Let the people decide
by Celia Hannon
03/06/09
Celia Hannon, Head of the Citizenship Programme, is featured in today's Comment is Free in The Guardian.
As the storm over MPs' expenses shows little sign of abating, politicians seem to have been caught off guard. Few can remember a time when the public was quite so furious with their elected representatives. So why all the anger?
The underlying cause of this mounting frustration is that citizens know that they have no influence over what happens next. Until now their criticisms appear to have simply bounced off the walls of Westminster. This scandal has exposed an unacceptable imbalance of power; voters aren't even able to sack their own MPs. This sense of powerlessness is fuelling disillusionment with all politicians, whether or not they have actually done anything wrong. Throughout the media coverage of recent weeks, members of the public have only been invited to comment on duck houses or moats rather than being asked for their perspective on the process of reform.
That's why Demos is hosting a Citizens' Convention on MPs' expenses in partnership with Ipsos Mori this Thursday, 4 June. While the results of the European elections are likely to tell a sorry story of protest voting and widespread apathy, this will be a positive opportunity for citizens to set the agenda on the contentious issue of expenses. Pay, second homes, staffing costs and the regulation of the system will all be subjected to the scrutiny of 50 members of the public. Their proposals will then be submitted to the inquiry being conducted by the committee on standards in public life.
Of course Demos is not alone in recognising this as a watershed moment in the relationship between citizens and their MPs. Commentators have been lining up to advise politicians to seize this opportunity to translate anger into active citizenship. We've been treated to a veritable arms race from leaders of political parties, as they compete to make ever more radical gestures towards constitutional reform.
Last week David Cameron outlined his plans for a radical redistribution of power to people, while Gordon Brown has opted for a somewhat less adventurous "council for democratic renewal" to discuss constitutional reform. It has been observed that constitutional reform tends to be dusted off only at moments of crisis, and generally revisited with more enthusiasm by the opposition. It's notable that both of these sets of proposals remain stubbornly vague on the question of testing these ideas out with voters themselves.
And, as Harriet Harman observed in Saturday's Guardian, it will be difficult for MPs to engineer this conversation when the public is too disgusted to listen to them at all. That's why when the reforms do finally come, they will need to be undertaken in the open and driven by citizens themselves. As Cameron and Brown argue about who has the moral authority to clean up politics, it's clear that this is one crisis which won't be resolved with political leadership – it's time to let the people decide.
Jon Harvey
I have been using an approach to conferences and meetings for many years called ‘Open Space’. It was invented by Harrison Owen and has been used worldwide over 200,000 times to help (often very large and often conflicting) groups of people find and agree ways forward. There is much information available on the net about the process (www.openspaceworld.org).
As well as a citizen's convention, my suggestion would be get all the main protagonists in a room together – for a day – to sort the issue. By protagonists, I mean front bench and back bench MPs (all parties of course), external observers including lobby correspondents and other journalists, key civil servants, others by dint of their expertise, gravitas, experience and wisdom (whoever those might be – but probably a few members of the House of Lords), a few bloggers such as Iain Dale, anyone else who might have some worthwhile things to contribute... and of course a good number of 'ordinary' citizens. The task would be sort out the issue of the expenses. The process would be Open Space – which would mean that all that people wish (and have a passion for) to talk about – could be talked about. There would be no pre-set agenda or range of options to choose from.
Why am I proposing this? It seems to be that this issue has become so corrosive to public confidence that action needs to be taken quickly to arrive at a cross party consensus. I know of no better way to achieve consensus than through Open Space – as it is a totally transparent, creative and sublimely simple and elegant process. The alternatives appears to be each party coming up with its bespoke ‘fix’ while the public look on as disagreement continues to rage, or a long winded inquiry that reports sometime later this year (or next, as these things often do...).
An Open Space process could slice through all of that and be the kind of new politics of which many wish to see more, I believe. (Moreover Open Space is exceptional value for money – far cheaper, far quicker and far more effective – in my view – that a long drawn out inquiry.)
Whilst your convention will add to the pot - the key surely - must be to get the whole system in the room to debate and agree the way forward. Not in a few months time, but now, in the next few days, so that politics & politicians can begin the slow road back to respect & trust.
http://smallcreativeideas.blogspot.com/