and stridency are the order of the day.”
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