Part of the discussion I had with David Cameron (results available in Company magazine, March issue, on sale at all good newsagents from 13 March) revolved around the Tories’ publication of draft manifesto chapters.
He said:
“We’ve launched it draft chapter by draft chapter, on the internet, with people then coming up with their ideas and their questions. I’ve done online public meetings, the first one I think 40 000 people took part and voted on which questions they wanted answered on their particular subject. So we’ve got a long way to go but I think it’s a world away from what we used to do. And the exciting thing is is it’s totally interactive – it’s driven by what people want to say rather than just being pushed stuff by the politicians.”
I asked him if this was a bit of a cop-out, maybe even played into (unfounded, by the way) accusations that the Conservatives are entirely focus-group driven. He replied (unsurprisingly…) that he disagreed, because: “The draft manifesto is what we want to do, it’s what we believe in but I think in the modern world of Wikipedia and crowd sourcing and interacvtity it’s only right when you’re asking people and you want to be their government, look here’s our draft manifesto what do you think, what have we left out, what do you most think is your priority? I think it’s a very good and modern way of doing politics.”
At the time, I was a bit sceptical. After all, four years of research, policy work, review and discussion – surely they are ready to make the argument for the policies they believe in? But actually, the more I think about it, and the more I hear about just how fed up of politics as usual voters are, the more I think that if this process is seen to be making a difference, then it can only be a good thing.
After all, we are a representative democracy. Our politicians are supposed to be answerable to us. They are supposed to represent us – not just pass laws from on high. I do want politicians to listen, and react to what we say.
Remember when Tony Blair was attacked on Newsnight about the 48 hour GP targets – he had absolutely no idea what was going on. He assumed that because his government’s 48 hour target was being met, everything was ticking over nicely. But he was very wrong. Politicians need to work out a way to get the real facts – targets being met did not tell them that the GPs’ surgeries just disconnected the phone once two days’ of appointments had been made.
Gordon Brown is right on one thing: politics is all about choices. But you can’t make an informed choice unless you have enough information, and politicians need to make sure that they can access enough information from sufficiently diverse sources to inform the choices they make in our name.
While it does have to actually make a difference (in my experience, fake concern is worse than no concern at all), I have become a fan of wiki-writing the manifesto. It’s all part of the post-bureaucratic way of doing things…
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I love the fact that the Tories are experimenting with ideas such as open primaries, online public meetings, and wiki-writing future polices. The sofa style of governing, which can be depicted as a few chums trying to turn sound-bites into half-baked initiatives which will then be forced on the rest of us, is one of the main reasons why people now despair of politics and Government. Technology should be used to reengage people into the political process.