Anthony Barnett (London, OK): I have been scratching my head over Martin Bright's column in the New Statesman. In addition to welcoming Labour being united behind Brown he proclaims that "the left is brimming with new thinking for the first time in years". What is this new thinking? Seriously, I've missed it. Brimming! Could readers post their list of, say, the top ten, or even six, new lines of thought on the left. Either here or on their own websites. To make it easier this thinking does not have to be part of any coalition forming around the Prime Minister as Bright seems to imply.
Bright is right about the growth of citizen activism. He tags London Citizens it could also have been the climate camp. But while growing in experience this is hardly new, since 1,500,000 of us (approximately) called the Iraq War wisely and took to the streets just after 500,000 mobilised against the criminalisation of hunting. Meanwhile, No2ID builds its network.
It is also true that the engineering of consultation has got more sophisticated, as Bright describes. But the point which needs to be made here is that what the Prime Minister and now the press call citizen juries are NOT citizen juries. It helps when clarity, not fudge, is the bedrock for new thinking. It is not that I disagree with the hard-working and dedicated consultation guru, Richard Wilson of Involve, who well understands the distinction between asking people for their views - and giving them the responsibility to take a decision like a jury. He may be right when he says, "So what we need is not just a new politics, but a new approach to citizen participation". But surely this is a call for new thinking rather than new thinking itself?
My fear is that Bright's colleague Owen Walker is closer to the pulse of the left when he leads his current report with the news that the Respect Party is considering a proposal to "re-evaluate their relationship with the SWP". If you are too young to know what this old chestnut is about, count yourself lucky. Please, readers, prove my fears wrong, tell us about the new thinking of the left. The prize for the most original and brimming answer is a copy of either Future Positive by Michael Edwards or What Should the Left Propose? by Roberto Mangabeira Unger. The winner can choose, both are genuinely original books which will interest thoughtful conservatives and liberals as much as anyone on the left... perhaps more.
