Stuart Weir & Andrew Blick (Cambridge & London, Democratic Audit): Gordon Brown's green paper on governance at the start of his premiership last July inspired lots of people with hopes. On Thursday the two Rowntree trusts, who have been so active in this area and funded the Power Enquiry that clearly influenced Brown, brought together some representatives of democratic and human rights organisations to assess what has happened to the reform agenda set in motion, or perhaps treading water. One can regard the range of areas where the need for reforms is urgent as depressingly broad - elections to Westminster, protection of human rights, the House of Lords, local government, participation, political funding, parliamentary power, the data-base state - or as combining to create a historic opportunity. Which is it, and where and how should reformers best cultivate?
The debates were led by David Marquand from Oxford and Steve Richards, the Indie columnist. They were wide-ranging and practical if overlaid with a sense of gloom. Early on the nature of sovereignty in the UK was identified as the fundamental issue at stake - popular as opposed to parliamentary democracy or Jack Straw's "executive democracy" - and that idea was reshaped with the suggestion that the term "rights-based democracy", now widely used in international debates, might provide a valuable unifying term that could reconcile an emphasis on deepening popular democracy with protection of individual and minority rights.
Gordon Brown emerged as probably an isolated figure in new Labour so far as democratic reform is concerned, anxious to make his mark but without strong allies in his cabinet, other than the conservative Jack Straw. There was discussion of the attitudes of politicians who see the issues we are passionate about through the prism of calculation and opportunity but at the same time want to burst out of the "bubble" of distrust within which they feel imprisoned, and for which they usually blame the media. But we were reminded rightly that it is not just the tabloids which inspire distrust of politicians and politics. There is also their own behaviour, for example the disparity between talk of "localism" and the government's centralisation of decision making. Or the strong positive developments in Scotland and Wales and the silence of the Green paper on the national (or European) question despite its concern with the UK's "governance".
OurKingdom, the Power inquiry and Democratic Audit organised the conference for the Joseph Rowntree Reform and Charitable Trusts which continue to give vital support to renewing democracy and protecting human rights in this country. It is hoped that all the organisations involved can combine their strengths in research and campaigns around all these issues and facilitate a genuine non-partisan national conversation about how our society is governed, what its values are, and how they should be built on and protected.
