Politics and political discussion, opinion and information from Rob Hopcott
A good question for the popular BBC Question Time program, chaired by David Dimbleby:
Should Prime Minster Gordon Brown introduce e-democracy forums in 2007 to allow people to really have a say in the running of the country and as a means of making the British people feel more involved in Government.
Official UK Parliamentary Discussion Forums would combat electoral apathy and perhaps even terrorism refers
“I still hate Thatcher” displayed in large print on a white t-shirt at an otherwise happy music festival last week publicly demonstrated how the pain from the 80s and the early 90s UK Tory economic meltdown still lingers on for some.
The economic crashes of the 90s had lost me everything that I’d saved and worked for over the previous 20 years so I well understood the anger of the middle aged man who wore that t-shirt.
“If it aint hurting it aint working” was the proud slogan of the Tory Prime Minister who replaced Thatcher. His policies certainly hurt ordinary decent and hard working people in those desperate times.
For years, to control my anger, when Margaret Thatcher or John Major’s face were displayed on television, I had to turn away and leave the room or risk smashing the television so strong were my feelings.
I remembered the lady in tears who had taken her child away from my business, which had provided after school activities for local children. She had lost her job under the Tory Government’s economic squeeze and her husband was desperately afraid he would soon lose his. Other parents soon had to withdraw their children and my previously popular and successful business was eventually forced to close, never to open again.
Many friend’s small businesses suffered the same fate.
I remembered the large sign that was displayed on a main road in front of a house with windows boarded up and clearly repossessed at the edge of a large town in the South of England.
“Will the last person leaving this town please turn out the lights”.
I remembered, as a last painful resort, sitting in the Government’s Welfare Benefits Office. My qualifications, experience and work ethic completely unable to earn me or my family a living. The kindly lady reassured me that there were many more like me hitting rock bottom and I shouldn’t feel it was the end of the world.
In the 90s, there was no soft landing. The Captain of the ship, seemingly, had deliberately driven into the iceberg. He had seen the hurricane and set a course straight through it irrespective of the deckhands left clinging on and battling to avoid being swept overboard.
In the years that followed, as I struggled to recover my life from nothing, each of the many set backs was further evidence of the injustice caused to me. I had played by the rules. I had worked hard, been careful and done no wrong. I felt betrayed.
It took me many years to realize that the consuming anger and hatred I regularly felt for the Governmental architects of those grievous economic days served no logical purpose.
My feelings of anger didn’t hurt them. They just hurt me. I doubted ‘they’ would ‘give a damn’. My feelings of anger would put nothing ‘right’.
Slowly, I learned to control my self destructive feelings and eventually became a happier and more productive person as a result. The bad memories remained but they didn’t rule my life any more.
I talked at some length to the man wearing the t-shirt saying ‘I still hate Thatcher’ and told him about my journey from anger. In return, he told me the causes of his. His story bore many similarities to mine.
The next day, I spotted him again. He was still wearing a white t shirt saying: ‘I still hate Thatcher’.
Perhaps, later, he will think more about what I said and, perhaps soon, will start his journey away from anger too.
I hope so, for his sake.
Bye for now
Rob
Official UK Parliamentary People’s Discussion Forums must be introduced forthwith because they would combat electoral detachment or apathy and perhaps even reduce the extremist’s resort to riot and terrorism.
Furthermore, It must be a legal right of every UK citizen to have their question, policy issue or point properly debated in fully in public on the Official UK Parliamentary People’s Discussion Forums.
On the BBC Today program, this morning, I heard that the Leader of the Opposition, Leader of the Conservative Party and MP for Witney has floated the idea of a web site that would give UK Government’s financial details for all to see. Apparently, this idea has already been introduced in the USA.
This is nothing more than PR, in my opinion. It is inadequate and would yield little benefit and completely misses a huge issue that needs urgent action.
The reality is that the public need to be involved in issues of policy in a way that the public believes is real before the event not after the event. Quite simply, they need to have their questions and arguments answered. Once the money is spent, there is little that can be done, apart from spending even more money on enquiries to allocate blame.
In my recent article, I argued there were Democratic Flaws in New vision for UK Local Government unveiled in White Paper
But Prime Minister Tony Blair and the UK Parliament are as guilty as Local Government in not wanting to genuinely debate with the electorate.
