Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Political representation

Members of parliament are our representatives. But this means they ought to make good decisions, not simply popular decisions. Although we elect them to office, they are not to merely implement our will. They represent us in that their actions count as ours, not because they are to do what we tell them. Andrew Errington has written an insightful short piece in the latest edition of CASE magazine exploring these important claims in more detail.

In the same edition, there's also an excellent article by Mike Thompson called "Should Western Christians Support the Promotion of Democracy as a Foreign Policy Objective?" and book reviews by fellow bloggers Ben Myers and Larissa Johnson. You can order the magazine online from CASE.
Eight points for the first to correctly name this structure and briefly explain its common name.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link Byron.

andrew

Lara said...

Ditto!

Anthony Douglas said...

The imaginatively titled 'Clock Tower' seems to be the official moniker, but it's universally called Big Ben - after the nickname of the main bell inside, the origin of which is uncertain. The first name of the minister who commissioned it is one theory, or of a heavyweight boxing champion at the time is another.

byron smith said...

Anthony - Sorry, I seem to missed this answer earlier. Eight points.

byron smith said...

The Conversation: Rob Oakeshott on party discipline as undermining the point of a parliament.