Finance minister Babis declared yesterday that parliament should relinquish its right to set members' salaries to him.


King Charles I seeks to arrest five members of the House of Commons. Painting by Charles West Cope


Understandably, Babis caused uproar in parliament yesterday when he suggested that the cabinet (in other words, Babis himself) should set the salaries of MPs in future.

“Nowhere in the world do employees decide upon their own salaries”, he declared.

This remarkable idea, that MPs are employees, would destroy the sovereignty of parliament overnight. It is an approach worthy of King Charles I of England, whose heavy-handed ways with English parliamentarians caused a civil war and Charles to lose his royal head.

We may joke about this. But perhaps it would be wiser to take up arms?

Be clear, dear reader: the Babišist seeks, not an adjustment to a party-based parliamentary system, but its abolition. ‘Babišism’ is a bastardised version of democracy in which power is mobilised, not by conventional political parties, but by political movements. And there is a difference if only you would allow yourselves to see it.

Political parties are led by a college of individuals bound by rules and held accountable by thousands of party members, whereas ANO 2011 is led by one overwhelmingly dominant man (it has no vice chairmen) with a great lust for power, supported by a cadre of dependent subordinates accountable directly and only to him, and empowered by hundreds of thousands of frustrated individuals.

The properties of the political movement may be compared to those of an amorphous solid, such as glass: when heated up, as now, they have no defined shape, but in the cold light of day, after we ourselves have sobered up, they have the potential to cut our foolish democratic throats.