I’ve written many carefully considered letters and emails to my local MP (not the Leader of the Conservative Party) and have never had a reply or even an acknowledgement, let alone dialogue or discussion.
True, I could turn up at my local MP’s surgery, although I have never tried. It is also true that verbal dialogue, hitherto, may historically have been more flexible that written dialogue. However, the problem with verbal dialogue is that it doesn’t allow different threads to be forensically analysed. It’s, also, too deniable. Furthermore, there are much better, more modern methods available.
Each letter or email I write takes perhaps half a day to two days to compose. When no reply is received from my Member of Parliament, I get angry.
Admittedly, I’m so used to not getting a reply that my anger is now somewhat mitigated by resignation as to what I see as the inevitable.
In any case, I’m mild mannered and middle-aged so little is likely to come from my anger, except perhaps to write this blog. However, no doubt there are others who have had the same experience of blank indifference and may be tempted to resort to direct action and possibly violence which, naturally, we all deplore.
Perhaps, it is reasonable that my local MP should not reply to my letters. I haven’t a clue how many he receives in an ordinary working day. But, even if my communications are not worth a reply, surely an automatic acknowledgement to say my communication has been received would not be too much to ask. Surely such an acknowledgement would be basic politeness?
I have deliberately avoided giving the name or Party of my Local MP because I suspect that the service the rest of the citizens in this country are receiving is probably just as inadequate. The issue is just too important to be blurred by Party politics.
Nor am I arguing against elected Members of Parliament. Perhaps the written forensic analysis to which our Members of Parliament would publicly subject policy on the forums would be admired by all of us. Our MPs would be able to demonstrate how truly they are “People’s Champions”. Of course, those who are repeatedly elected on a blind Party ticket might run into trouble but surely to expose such people to genuine electoral scrutiny would be a good thing.
Perhaps MPs would also be surprised and informed at the detailed knowledge of ordinary people participating in the dialogue.
Perhaps, too, the ordinary public would discover, sometimes, that their strongly held views did not hold up to forensic analysis and would be beneficially educated and persuaded by the process.
Lobbyists, employed by the rich and influential, would also be able to use the discussion forums but now all citizens would benefit from their expertise.
Party machines no doubt would push forward to have their say but, I suspect that the forums would make adherence to rigid and broad party lines difficult to justify.
Once policy is decided, MPs, no doubt, would still be invaluable in constructing the laws to implement publicly agreed policy through the normal Parliamentary processes. The difference would be that the laws passed would already have the people’s consent. Parliament would therefore be strengthened by the dialogue not weakened.
The alternative is to continue with the existing and very bad system. The ordinary people of this country will not be involved in genuine dialogue about real issues and the detachment many of us feel from Government will continue to get worse.
At one end of the spectrum, this detachment will lead to people not bothering to vote.
At the other end of the spectrum this detachment may lead to frustrated acts of violence, riots and possibly terrorism which benefit nobody.
Yet, the solution is so simple although, unfortunately, so unpalatable to the ruling classes.
All the UK Parliament and the Civil Service need to do is to set up official UK wide discussion boards that enable a continuous flow of discussion backwards and forwards between ordinary people and the State about detailed issues of policy and fact.
Failure to set up Official Policy Discussion Boards is simply an admission by Parliament that they are incapable of defending their policies and actions in front of ordinary people.
Perhaps the UK Government would argue that it would drown in a sea of individual discussion threads. But people these days are used to checking to see if a question has been asked before (FAQs). Questions and arguments could be subjected to artificial intelligence so that similar threads could be drawn together to make the knowledge base more efficient. With time, the system would work well as it does elsewhere on the Internet.
Is the UK Government likely to institute Official UK Parliamentary Discussion Forums?
Anybody who has seen on the television or heard on the radio Ministers of the Government avoiding straight answers to straight questions from interviewers must doubt it.
Can straight answers to straight questions of policy be so dangerous? Even if straight answers are inconvenient, surely this is better that a detached electorate and vastly preferable to an angry detached electorate, riots and terrorism.
Official UK Parliamentary Discussion Forums in which the ordinary electorate can engage in dialogue with the State must be instituted forthwith with no half measures.
The current one way system of hierarchical consultation that favours lobbies, partners and cliques no longer works and will lead increasingly to social fractures.
