Guy Aitchison (London, OK): This morning I joined a handful of press and politicians assembled in a small room in the St Stephen’s club near Westminster to watch David Cameron and Ken Clarke launch the latest report of the Conservative Democracy Taskforce. The reports are the product of eighteen months work by Clarke and his team, but it seems they’re being released now in a bid to out-flank Brown on constitutional reform and prove that Cameron’s the bigger democrat. The report’s title, Power to the People (pdf), rather overstates its radicalism. Most of the suggestions involve changes to parliamentary procedure: giving US style powers to select committees; allowing the Commons, rather than government, to set the parliamentary agenda; a bigger role for Private Members Bills and giving parliament a say in decision-making in Europe. Cameron chuckled at Clarke’s description of Blair as a vainglorious "medieval monarch", whose word is law. Instead parliament needs "real teeth" to restore its role as ''watchdog of the constitution''. Much of this can be seen as the politics of opposition and it should be remembered that Cameron hasn’t actually committed himself to any of the proposals in the report. What interested me, however, was his support for the "revival of petitions", something only touched upon by Clarke’s team. It would, he enthused, mean a system like that of the Downing Street e-petitions, but with the power to set the parliamentary agenda and even lead to legislation (he didn’t mention it was a Power Inquiry proposal). Its seems that bringing the ancient monarchical practice of petitioning online appeals to Cameron. It’s cutting edge but traditional, radical as a nod towards direct democracy, but conservative in its paternalist heritage. It was a way, he said, of “linking Simon de Montford’s parliament with the Myspace generation”.
An interesting issue was raised over how these petitions could be ''filtered'', to rule out the prospect of mischievous petitions over, say, whether West Ham should be deducted points. It was unclear who should filter and how they should do it. It remains to be seen what will make it into the Conservative manifesto.
(There's a youtube video of Clarke and 'webCameron' launching the report here)
