Alice Casey & Laurie Waller (London, involve): Parliament: a place where tribal division, tradition and white men have created and established our entrenched political culture. A place which has decisively shaped the public's idea of what ‘politics' is. A place from which there is now an emerging awareness that such a form of rule, rooted in staid tradition and models of power, no longer effectively serves the public on which its legitimacy rests.
Enter the new politics; a somewhat ambiguous (some might say vacuous) concept conceived in haste by the titans of Westminster. What is this new politics all about? How does it relate to the citizen?<!--more-->
Our Prime Minister Gordon Brown has articulated his version: a politics built on "consensus not division" with the goals of achieving a "Britain of mutual obligation" and facing future challenges by listening to and involving the British people themselves. He has pledged a new constitutional settlement for the people and is crossing his fingers that the citizens' jury will keep the masses content while he gets on with the job of governing.
At Involve we wanted to find out how the public themselves would like to shape the New Politics. The first sample of citizens we spoke with unearthed much cynicism about politicians and the sincerity of measures to involve the public. Yet underlying a large number of individuals' comments was a real and heartfelt enthusiasm to participate in the decision making processes; with many individuals advancing their own ideas of how and why they would like to participate at both local and national levels.
We also wanted to find out what individual citizens thought about the supposed change from ‘old' to ‘new' and what that might actually mean to them. After all, if the aim of the New Politics is to redefine political relationships as more inclusive and engaging, then shouldn't the public be at the forefront of shaping it? We believe that the key to better participation is not focusing solely on a policy perspective, but in better understanding of the individual voices who together make up ‘the public', and on what terms they themselves would prefer to engage with political power.
Involve invites you to contribute ideas on how you would like to be involved in shaping 'Your New Politics'. Are you an Ethical Shopper? What do you think of Citizens Juries? Is Facebook the future?
Read their blog and make your own written responses here, or send them a video of your response to post on their YouTube channel.
Comments
I'm glad more organisations like Involve are saying this; whenever I hear any politician or party member talk about Politics 2.0 (for want of a better term) I can't help but feel it should be built from the ground up.
It's about democratising society further; actually given more power to ordinary people to run their lives (and by that I don’t mean privatising everything in sight); turning the tables so our elected (and those unfortunately still un-elected) representatives are the public servants they're meant to be.
Too many in the political sphere like the language (and credibility by association to be frank) but I question how comfortable they really are with the amount of power/influence they must give up for the New Politics to become a reality....
Alice and Laurie, I wish you luck and hope Involve succeeds. But when you write of Brown, "He has pledged a new constitutional settlement for the people and is crossing his fingers that the citizens’ jury will keep the masses content while he gets on with the job of governing" you have to be careful. he has certainly not "promised" a new constitutional settlement. He has allowed us to glimpse its ankles, if I may use a slightly sexist point of view. We have been teased with the prospect. Certainly, unlike most politicians he understands what it means and how it could be done but he has not even presented himself as a Moses taking the country to the promised land without himself being able to enjoy it.
Whether he is keeping his "fingers crossed" that the so-called citizens juries, which have been well knobbled in advance will keep us content, who can say. But if he really thinks this then everything he has been saying about "restoring trust" is so much hypocrisy.
Anthony
[...] There’s a good post over at OurKingdom by Alice Casey from Involve about New Politics and who it should be built [...]
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