My local District Council sought my views about their proposed new District Council offices.
Their question was whether I found X, Y or Z design of building more visually appealing for their new expensive Council offices.
There has been an enormous local campaign against these offices but, with the backing of the ruling majority local Councillors, the local District Council has pressed on regardless.
I suspect my response to them about their proposed new District Council offices may well already have found its way to their waste paper bin.
To avoid my time in writing my submission to them being completely wasted, I include it below. Perhaps it will strike a chord with others who feel Local Government is unresponsive to local peoples true wishes.
I have excluded the name of the District Council and the consultation reference number because I suspect that the way they behave is not restricted to my local area but is a problem relating to Local Government accountability in the UK generally.
Dear Sir
I have completed the online consultation relating to Consultation Reference Number : (deleted)
To ensure that my views have not been lost in your computer system, I include them in this email below:Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this matter which is of fundamental importance to our area.
It is with great sadness that I feel bound to make the following observations.
Regarding your plans to build new Council offices
I do not support Concept Z or Y or X.
I do not support your desire for new offices.
I consider your arguments for new offices are weak.
I do not believe that the general local public will benefit in any way whatsoever from your vast expenditure on these offices.
I believe you have bulldozed through proposals for extremely expensive Council offices against the wishes of the local community.
I strongly believe that the priorities of the Council are very, very, wrong because you the Council are putting your own comfort ahead of the dreadful need for regeneration that has existed, unresolved, in the local District for many years.
I believe that there are numerous local projects that could have better benefited from the money you are planning to spend on your own comfort.
Regarding your methods of consultation
I strongly disagree with the way you have set out this consultation form. I believe that by limiting selection options to approval options, you are skewing the response to the survey. To me, your consultation methods are seeking to obtain a specific response from the public that will make it appear that the public agree with your plans. I do not believe the public agree with your plans for new offices.
In this case, by participating in this survey, I fear that you will claim that I have supported your proposal for new Council offices because there is no option for me to select to say I don’t agree with spending all this money on new Council offices.
I believe that previous public surveys you have issued have been similarly technically flawed and I recollect that this has been well documented in the local press.
Regarding the level of local public dissatisfaction with your proposals for new offices
I do not believe that the local public could have made their objections about your new offices project more clear. The ordinary people of this area do not want your new offices. Do you not remember how the whole of the local high street was filled with ordinary people who were objecting to your proposals and the petition? Do you remember all the emails and letters? Do you remember all the angry people at the public meetings? Do you remember all their impassioned speeches?
Regarding the cost to local people of your campaign for new offices
No doubt the bill for your new offices will be paid by the ordinary local taxpayers, directly or indirectly.
Unfortunately, there is a greater cost to the people of this area and it is the ongoing cost incurred by the businesses and local people because of this substantial error in your priorities. I believe you should be spending our money on more important matters.
Before spending money on expensive new offices for yourselves, you should have spent money on the following.
1) Creating proper leisure environments for the young people of local towns and villages is more important than your new offices.
2) An indoor leisure amenity for visitors to this area when the weather is bad is more important than your new offices.
3) Community projects that bring local people together such as art galleries, museums and sports centres are more important than your new offices.
4) Improving your consultation methods so they are publicly auditable and appear to genuinely take all views into account is more important than spending money on new offices
Just about anything I can think of is more important than your expensive new offices.
Regarding this consultation
I commend that you have asked me for my opinion on this matter. This is a step forward and I wish to give credit where credit is due.
However, I regret very much that there is no audit trail to enable me to objectively prove that my comments have been taken into account. I will not trust your consultation systems until the communication is two way with forensic arguments debated backwards and forwards in public until proved. I consider the fact that you have not instituted such systems to prove conclusively that you do not want genuine informed public dialogue or debate.
The Internet was created to enable debate between thinkers (originally University academics). It offers the ideal way of improving democracy to achieve improved decisions. Local Community forums could be instituted that would easily provide this facility. The Local Authority are sadly missing this opportunity for creating an environment for better informed and auditable debate. In consequence, my conclusion is that the you do not genuinely want such dialogue and debate.
Regarding the publicly stated wishes of the local community
I am deeply saddened that after so many years of trying to contribute positively to issues of how to improve the local area, I find it necessary to write such a negative message to my Local Authority.
