Power to the People Conference

I have just returned from a very interesting day at the Power Inquiry Conference held on Saturday in London where the issues of participation in the electoral process and electoral reform were thoroughly explored. The conference was chaired by Helena Kennedy QC, and the main speakers were David Cameron and Sir Menzies Campbell, the Labour leadership declined to attend for some reason.

After an introduction by Helena Kennedy and vice chair Ferdinand Mount, David Cameron gave a speech and then took questions from the audience. I did record the speeches but I’m afraid the quality is appalling as I used a mobile phone and an MP3 player which really weren’t up to the task, so apologies for that. I have asked someone who filmed some of it to send me a file, and the event will be covered next week on BBC Parliament. I have also asked the Power Inquiry to send me any video and audio they have and they have said they will try. In the meantime I will attempt to outline what was discussed.

Helena’s introduction covered the basis of the problem, the low turn out at elections and the myth of ‘voter apathy’. What is called ‘voter apathy’ is actually disenchantment with, and alienation from the political process. People no longer feel their vote counts any more and that politicians don’t listen to the electorate. Despite this many people are involved in politics on both local and national levels. From being involved on school governing boards to protesting at demonstrations, people do involve themselves in politics, they just abstain from elections. The wide-ranging research done by the inquiry involved talking to people of all political persuasions and none, and from all walks of life. The inquiry also conducted experiments in participatory democracy. The findings were that people were no longer satisfied to defer to a political elite and just cast a vote every few years. They want more engagement. Nor are people happy any longer to be presented with a ‘menu’ of choices in the political parties which are broadly similar to each other. The political system needs to be updated to something more relevant to the well-educated 21^st Century electorate even if that means taking some power away from the politicians.

Respect has to be mutual so politicians need to listen more closely to the people in order to earn the respect they demand. Helena outlined 3 areas for change:

• We have to redistribute power from the executive, from Downing Street to Parliament.
• We have to restore Cabinet Government.
• We have to have a redistribution of power from the central to the local.

One of the recommendations is to have a written constitution rather than the unwritten constitution we currently have which can be ignored when found to be inconvenient. A written constitution should set in stone, the relationship between the executive and Parliament, the relationship between the judiciary and the executive and the relationship between the centre and the local.

House of Lords reform was another much-needed change that was highlighted; the system of appointments no longer being acceptable to the public, but at the same time we need to have the expertise and independence in the lords so there is a problem in squaring that particular circle.

Helena also brought up the issue of party funding and suggested a cap on donations to political parties to stop the rich having too much influence. She recommended that when we go to vote, we should be able to tick a box so that £3 of taxpayers' money went to a political party of our choice paid at a local level to invigorate local grass roots politics, rather than be used for paying for suits and hairdressers. Finally the public should have the power to call for public inquiries.

After Helena Kennedy’s speech, vice chair Ferdinand Mount spoke briefly about the need for electoral reform, highlighting the lack of legitimacy a government has when it is elected to power with just over 20% of the vote. The Tories won the recent local elections with just 15% of the vote. What Jack Straw called ‘executive democracy’ ends up looking more like elected dictatorship. Representative democracy becomes less representative as the worst off disappear from the political radar and no longer engage in politics. Apathy entrenches political inequality affecting the young, the poor and ethnic minorities and this has been found in their voting patterns. Again, Mr Mount stressed that people stay away from the polls not because they can’t be bothered but because they think voting won’t make any difference.

Politicians are waking up to this problem but are offering poor solutions such as making voting compulsory, which will change nothing. The system can’t be tinkered with; it needs wholesale reform right across the board. People need to start engaging with politics while they are still young otherwise they will remain disengaged later. He also stressed that no political system was perfect and the Power Inquiry was not dogmatic about its ideas. Proportional representation has its merits and weaknesses, but in order to make a real change it must be an ‘open list’ PR system rather than a ‘closed list’ system. A degree of direct democracy is also needed in order to keep people engaged. When people become disenfranchised with the political system, they tend to gravitate towards extremist parties as we have seen. In the last 25 years, just about everything has been reformed in Britain except the political system.

The first speaker was David Cameron. It pains me to say it but he came across really quite well. Enthusiastic and eloquent, he endorsed most of the Power Inquiry’s findings and where he didn’t he gave his reasons (no Dave the Chameleon nonsense). His main disagreement was on the need for proportional representation. He prefers the first-past-the-post system even though he accepted it had its problems and thought they could be remedied by having primaries to choose candidates like in America. The reasons he gave was that the link between an MP and his constituency was important and it was a clear decisive win that led to a stable government that could be easily thrown out at a later time. I beg to differ.

