Anthony Barnett (London, OK): One questioner managed to get back at Gordon Brown in today's press conference, the BBC's Nick Robinson. He posed the issue of the election call by contrasting it to the Prime Minister's declaration of principle that he would listen and could be trusted. Thanks to this, Brown said the following,
As far as listening to the people and as far as a process of consultative process of politics I will continue to do everything that I started and indeed step it up: Citizens Juries in every part of the country to listen to what people are saying, engaging with people about the big issues. A constitutional reform package that includes the public being able to talk about a written constitution and changes that we can make. Local government democracy giving people more say, perhaps in health, perhaps in housing, perhaps in education, perhaps in policing matters, this is a major agenda that I don’t think is likely to be dismissed as for a day or for a week or for a few months, this is an agenda for a long term change in the British constitution. And I hope that the debate that we started in the summer can move on to a new level over the next few months when people will have the chance in every area of the country to express their views. We have commissions, we have citizens juries, and at the end of the day, of course, we will have deliberative assemblies of people in different areas where people can make their views known about the constitution. This is not something for one day it’s something for long term.
To which the determined Robinson got back,
The ultimate way to listen to people is to give them a vote. You were going to do that on Friday, you ordered your civil servants, you ordered your ministers, you ordered your party to be ready for an election and at the last minute when the polls turned you turned.
Brown denied this and continued to do so. But the focus thereafter on the election meant no attention was paid to his description of constitutional reform. Reform is precisely not about people "making their views known". More on this later. (Health warning, the transcription is mine from the BBC clip.)
