Following up on yesterday’s post about the Big Society, I found an American site called everyblock. It is a hugely detailed (though not yet exhaustive) resource giving information, links, data, advice and loads more about cities, neighbourhoods, even individual blocks in some US cities.

In the news over the weekend were the first indications about what will be in the Queen’s Speech. Setting aside the fact that the Tories complained their way through 13 years of Labour pre-announcements and really ought to know better than to copy their media management style, there was some great stuff in there: scrapping ID cards and the national database, the Equitable Life bill, fulfilling the aid pledge, and so on.

But the most radical bills are the ones that open up government and give control back to individuals and communities – the police bill, the schools bills, the Great Repeal bill, the localism bill.  Perhaps most significantly, a bill which reinforces the Freedom of Information Act doesn’t seem to be in the leaked list… This is the big one – the one that should reverse the presumption that data belongs to the government. It does not – it belongs to us, and unless there is a pressing reason for it to be kept secret, it should be released without us having to ask.

The localism bills are the ones that will really test whether this government means what it says. Once the legislation is through to, for example, set up an independent Office for Budget Responsbility or to require police authorities to publish detailed crime maps, the government MUST leave them to get on with it.

They cannot say ‘we support localism’ and then intervene every time someone demands action against, for example, a postcode lottery. In opposition, Francis Maude and George Osborne both underlined that they actively wanted postcode lotteries so I’m looking forward to hearing them continue to defend them once the localism bills start producing results.

But similarly, we as citizens have a responsibility to engage in our local services. As I’ve argued before, you can’t complain about politicians if you don’t vote. So equally, we can’t complain about our public services if we ignore them until something goes wrong. A resource like everyblock would enable us to have lots of information about our local areas brought together in one place.

For example, I now live in a completely different area to the one I lived in when I first came to London. I have no idea where the library is, what the recycling is like, where the nice food shops are, how to find a trustworthy plumber, what famous people live nearby, what the crime rate is… it would be great to have that all in one place, and provided by people without a financial interest in, for example, steering you towards their shop.  A lot of this information will come from your council, but so often they are unable to provide it in anything approaching a usable format. 

I’m sure that localism and free data will throw up some problems along the way. But I’m also sure that being open about the problems is a better way to solve them than pretending that everyone has exactly the same level of responsiveness from their government. And most importantly, I believe that opening up data, transparency about where taxpayers’ money is going, and ensuring that everyone has proper choices in how their public services are run is going to revolutionise the way we live.

So we’re into the last week of the campaign. This has turned into the TV election – yes, internet stuff has been important but the things that have swung the campaign have all been on TV: because normal people don’t read political blogs! But they do watch the big setpieces (or at least see clips on the news), and they do hear about the big gaffes.

What I’ve found depressing about this campaign is just how willing voters are to believe the negative. I’m not arguing that any party is completely above a good old bit of scare-mongering, but outright lies about policy are going too far. And for future politicians, the interesting thing is how to deal with this in the future.

I’ve argued before for some sort of political standards authority, and I think we need that sort of independent body more than ever. In much the same way as the Institute for Fiscal Studies is trusted on the numbers, we need somewhere to go for impartial policy fact-checking. Cathy Newman and team are doing a great job at Channel 4, as Tim Harford the Undercover Economist does for Radio 4, but they are – despite their best efforts – never going to be seen as fully independent.

The underlying problem, though, is why voters are so inclined to believe these lies. I think it comes down to a huge suspicion of politicians generally, and a great mistrust of politicians who promise the moon on a stick. Voters have been betrayed by politicians over and over again. You don’t really get stories in the papers about any of the good things that politicians do – because it’s not very interesting to read good news stories. But you do get lots and lots of broken promises, weasel words and ‘we know best’, and backroom deals.

I was listening to the World at One today where they had a lengthy discussion of the machinations required towards the end of the Major government – that’s what ‘balanced’ parliaments get you. Deals behind the scenes, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Remember what happened over the 42 days legislation?

I’m hoping (obviously) for a Conservative victory, and I’m hoping that that Conservative government will actually deliver what it says it will in the (very impressive) contract with voters. If they do, that will go some way to restoring some of the trust that voters have lost in politicians over the past decades.

And what really needs to happen inside the possible Conservative government is for someone to have responsibility to say ‘no, we said we wouldn’t do that’ or ‘yes we DO have to do that, we said we would’. It wouldn’t be an easy job. It’s ideally what the Prime Minister should do. But, like all politicians, he will be overwhelmed by the need to get legislation through, and by the need to respond to tomorrow’s headlines.

So my question is, how do you institutionalise this contract? How do you make the government (of any colour) as trusted as, say, Google?

I’d say a certain amount would be achieved by more transparency – so publishing options papers, details of discussions held, and what contracts are being issued and to who. A further amount would be achieved by something along the lines of that contract – but shouldn’t that be the manifesto anyway? And more still would be achieved by a government that occasionally said, we don’t have all the answers – what do you think?

That would be a hugely radical step. But David Cameron and team give me a lot of confidence that they at least understand the problem and have started to work towards solutions.