However, he recognised the problems with current political system and pointed out that many in Westminster still don’t get it and play lip service to political reform while being in denial. He repeated Helena’s observations that the ‘apathy’ line was a myth and added other examples of the political engagement away from voting. He disagreed that people were put off because the parties are all the same and that there was no choice and said that consensus was a good thing provided that genuine differences are expressed and that there are other mechanisms for making choices. Again, I disagree, although I take his point that a wide gulf between the political parties is not a reliable indicator of political health.

Mr Cameron is strongly opposed to compulsory voting. “Voting, to me, is a right, and not voting should never be a crime. The state is our servant and not our master and to me compulsory voting ranks along compulsory identity cards as being a danger...” The rest of that was drowned out by applause.

David Cameron said he has set up a democracy task force that will look in to the findings of the Power Inquiry. He also suggested that free votes in Parliament would help the situation of rebalancing the power between whips and backbenchers. He also wants to reduce the Royal prerogative and let Parliament vote on issues like going to war. Another idea he had was to have elected police chiefs to spread democracy at a local level.

After his speech, Mr Cameron stayed on to take questions from the audience before the conference broke up for a coffee break and various breakout sessions. I went to the Charter 88 Direct Democracy: Ideas for Citizen Power. It was held by Ron Baily (Charter 88), Douglas Carswell MP (Conservative Party), Pam Giddy (Power Inquiry), Chris Huhne MP (Liberal Democrats) and Bruno Kaufmann (Institute for Referenda & Initiatives). I have to say, it wasn’t particularly illuminating.

After Lunch it was Sir Menzies Campbell’s turn to speak. Obviously, he was not as dynamic as Cameron but, I did find myself agreeing with him more. He embraced pretty much all the recommendations in the Power Inquiry, and he was far more angry with the “creeping authoritarianism” of the current government.

The Lib Dems have a much better track record for campaigning on issues like proportional representation so Ming was on safe ground here. He too argued for a Parliamentary vote before going to war and greater use of referenda. He also argued strongly for ending central party control over funding and caps on donations, stating that parties would work harder if they knew the tax payer was funding the campaigns at the ballot box by nominating which party or none gets some cash as the Power Inquiry recommends.

Unsurprisingly, Ming too announced that his party was setting up a new working group on “citizenship and better government” which would be looking into the findings of the Power Inquiry. He also argued for the right of citizens to set up hearings and public inquiries into public bodies. One new thing that Ming announced was his intention to use technology to bring these issues to a wider audience. In the week before the next party conference, the Lib Dems will hold an on-line virtual conference to which everyone is invited to discuss these issues. What Sir Menzies seems to be advocating is a mixture of representative democracy, proportional representation and a bit of direct democracy thrown in for good measure. While this might sound messy and well, lets face it, quite Lib Dem, it is actually a realistic proposition. Electoral reform isn't going to happen overnight. It will be a slow continuing process, and no one system has all the answers; all three systems have their stregnths and weaknesses. This is also what the Power Inquiry recommends.

Ming too, stayed after his speech and answered questions from the audience, before a tea break. The Afternoon wound up with a 'question time' session on the subject of Prospects for Democratic Change. The Panel consisted of nick Boles(Director, The Policy Exchange), Helena Kennedy QC (Chair, Power Commission), Saira Kahn (Businesswoman, TV Presenter, Author), ED Milband MP (Former Advisor to Gordon Brown and the only New Labour representative there) and Peter Tatchell (Human Rights Campaigner). It was an entertaining way to wrap up the conference. I wish the audio I recorded wasn't such bad quality because I would have liked to have posted it here, but unlike the 'real' question time there was more agreement that things need to change. I almost felt sorry for Ed Miliband being the only Labour MP.

It really is appalling that neither Tony Blair nor Gordon Brown accepted the invitation to join the other party leaders at the conference. It was a case for once of the elephant not being in the room, and speaks volumes about their commitment to democracy and electoral reform. I might not necessarily always agree with David Cameron or Menzies Campbell, but I respect them for giving up a Saturday to come and discuss important issues with real people. And Helena Kennedy QC is a star.

*UPDATE*

I should have mentioned this before, but I'm doing it now. The last thing that was said from the Power Inquiry Conference was that their work is done. The report is out. They will still do more conferences but now it is up to us the people to spread the word. Politicians don't like giving away power, it has to be taken back, not violently, but by spreading the word and campaigning ourselves. We can use the media, blogs, and yes, politics to get the message across that reform is long overdue. Eventually it will become an unstoppable force, but only if we make it happen. That's democracy!

*ANOTHER UPDATE*

For those who were unable to attend the conference, there will be an opportunity to see recorded highlights on BBC Parliament on Saturday 13 May from 9:00 pm - 11:00 pm. If you can't receive BBC Parliament, you can still watch it on-line from the BBC Parliament website.

More bloggage here, here, and here.
Media coverage here and here

Tags: Democracy, UK Politics, Power Inquiry