I’m not sure whether this is a good or a bad thing, but Gordon Brown’s interview in the Independent today shows him to be just the latest in a long line of converts to the Big Society.

Here are some choice quotes:

“We’re just recovering from the 1980s,” says Bryan. “We know what works.” Brown nods grimly. “We’re going to have to be prepared,” he [Brown] says, “to do things locally.”

Why is that something to be grim about?

[Brown is] telling me about a local youth project called “midnight football” in which young people play sports with professionals, and a local cycling club, which lends bikes to people who can’t afford them, and a website that Tim Berners-Lee told him about where you can look up cycling danger spots and plot your route.

(We wrote about the cycle map AGES ago)

What I’ve done in the last two months is really what I wanted to do, which is do things locally. That’s been my first interest, to put something back into a local community that I feel very much part of, and that I feel I’ve got a duty to.

How disappointing that he didn’t feel the need to empower others to do the same while he had the power to do so.

A deal will have to be done. The Liberal Democrats are the (very) weak kingmakers. There is – somewhere – a deal that can be acceptable to Cameron and Clegg. The main ‘national interest’ issues are restoring stability to the economy, resolving our situation in Afghanistan and reforming how government resources are allocated. Voting reform and restructuring the House of Lords are important issues that need serious consideration BUT voters are not pressing for these questions to be answered today.  

Cameron should offer Clegg a free vote on holding a referendum on proportional representative within the next parliament. In exchange the Lib Dems will support the Conservatives on a vote-by-vote basis. In this pact it would not be in the Lib Dems’ interest to bring a Cameron government down, unless the spirit of the deal is reneged.  

Gordon Brown is not an appealing option. The national interest is not the same as the Liberal Democrats’ interest. When Clegg made his statement earlier this morning he was wisely continuing the lofty campaign position of wanting to support the party with the most votes and seats. In the current climate any parties that do a deal for nakedly partisan interests will be punished at the next election. If Clegg goes back on his word, he will be rightly viewed as being another old style politician. If the Lib Dems lose their ‘new politics’ image they will have nothing left. The Labour party will not do themselves any favours if they prostitute their beliefs in order to cling on to power. If Mervyn King is right about power being a poisoned chalice, having an extra few years of Government is not worth sacrificing long held principles for. 

Nick Clegg leading a Lab-Lib coalition is the wild card in the pack.  This is an unlikely outcome for so many reasons. But it has been an uncertain night. It’s now up to those who have had no sleep to make a solid agreement.

What was the most important political event of last week? Was it the volcanic ash sponsored travel chaos? Was it Cleggmania? Was it the Sky News debate? For me the event which will have most impact on Election 2010 was the release of a slew of economic data showing the recovery to be finely balanced.

Inflation rose from 3% in February to 3.4%. The Retail Price Index rose to 4.4%. The consequence of this is that most of us are becoming poorer. The British economy only grew by 0.2%, making it unlikely that there will be many inflation-matching pay rises in the near future. None of this may be as televisually exciting as exploding volcanoes or beautiful Liberals but when it comes to deciding elections I am with Bill Clinton; “It’s the economy stupid”. 

Gordon Brown has tried to claim the economic agenda as his own. His tactic has half-worked in the sense that people are unsure whether the Conservatives have the ability to make the correct economic judgements. Brown’s tactic has not worked in convincing most voters that he is our economic saviour. We know who is responsible for this mess, and it’s not just far-away foreign bankers. 

At the moment we seem to be heading towards the very un-British state of affairs of having a hung Parliament. The British public are not convinced that Labour or the Conservatives deserve a mandate. The rise in Lib Dem support is – almost certainly – not due to their policies. It is a protest against two parties of government. Nick Clegg won the first debate because he stood to the side and then channelled the anger of everyman against the political elite. 

The good news for the Conservatives is that the election is there to be won, but it’s going to take a big performance to seal the deal. This performance may happen on Thursday as the topic of the final TV debate is the economy. Whoever wins the BBC debate will have almost unstoppable momentum going into polling day. 

How should the Tories take advantage of this situation? Firstly, the tone needs to be right. No-one ever won a popularity contest by talking about an ‘age of austerity’. The electorate wants solutions that give them hope. Most people I speak to logically understand that some cuts are necessary but emotionally wish this were not the case. Cameron has to convince the undecided that he is an expert pruner. Every act, including cuts, will be done carefully and to ensure that British society emerges stronger.  

