Blog
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8th May 2009

Prompted by Daily Echo article: Thurs 7 May 2009.

Joanna Lumley is rightly to be congratulated for leading a well organised campaign to give all Gurkha soldiers equal rights of residence in the UK. Her recent media exposure over this issue prompted my local paper, the Daily Echo, to question why celebrities such as Ms Lumley, Bono and Jamie Oliver make people sit up and take notice of the causes they campaign for in a way that MPs fail to do.

But whose responsibility is it to campaign, to highlight a problem that needs to be addressed or to rally support for an injustice? Certainly, it is the responsibility of the elected representative; that is one of the reasons why I personally decided to get involved in politics. But in a responsible, cohesive community, surely it everyone's duty - regardless of whether you are a celebrity, MP, resident, mother, or employer - to continually look for ways in which society can be improved and legislation can be revised and updated.

Our system of law is deliberately (sometimes frustratingly) complex. It requires any proposed changes to it to be thoroughly debated, scrutinised and amended before coming into effect in order to prevent power from being abused and giving different groups the opportunity to make their views known. Having first consulted on draft proposals, Parliament must identify possible changes itself and, importantly, receive recommendations from others of what could be done. This is where the public, celebrities or otherwise, come in. Members of Parliament may not therefore necessarily come up with a proposal, but they must - and do - debate its virtues, cost implications and ultimately vote on whether it should become law.

Could this be perceived as a failing on the part of of MPs for not identifying relevant issues quickly enough? Not at all, in fact it is a healthy sign of any democracy that Parliament can be influenced by the people it represents. This happens to far greater an extent than many realise. A visit by an MP to a school or a letter written by a head teacher to Parliament may be enough to provoke a second look at a situation, or open up new avenue of thinking that will eventually make its way into a clause in a Bill. Government has therefore been influenced, but not thanks to a celebrity, but to an unsung hero who simply decided to educate those in power of a worthy idea.

Harnessing the celebrity status of household names is certainly a powerful tool in helping to promote and publicise a cause. There is no doubt they are, in many cases, better known than politicians and are considered role models by many ordinary people, with their motives not called into question in the same way that those of MPs so often are. With the reputation of Parliament and MPs at all time low following the damaging disclosures over expenses, there is every chance it will be used more often.