What an exciting prospect to be a British liberal Conservative in 2010!

Or so it seems for a Tory living in Nova Scotia.  I doubt events will prove me wrong:  for not only does the impending general election in May offer change and the chance to see a Conservative ministry regain office, but developments within the Conservative party present challenging new opportunities for ‘liberals’, too, whether they be ‘wet’ or ‘dry’.

Traditionally, the classical liberals were seen as adversaries to the Tory philosophy, advocating individual freedoms in the social and economic spheres in contrast to paternalism and protectionism.

When, over the course of time, these principles were incorporated into the conservative philosophy, ‘liberal’ then acquired the connotation within the party of standing apart from the status quo; while it did not necessitate a return to paternalistic and protectionist policies, it did mean a focussed advocacy for social welfare and economic opportunity.

To-day both strands of liberal thought are active within the Conservative big tent:  whether in addressing the ‘broken politics’ of centralisation and community disempowerment, or the ‘broken society’ of endemic unemployment, family breakdown, and poverty.

One may ask:  what holds such apparently incongruous liberal motives together?  One answer lies in the Conservative emphasis on responsibility and obligation.  While everyone has personal responsibilities as individuals, we also have obligations to each other, whether interacting one-on-one or in our communal relations in society.

When these informal associations are insufficient to the tasks in hand, then these responsibilities are undertaken by the State, which must always remember that it is in our service, representing our objectives.

These responsibilities transcend time and place, and recall Edmund Burke’s admonition that ‘society … becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.’

This is why the Conservative party is so often considered the guardian of the constitution, of the monarchy, and of the parliamentary institutions that have contributed to the rise and well-being of the British nation.

It is why the Conservative party has argued for the proper alignment of responsibilities between the citizen and the State—not only to sustain and defend individual freedoms against State encroachment and disempowerment, but also because of the éstatist burdens that present entitlements impose upon future generations.

Meanwhile, Conservatives stand up for the State as a legitimate bulwark of the common good:  as a proper vehicle for the realisation of our mutual obligations, the State is far from the coercive instrument of oppression and redistribution feared by libertarians, but nor is the State to become a mere purveyor of welfare entitlements favoured by social democrats.

In honouring the rights of individuals and society—and in reconciling the State to both—the liberal Conservative attitude exemplifies best the aims of its sometime synonym, ‘progressive conservatism’:  to preserve our liberties while progressing toward justice for all.

Posted by Administrator on behalf of  the “Disrael-MacDonald Institute”

(OK, so it was yesterday’s launch. But I’ve just been to see Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid).

We’ve long supported this. It means MPs are properly accountable. It means bad or crooked MPs can be removed. It means that people are in control.

Strike one for The Plan.

I have been hugely supportive of the ideas behind the Conservatives’ plans for decentralisation, transparency and accountability. While, in some cases, I think they could go further, they are a coherent, sensible and absolutely thought-through response to the problems facing society.

But I have generally been a bit concerned about two things: one, that there won’t be sufficient numbers of people to carry them through; and two, that decisions made locally will inevitably result in accusations of postcode lotteries. For me, that is the whole point of localism – that local communities decide what they want, and attract (or not) businesses, families and activities to their area. But for politicians, postcode lotteries are seen as deadly.

So well done George and Francis for fronting up to this argument now. Yes, there will be differences in provision – that is the precisely the aim of localism: local decisions will mean local priorities and actions. And no, a potential Conservative government will not (well – will try to resist the temptation to do so, at least) step in and order local institutions to do things differently.

Someone I discussed this with last night said, “That’s exactly the point, people will have to move house” – actually, no. The point is that because people will be able to choose where to go for health services, schooling and so on, they will be able to weigh up their options and decide what is best for them. And if enough people don’t like what’s going on in their area, local deliverers of services will – crucially – be sufficiently accountable that people can make them change.

On a related note, as I said, I’ve always been a touch gloomy about the capacity and the desire and the quality of those who take up the localist challenge to generate sufficient weight and long-term commitment to their local activities. I have come to the conclusion that working for a political party for so long meant that I was being too pessimistic about human nature.

Because I spent so long nitpicking over individuals’ votes, over any deviation from a party line, examining scandals that no-one outside Westminster actually cares about, I became entirely focused on the bad. But in fact, the way that localism should work is that, in time, and probably relatively quickly, people who gain freedom will push that freedom further. You could compare it to the way that the nationalised industries were freed up in the 1980s – rather than always asking the relevant minister if they could do something, the managers did it if it was right for them and their business.  Clearly, they made some decisions that were right, and some that were wrong; but in the end taking their own decisions meant that they succeeded or failed on their own account.

So for example, as Oliver outlined at yesterday’s Tory Reform Group meeting, councils will, like the rest of us, be given a universal power of competence and thereby be allowed to do whatever they want as long as they are not specifically prohibited from doing it.  That is a huge, seismic change in culture, and experience shows that once a body is allowed freedom, it takes it up with a vengeance.

This is what the Conservatives’ policy platform is all about: people taking their lives back into their own hands. The man in Whitehall demonstrably does not know best; it’s time to let the man on the street decide.