Secondly, Gordon Brown should be held to account for the mess he has created. Labour is trying to promote the myth that he is a great economic decision-maker who saved us from Credit Crunch meltdown. If the public believed this Labour would be ahead in the polls. The incompetence of his decision-making is there to be exposed.  His beliefs, such as that increasing NI tax will get money into the economy rather than take money from it, show that he is not the right person to lead a recovery. 

Thirdly, David Cameron needs to offer simple, realistic solutions that will create positive outcomes. He is part of the overwhelming majority of public opinion in stating that improving our economic situation is the Conservatives’ domestic priority. Cameron needs to invest himself in leading the economic recovery by ensuring that people know he will personally be on top of the subject. The Conservatives also need to talk about how the economic collapse hurts the poorest and most vulnerable in our society and how their proposed solutions will help these groups. 

Fourthly, the economy needs to be the main focus for the rest of the campaign. I am a great fan of the Conservative manifesto. I agree with Jonty Olliff-Cooper when he says that it makes him mad that the Conservatives are caricatured as having no substance. The Big Society and PBAge ideas are the biggest governing ideas a party has come up with since the 70s and they truly excite me. But we are political geeks. My girlfriend describes me as niche-normal, which is a lovely way of saying abnormal. Its not politicians, and assorted geeks, who pick what elections are about. It is the voters.  

When the Tories were well ahead in the polls there was a dangerous assumption that they would win the election. This is no longer the case. The British electorate are there to be won over, as long as we do it on their terms.

The man at the beginning of Labour’s party political broadcast is out of breath. To be honest, he looks lost. I don’t know his name but for ease I will call him ‘Appealing Gordon’. Good-looking Gordon is on his own, marching along a lonely road in the middle of nowhere. He needs some fellow hikers. Does Appealing Gordon have any signal on his mobile? Maybe his phone has been broken in an unfortunate accident?

So far there is no mention of any political party. If a viewer has just flicked onto the broadcast they would be forgiven for assuming that they were watching a British version of ‘Lost’ or a sequel to a Danny Boyle horror movie, which may or may not be titled ‘13 Years Later’.

The voice in Appealing Gordon’s head starts speaking. “You know my father always said don’t give up. Show resolve he said. He was so right.” We then hear about how not so long ago our country faced potentially one of the worst ever economic crises. Now that sounds interesting. Can we hear more details about that please? Who was in charge and allowed this to happen? No information I’m afraid. Appealing Gordon has swiftly moved on, telling us how Gordon Brown went to the G20, clutching a folder full of recovery plans, and saved the day.  Can we have more details of what these recovery plans are? No. Appealing Gordon does tell us though that these plans have been implemented around the world. It’s unfortunate that Absent Gordon couldn’t appear in the broadcast to tell us about those countries who have taken up his ideas. I suspect he was probably busy. As anyone who watched The New Adventures of Superman would know saving the world from disaster is a time-consuming business. Dean Cain never had any hobbies or friends. There is still no mention of who the Credit Crunch causing baddy is. Let’s just hope he is not around making decisions which could put this country back in the mud.

Appealing Gordon has now made it to a town. Hurrah. He begins to tell us how the Conservatives opposed all of Absent Gordon’s world saving plans. Appealing Gordon is actually spending a high proportion of his journey telling us how wrong the Conservatives have been.

He has now left the town. It is obviously not the place he is trying to get to. It’s a shame that Appealing Gordon didn’t stop to ask the way. You would have thought that local people would have known the best, quickest and most effective way to help him reach his destination.

Appealing Gordon then reaches a cross-road. He stops. He ponders the options. Does Gordon continue along the road he knows or does he divert onto what seems to be a more difficult path. If only he had asked some of those nice folk in the town, they might have told him which way to go. Appealing Gordon decides that this is not the time for a change, thus he should continue on the path he has been following. I hate to be critical of his decision-making, especially as the poor sod looks knackered, but I don’t follow his logic. While the steep road may seem more difficult it may actually help him to get to his destination quicker. I wonder what Absent Gordon would do?

Appealing Gordon is now marching along, telling us how the Conservatives would have made decisions on the economy which economists would have gahuffed at. No specific economists are mentioned so I assume all economists laugh in the face of Tory finance plans.

