At an event at the Edelman London offices earlier this week – co-hosted with Editorial Intelligence and the Reuters Institute of Journalism – we discussed whether or not the Fourth Estate was in permanent decline? Many were trumpeting the Parliamentary expenses scandal as a victory for a (resurgent) media. I, however, would prefer to see this as a mid- to long-term victory for the citizen.
In Citizen Renaissance, we argue the urgent need for major constitutional reform. It is a theme I have returned to many times before. The greatest disappointment of Blair’s decade was his failure, in the heady days of ’97, to press forward with the recommendations of the Jenkins commission. I remember one of my first forays into politics in the early 1980s – sitting alongside David Owen who, when asked what his first act would be as Prime Minister (well, we were all optimists as well as idealists then), replied: ‘rip out the benches; introduce a more civilized amphitheatre of debate’.
Britain’s continued and childish approach to adversarial politics encapsulates a bankrupt and non-representative system – one in which the mysteriously titled ‘Fees Office’ apparently sanctions the cleansing of moats and the creation of duck islands; and where ‘flipping’ is tax evasion by another name. The real victory for the citizen in this past fortnight’s events will be in the emergence of a visible, transparent and wholly accountable system of payments – one where salaries are realistic ; and where expenses are not used as some sort of antediluvian top-up scam. The Fourth Estate may have waved its sword over the last ten days. But that’s sword’s thrust must fall in favour of the citizen. Now, like never before, is the time for an elected Upper Chamber and a reform of the Commons to a smaller, tighter and proportionately representative group.
Likewise, there is real citizen optimisim to be found in today’s ruling in favour of Lumley’s Gurkhas. I was happy to comment to the BBC on why I thought Joanna got it right. But, again, the underlying victory here is for the wisdom of the crowd and the sanity of the citizen. There is of course a genuine moral rectitude in the Gurkhas’ claim – and this is what popular opinion recognized, however much they equally enjoyed giving Woolas or Brown a fair hiding.
Back in February, as part of the We Are Names Not Numbers symposium, I enjoyed a healthy conversation with a very senior political luminary. He felt that the Citizen Renaissance argument was one for direct democracy at the expense of that of a more representative kind. It made him nervous. My argument then, and now, is that a true citizen renaissance must serve as a reforming force for our representative system. Those leaders who deny the citizen opportunity are otherwise complicit in an anachronistic and failing system – one in which moats, duck islands and flipping are de rigeur, rather than outrageous offences against the progressive force of a mature democracy.