Enormous amounts of time have been wasted by ordinary people who care about the local area and who have expressed their disagreement with your campaign for new offices. You are well aware of the manner in which they registered their objections but I will list a few:
1) Objectors to your expensive new offices have filled the local high street in public demonstration and delivered public petitions.
2) Objectors to your expensive new offices have written you letters and emails to which you have not replied. (Evidence for this is based on your not replying to my letters and emails and discussions with others who said you did not reply to their letters and emails).
3) The overwhelming majority of those who found the courage to speak publicly at the public meetings about this project were against your new expensive offices.
4) Significantly, those in the general public who have contributed so much time objecting to your proposals have done so at their own cost and inconvenience. Against them has been arrayed the might of the your salaried corporate resources.
5) At very least, it could have been made an election issue with the local people being allowed to vote through public polls. Requests at public meeting for this were refused. Why?
In conclusion
I do not believe that you can be in any doubt that, at very least, substantial numbers of the general public do not wish you to spend huge amount of local ratepayer’s money on new offices for yourselves.
I do not support your plans for expensive new offices.
You should defer any further expenditure on your new offices until after the elections in 2007 and only proceed if you get full endorsement of your plans from the local community which I don’t believe you would get.
In my Local Government area, the same political party has been in power for many, many years and is voted into office come what may because of local demographics.
Power is therefore retained by a small local political group who appear completely uncommunicative to those outside their clique.
I believe that Councillors should be required to publicly debate local public policy and be publicly and forensically accountable for their decisions.
I believe that, if they do not have the capacity to engage in forensic debate, they should not be Councillors and the process of public forensic debate is the best way to expose such inability to all people in the local community.
Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly should be aware of these sorts of local problems relating to her White Paper “Effective, accountable and responsive Local Government”.
In the UK, we badly need this new fundamental democratic safeguard. Perhaps, then, the decisions our democratically elected representatives take might start making more sense.
Fundamental flaws in the accountability of Local Government Councillors do not appear to be addressed in the new White Paper claiming to provide a New vision for Local Government.
To quote Directgov
Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly published new proposals significantly strengthening leadership and devolving power to local government as well as providing a major expansion of opportunities for local people to influence local decision-making and improve their lives.
Under Proposals of the White Paper
Effective, accountable and responsive Local Government
Local Government will be more accountable by:
* giving overview and scrutiny committees of councils new powers to review the actions of key public bodies and require the Council executive and other public bodies to respond
* requiring councils to publicise overview and scrutiny recommendations and the responses to those recommendations
* providing a short window of opportunity and invitation for a small number of councils keen to seek unitary status (subject to criteria), and pushing for better joint working for all two-tier areas
* reforming the current Standards Board and implementing a more locally-based conduct regime
Clearly the opportunity for ‘local people to influence local decision-making and improve their lives’, according to Directgov means local Councillors having more power.
Ordinary people who have tried to debate local issues sensibly with local councillors and have been confronted by a wall of uncommunicative silence and obfuscation may well question whether genuine benefits will be achieved. They may even hold their heads in their hands and wonder which planet the authors of the White Paper are on.
The new powers of the Internet open possibilities for elected representatives to be accountable in ways that were never historically possible. Some may have embraced these opportunities, many haven’t.
In the UK, as elsewhere in other democratic countries, we desperately need national and local decisions to be taken on the basis of hard facts and solid argument. Our societies are too complex for cliques, elected or not, to understand the full unforseen consequences of laws or administrative actions.
The present government consultation processes only seems to allow a flow of comment from people to government. There is no interplay of debate. In short, there is no way that ordinary people who have contributed opinion or information in a consultation exercise to confirm their views have been taken into account and how they were accepted or discounted.
The need for a democratic audit trail is vital if we are to have rational, informed and believable decisions taken that the public will support.
UK Parliament must pass a law forthewith setting up a framework of interactive public consultation that requires local Councillors to debate local policy publicly on officially designated Internet forums and also requiring local Councillors to give responses and reasons for their actions and decisions following a request by a member of the public.
This is the only way to provide a genuine and believable democratic audit trail for policy consultation.
In my experience, letters and emails about issues of policy are currently quite simply ignored by Councillors. This occurs whether the sender is an ordinary member of the public or a prominent local business leader. Such behavior is surely irrational and totally unacceptable.