I am now worried. Appealing Gordon has told us that the recovery is fragile. But I thought Absent Gordon had saved us from disaster. Has he temporarily patched-up the wound?  Apparently it is only Labour who have the experience to get British families and businesses back on their feet. I can’t wait for Appealing Gordon to tell me why British Society is on its knees and who is responsible for this knee-capping. Unfortunately he doesn’t.

Appealing Gordon carries on walking, off into the sunset, along what is possibly the longest and most directionless road in the country. I imagine he is still walking now. Please, if you have the chance to help Gordon out, send him to a place where he can rest. Or give him a sat-nav.

The Post-bureaucratic age (PBAge) is not a technological innovation. It is a philosophy for government. It is about trusting people to know what solutions best fit their daily lives. The PBAge is about state institutions opening up resources so that individuals and communities can choose how they use them. The relationship between government and governed will shift from a directing one to an enabling one.

As David Cameron has said, by harnessing the PBAge mindset the Conservatives will “take away some of the hassle involved in doing the right thing”. Politicians will not tell us how they should be held to account; instead, in the name of transparency, they will set free a variety of information. It will then be up to each voter to decide how to assess a politician’s performance. Every item of central government and quango spending over £25,000 – including every contract in full – will be published. There will be no more hiding behind the lame excuse of ‘commercial confidentiality’. Those who tender for government contracts must accept that they are recipients of British taxpayers’ money. To build on the definition of my Platform 10 colleague, Fiona Melville, the Conservatives’ vision of the PBAge is that under a Tory Government, if you want to do something positive, you and your friends will be able to. The state will provide encouragement and support but it will be up to you to make it a success.

Last week Gordon Brown gave a speech where he tried to promote Labour’s PBAge credentials. Unfortunately, he missed the fundamental point of it being about people empowerment. Like an old man trying to ‘get down’ with the kids, he used many of the right phrases but missed the basic context, thus amplifying how far out of touch he really is. One of his main pledges was that a Labour Government would lead “the next generation of the web and internet”.

No, no, no – this is the wrong way round. The government should be led by those who are out there, innovating in order to make life better. The Government and the Civil Service cannot replicate the techno-organic growth model. Internet innovation works because it embraces uncertainty and the unknown. Ideas are released early and released often. They get tested, adapted and improved by a loose network of interested cyber-bods who figure out what their audience wants and how best to give it to them. This dynamism stems from the ‘baby’ being handed over again and again. In the PBAge a government’s job is to enable these innovators to produce by giving them the right government data and opportunity. These developments can then be harnessed for the benefit of us all.

One of the many centralising measures that Brown proposed was to spend £30 million on creating a Institute of the Web, which will apparently help place the UK at the ‘cutting edge’ of web development. This idea, that the best way to encourage internet technologies is to house a few big brains under one roof, is completely disconnected from web-reality. In public policy terms this money would be better spent funding worthy start-up projects that have already survived an initial amount of testing.  Maybe the Government could take a small stake in the enterprise, and then if they have helped to facilitate the next ‘Facebook’ some of the profits would be reinvested into this funding scheme.

It would not be a Gordon Brown speech if it didn’t try to create political dividing lines. Hence his attack on leaving the internet to “unbridled market dogma”, “unregulated markets”, and “crude laissez faire economic theories”. Never mind that this description does not bear any relation the Conservative programme for government, Brown seems to have missed the fact that the internet is a free and fluid community. E-bay, Facebook, Google, Pay-pal and many other transformative businesses, including Martha Lane Fox’s lastminute.com, advanced because of the free nature of this community. It is Brown who is crudely trying to crowbar his dogmatic, bureaucratic agenda into the PBAge message. For him an initiative has no merits unless it can be used to bash his opponents.

Gordon Brown’s speech was about how only Labour can create, lead and regulate the future development of internet technology. It mentioned numerous times how they aspire to achieve the mystical and meaningless prize of making Britain a “world leader” by 2020. When Cameron speaks about the PBAge he talks about how he will, from tomorrow, encourage you, me and everyone to find the best solutions to the problems we face. Cameron often details how existing innovations can be harnessed to improve governance, and specifies what enabling measures his government will enact for us to succeed in tomorrow’s high-tech world.

Some commentators criticise modern democracy for ditching ideological debates, making voting no more than a choice between managers.  Even if this is true, we still do not have an insignificant choice ahead of us. Especially when the choice is between one manager who wants to delegate and another who is incapable of loosening his controlling grip.