Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Jack Straw has presented his draft Constitutional Renewal Bill. More on this tomorrow. Unlocking Democracy's Peter Facey has dismissed it as "largely symbolic" in a press release not yet up on its website. Is it? We'll learn more tomorrow when Andrew Blick has assessed its sections on the civil service. But note its carefully chosen name. It is not as was once suggested as I recall, a Constitutional Reform Bill. It is certainly not a constitutional replacement bill or even now that one time Labour catch-word a 'modernisation' bill. No, it's aim is to breath life into the old corpse. The smelly dog of parliamentary fixes and expenses is to be renewed by fiddling around with the role of the Attorney General and giving the commons a say on when we go to war. Bring it back from the dead! Never forget William Borough's sentiments in The Naked Lunch, "Go Home Lazarus".
But at the same time Michael Will's, who reports to Jack Straw in the Ministry of Justice, was serenading an open-jawed seminar at ippr - reported on below by Guy Aitchison. Wills is heroically attempting to bring some real life into the political process, plugging in an electric charge of direct participation and a summit that will actually take some policy decisions. We are working in parallel with him to try and work out how the web can help representative democracy. Steve Clift has kindly suggested this kind of work is pioneering, and he should know.
Wills was arguing for a pluralistic definition of Britishness and trying to assess what really matters to people. His speech will be published soon on MoJ and we will link to it when it is. Aside from his overall argument I was struck by two points he made with some emphasis. First, that while delivery of policies is important in politics, it has to be about more than self-interested, instrumental issues. I can't recall when I last heard a Labour politicians say this so strongly: it is not just about getting into office and "delivering" policies our people want. Second, in the discussion, he recognised the depth of the crisis of disassociation more strongly than perhaps he felt able to in his official speech. two lots of people are leaving the electoral process: the marginal, the poor and vulnerable are ceasing to vote and at the same time the active and engaged who are demanding more than jus ta vote every four years, are also saying time's up to the old politics. There is thus a double need to reconnect with citizens.
Gordon Brown launched his Green Paper with similar if less eloquent sentiments. A 'renewal' of Britishness was needed because of a challenge far greater than updating parliamentary procedures. But hanging over the day were the leaders words are set down in today's Daily Telegraph. This is a must read text on 'Why We Must Defend the Union'.
There is no Scotland-only, Wales-only, England-only solution to transnational challenges that range from terrorism to foot and mouth disease, and from avian flu to security and climate change. So for these islands an environmental Union, a security Union and a Union for defence is to the benefit of all.
Consider this definition of Britishness for a moment. Clearly the environmental union that makes a real difference is the European one. Our defence, such as it is, is integrated into NATO and the United States. The only union here that matters is the "security union" - and this points to the policy of re-centralising powers that currently belong to the Scottish government, a process alluded to in Brown's article and initiated in Straw's constitutional "renewal" proposals where he announced a Commission to go about this. Hardly pluralist.
And by the way, the Telegraph article in the print version has significant cuts compared to the on-line version, but it does not say that it is an abbreviated text. It's interesting that Brown's claim that the benefits of the British union go "far beyond the considerable benefits of European membership" was cut.