Open transparent public debate on issues will also enable the electorate to accurately assess the quality of elected representatives.
Perhaps then, those of us who have attended local Council meetings as members of the public and have been appalled at the standard of debate displayed by their elected representatives would have some hope of progress and better decisions.
The most important single thing that needs to be done today is to open governmental and think tank web sites to comments from the public.
Laughably, I have seen many think tanks and governmental policy organisations trumpeting the benefits of open government and e-democracy yet their web sites have little or no interactivity.
They should practice what they preach!
However, there is enormous resistance among many MPs, Local Authority Councillors, Governmental organisations and even think tanks to any involvement from the public.
Elected representatives all too often seem to take the view that, once the electorate has voted, the elected representatives should be left to get on with the job without being bothered by the British public.
Think tank members seem to think that only the great and good can make a sensible argument.
Governmental consultation systems are hierarchical, exclusive and unauditable by contributers.
Even Governmental Departments often just don’t bother to reply to difficult questions.
Letters to MPs and Councillors go unanswered, especially if they involve complicated issues.
The fact is that the systems of democratic procedure are weighted in favour of those that have the power or money to lobby whereas ordinary people, however strong their arguments, have little direct say or influence.
No wonder there is voter apathy when so little regard is paid to public comments.
However, it has to be said that, with the present systems, there would be massive inefficiency and duplication, if all comments and communications were given detailed answers by Councillors, MPs and Governmental Departments.
Systems therefore need to be set up to enable wiki style knowledge bases alongside legislative discussion forums which openly include MPs, Councillors, lobby groups and the public.
Open source software has show us the way to organise this!
Let’s create a society where it is the quality of the argument that wins the debate and all legislation is forensically analysed in public by the best minds of our time (elected or not).
Open e-Democracy and the ‘collective intelligence’ of the British people are the best way to put the Great back in Britain.
Let’s get started now!
What do you think? Your comments are welcomed.
Bye for now
Rob
(Rob Hopcott - online author)
According to Open Democracy Our Kingdom
Jack Straw leader of the House of Commons and Gordon Brown’s campaign manager has come out for a written constitution
and
In his [Jack Straw's] brief conclusion he said he was now convinced a written constitution was needed to ensure good citizenship.
These words suggest that the Government’s idea of a written constitution is just another opportunity to tell us how the Government thinks we should behave. In other words, obligations not rights.
But why doesn’t Jack Straw and, presumably, George Brown give us something we actually want ie. useful and constructive rights which will enable the public to help make their lives better?
If we really are to have a written constitution, let’s include the right by the public to have a direct say in their own government through e-democracy.
Official Downing Street discussion forums where the public could use their collective intelligence to solve the big issues of today would be a genuine step forward and indicate a willingness to undergo constructive change by Brown’s prospective Government.
Jack Straw and George Brown should set up these forums so that we can discuss the rights we actually want as opposed to the complicated morass of restrictions that even lawyers have great difficulty understanding these days, let alone the people.
Submitting a proposed written constitution to forensic public discussion would show that Straw and Brown actually care about finding real solutions to real problems.
Let’s get tough on the causes of bad government! Start by genuinely talking to the people.
What do you think?
Rob
Western legal systems have long been so complicated that few people can really be sure whether they are breaking laws (including lawyers).
Added to this is the further problem of not being sure which country’s legal system covers a particular discussion or transaction the outcome of which these days often seems to be determined by the country of the Internet server that is hosting the discussion.
However, up to now, people in the ‘Western World’ could at least fall back on what seems reasonable ie. ones basic understanding of morality.
Times have changed with the participation of more Eastern Bloc countries whose religion based legal systems may well be completely alien to egalitarian and pragmatic humanist based Western morality.
Could it be that we blog today … and get stoned to death tomorrow?
Tough on the causes of crime
The saddest thing about the last 10 years of New Labour Government is the way, in my opinion, the New Labour Government didn’t act ‘tough on the causes of crime’.
When confronted with this accusation, Blair’s line is that lower income groups now have more money which means, presumably, that they don’t have to turn to crime to subsist.
Unfortunately, this clearly shows that New Labour never really understood this liberal ethic.
