System of Government

Rupert Read (Norwich, The Green Party): A crisis can provoke the best in political leadership. Immediacy and clarity, brought on by the realisation of danger, can make middle-of-the-road administrators step out of their everyday roles, and do great things.But global over-heat is a different sort of crisis. Decisions now may create a better future, but the effects, good or bad, won't be known for a long time. If we're successful, then we'll never know how terrifying it might have got.

Andrew Blick (London, Houses of Parliament): Since Public Service Agreements (PSAs) are so vital to the way in which governance functions in the UK and since they receive so little of the detailed attention they merit, I have been going through the new set announced last week, to see what is of interest. PSA number 26 (opens pdf) is an important one, dealing with the commitment to "Reduce the risk to the UK and its interests overseas from international terrorism". While Parliament may soon be given the ability to oversee the activities of the Intelligence and Security Agencies, it will have trouble assessing how well they are doing in this area, since details of how success will be measured are not published. While this is a sensitive subject, such a blanket omission of more detailed information is helpful neither from a democratic perspective nor from the point of view of the desire to build public confidence.