![]() et voila! We will all come rushing back to engage in a new golden age of citizen democracy. ![]() If this is the problem, the solution is obvious: change the institutions, change the parties, get the politicians in their place and put 'the people' in charge without having to work through the formal political structures. Yet the old parties and politicians - relics of a bygone age of class politics - maintain their selfish stranglehold on the system, preventing a new era of democracy from being born. Though apparently champing at the bit to get more involved, these 'new citizens' are withdrawing from participation in formal politics and instead immerseing themselves in community activism and campaigning groups. ![]() The electorate has become cynical and disaffected with formal politics because increasing educational attainment has allowed them to recognise how out-of-touch and bankrupt politicians and parties are. My colleague Tim Horton, in the Fabian pamphlet 'Facing Out' set out the main claims of this common anti-politics argument, also offered in the Power Inquiry's Power to the People report, challenging this as being built on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of politics.Ī fashionable story dominates much public discussion of the problem with politics today. Perhaps even for the participants themselves. At least for GCSE and A-level students of politics, and for others who haven't got round to reading Bernard Crick. Given that the Jury Team's challenge is based so much on the assumptions of the "anti-politics" zeitgeist, the great benefit it promises is an educative case study in what politics is, what it isn't, and why the X Factor model can't replace politics. The launch in the Sunday Times and the team's own website makes this look like as credible, well organised, reasonably funded and high profile effort as we are likely to see to test this very popular proposition: that voters of goodwill would just like to have candidates of goodwill - freed from the tyranny of the whips, the constraints of party, any collective body of beliefs or commitments to their voters - so that they can arrive unhindered in Parliament to govern sensibly in the common interests of "the people". And that must apply to the Jury Team too, even if they would (by definition) not know what they would do if they ever got there. ![]() Indeed, the early Fabians worked with the trade unions and others to create an agenda and movement to create the first major British party to come from outside Westminster, rather than being formed within it, and which changed the personnel and agenda of British politics and government. Surely the really interesting bit is that, if you can get enough people to agree with you, why, hell, you can run the country too. It is not just that everybody gets to have their say on everything. ![]() Still, on balance, I want to issue a warm welcome to the Jury Team - the political party for taking the parties out of politics, launched in the Sunday Times today - even though (indeed, because) it is very likely to fail.Īfter all, the greatest thing about democracy is this. I don't think we will be seeing the biopic 'Mr Judge comes to Westminster' any time soon. ![]()
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