Journalists have lined up to sneer at the idea that “ordinary people” – particularly “during a cost of living crisis” – care about constitutional questions. So, first, let me say what is not wrong with Gordon Brown’s report for Labour on “renewing our democracy”.
Everywhere I go in the UK as a reporter, the dominant attitude about politics is that it doesn’t work. “They’re all the same,” “I don’t trust any of them,” and so on and so on: I’ve heard it thousands of times and so, probably, have those same journalists.
Every successful conservative party in the western world in the modern era has won by tapping into that feeling. Any serious progressive party needs to address it. Yet, often, the British Labour Party has failed to understand this, offering voters this or that nice thing, without realising that few people trust politics enough to think they’ll actually deliver. Throughout the report, Gordon Brown shows that he is beginning to understand that deep sense of alienation. That should be welcomed. All those reporters should be ignored.