Getting in amongst the dust and the grime to discover and address the actual problems people really have, admittedly, is not much fun. It requires paying social workers lots of money, being friendly and understanding towards people you wouldn’t invite to your middle class dinners and produces results only after long periods during which time the electorate has probably got bored and frustrated.
Unfortunately, it’s in the dust and the mire where the crimes originate and solving problems at this level is the only true way to deal with issues like crime and recidivism.
Putting up a drug addict’s State Benefit isn’t going to stop them mugging an old lady for her pension. Helping the addict to kick the habit takes longer and is more complex but it works.
New Labour and Spin
On a more positive note and giving a little succor to New Labour on the subject of spin. I remember the negative stories that poured from the Tory press during the decades before New Labour came to power. The negative Labour spin put on just about any story that was around during that time must have contributed to keeping Old Labour out of government for so long. A brief look at a sample of the tabloid press today shows that nothing has changed over the years except that, perhaps, they have now found a way of effectively fighting back.
It is a sad commentary on the Right Wing that the biggest accusation they and the Tory press can bring against Tony Blair and New Labour is that Tony Blair, for a while, was better at spin than them.
The Right Wing Alternative
Lastly, I was once at a Conservative Party barbecue. Don’t ask me how I got there. It was an accident. The guy in the house across the road invited me and my wife and we didn’t like to refuse. In retrospect, I think it was probably some sort of a Tory Party fund raiser.
The woman sitting next to me mentioned something about Africa so, being a proud and concerned new parent at the time, I said it was sad so many children died young through malnutrition.
She said it didn’t really matter because the African Blacks were used to their children dying young and therefore wouldn’t feel as bad about it as we would.
I’ve never forgotten that conversation or the disgust I felt as I quietly left with my wife, vowing never to talk to that neighbor or his friends again.
Yes, I am a laissez faire liberal. Yes, I am saddened that New Labour has not practised the liberal philosophy they preached. Admittedly, I will vote Independent or for a liberal representative in any election. I also accept that people who are really committed to solving societies problems are few and far between in any Party and that the chances of a truly liberal (small l) government remain remote.
Nevertheless, if that woman was representative of her Party, I can’t be anything other than relieved that we’ve had New Labour in power over the last ten years, since the Right Wing alternative would have been so much worse.
Bye for now
Rob
(Hey. Go on … be brave … hug a liberal! You won’t catch anything and you might solve a few real problems.)
Doc over in Doc’s Political Parlor made a common sense point about legislatures liberalizing gambling.
Does the ‘everybody else is doing it’ argument strike you as the oddest argument in favor of expanding legalized gambling? That sure didn’t work with our mommas when we were growing up.
He continues
We should do it because our neighbors are doing it? You know what mom would say about that, ‘If everybody jumped off of a cliff, would you want to do it too?’
This simple piece of common sense blows holes through much of what the UK Government is doing to liberalize gambling at the moment.
The UK Government’s view appears to be that lots of people want to gamble, and it’s happening everywhere, therefore the UK people should get a piece of the action through taxes which is (sort off) fair enough.
However, actively promoting gambling through the Gambling Act 2005 is quite another thing. The direct consequence of their actions is that more people will end up gambling and that will hurt more people which is obviously a bad thing.
In effect, the UK Government have said that lots of people are gambling therefore it should be encouraged.
Cyber bullying is in the news today in the UK where teachers are being humiliated by pupils while their friends take mobile phone pictures of them which are then put on the Internet. Lots of youngsters seem to think these images of skirt lifting and trouser pulling down are great.
No doubt measures will be taken to try to put an end to these unpleasant, if popular, activities. So why shouldn’t we be making at least the same amount of effort with gambling?
Perhaps it all comes down to the confused state of morality these days.
The problem is that deity based religions are no longer convincing for many, yet little effort seems to have been made by Governments to identify alternative morality structures to which people can turn for guidance on their actions.
Laws of the land may provide a frame of reference for the ordinary man but where is the frame of reference for the legislaters?
Many would regard the morality of Governmental promotion of gambling as being highly questionable.
Sources of morality is the hot topic that needs to be addressed but, unfortunately, it is being avoided.
Like the ’causes of crime’ it is a problem that won’t go away.
Bye for now
Rob
(Rob Hopcott - online author and firm believer morality can exist outside religion, if we only look.)
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