Salisbury Democracy Alliance

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  • Consultation on Climate policy

    In response to a proposal by Wiltshire Council to consult on their climate policy, the following letter was published in the Salisbury Journal on 9 September 2021.

    [The Journal] reported that Wiltshire Council has launched a consultation on its Climate Strategy (Consultation on council’s Climate Strategy now live, 2nd September). Although engagement with the public is always to be welcomed, we question however whether this is the best way to get a proper and balanced view on this important subject.

    Salisbury Democracy Alliance has argued that a much better approach would be achieved by using a citizens’ assembly. This method selects a truly representative group of people who then meet over a period of three weekends and, advised by experts, discuss the topic in some considerable depth.

    This method has been applied very successfully in several parts of the UK and among its most notable successes have been in Northern Ireland.

    The problem with the consultation proposed by Wiltshire Council is that it will attract the ‘usual suspects’ and those with vested interests to protect or promote. It also limits views to those put before them by the council and hence might inhibit new thinking.

    Climate – as we have seen around the world in recent months – is a hugely important subject and merits a properly organised citizens’ assembly which will provide a genuine and informed contribution to policy formulation. Importantly, it will demonstrate proper involvement by citizens and counter any belief that this is another set of policies which the council is imposing on them.

    Peter Curbishley

  • Democracy Café: August 2021

    The two chosen topics were: Do humans have the will to tackle climate change? and, What impact does concentrated ownership have on local newspapers?

    Two of the problems highlighted early on were, firstly, the sheer scale of climate change such that it seemed too big for us to process and the other brought in the issue of short termism in our political system.  But it was suggested that part of the problem was the framing of the topic. It was often portrayed in a binary way – either we will save humanity or there will be catastrophe, whereas climate change can be mitigated and the damage limited.

    An allegory that proved to be popular suggested that there were three monsters with government in the centre flanked by business and the media, all three wallowing in the mire of money.

    On the other hand, it was also thought that you needed to tackle the problem from both ways, from the individual and from the power dynamics of the three-headed monster.  The participants’ attention was drawn to Drawdown which analyses problems associated with climate change and the solutions – only two of which out of the top 20 were things that we could do as individuals.

    It was suggested that we needed to engage more people in the issue and one way was through deliberative democracy and, in particular, Citizens’ Juries, which is something that Salisbury Democracy Alliance has been campaigning for for many years.   One topic that could benefit from such an approach was the ill-fated People Friendly Streets.

    Another way of engaging people is through and online tool called Pol.is which enables open ended feedback from large numbers of people and is used very successfully in Taiwan.

    The second question revolved around the fate of local newspapers and the impact of their ownership by a small number of giant corporations.  The Salisbury Journal, for example, is owned by Newsquest – the second biggest newspaper conglomerate in the UK, which itself is owned by the giant USA-based Gannett.

    It was suggested that if you looked at public information as a market square, then before the internet papers like the Journal would have occupied the entire square. But since the advent of the internet and the reduction of journalistic standards created by the business model, that dominance has been eroded to the extent that the Journal occupies just one small stall and the rest of the space is taken up with various, often overlapping groups on social media.

    One of the major problems associated with this, it was pointed out, was the lack of independent, trusted provision of credible, unbiased information and facts, of the sort once provided by local newspapers but now under threat by their diminished status and capability.

    One solution to this could be the creation of groups like Salisbury-based The See Through News Newspaper Review Project. It was pointed out, however, that a deeper problem was the philosophical and cultural undermining of the concept of truth itself, particularly with the rise and dominance of post-modernist thinking. Nevertheless, work like the project was vital as part of the fight back to truth – along with deliberative democracy and Citizens’ Juries.

    Dickie Bellringer

  • Democracy Café: July

    The chosen topic this month was ‘how to repair our broken society?’ The question was inspired by recent feelings of divisions in society which seem quite deep and unbridgeable. There was a sense that since 2008 it had got worse. Everyone seemed to be looking for scapegoats and Covid seemed to have made it worse still. We were reminded it wasn’t just the UK: look at the USA and the events surrounding the Trump presidency. On PBS TV the previous night, there was a programme about anarchist groups in the USA and their role in the storming of the Capitol. The far right seemed to be making progress in several countries, for instance, Hungary.

    Opinion seemed more polarised. One person felt that the right wing had become more radical and that if you believed in broadly left wing causes you were somehow deemed unpatriotic. Those who shouted the loudest were the ones who got heard. This seemed to create sense of tribalism. There were likely to be large numbers of people on the other hand, who were perhaps the silent majority whose voices were not always heard.

    Inevitably social media was mentioned and the way it was able to magnify voices and to create echo chambers. However, it was pointed out that this media did give the opportunity for people, who previously may not have been able to get their views across, to express themselves. Anonymity emboldened people it was noted. Perhaps there was a need for more curiosity it was suggested and the need for people to deliberately explore alternative views to break out of (their) echo chamber.

    Brexit made an appearance and it was noted that friendships had ended because of it and families were also fractured. It seems that not just society was broken but there were breaks at the individual level as well.

    Was it something to do with how the brain works someone wondered? The world was complex and yet we needed simple solutions to enable to understand and make sense of it.

    Should ideas and methods of self-analysis be taught at school? Surrounded by all this ‘noise,’ children and young people needed these skills to be able to question what was coming at them.

    The concept of the topic was questioned. ‘Repair’ implied that the society was once whole and unbroken and was now in need of repair. Our society has always been divided and in a sense broken. There have always been powerful people and groups who controlled the levers of power. For centuries we were essentially feudal. The industrial revolution created huge disparities in wealth and enormous poverty and misery for the majority. Burke’s concept of ‘little platoons’ was mentioned in this regard.

    The conclusion was that although we lived in peaceful times (according to Stephen Pinker) we are perhaps more divided now.

    The second question was: ‘Are we all hypocrites, if so does it matter and can it be beneficial?’ The first point to clear up was the meaning of the word ‘hypocrite’. One definition has it that a hypocrite is someone who expresses certain moral, political or religious beliefs whose actions belie those beliefs. The second, more common use is simply someone who fails to live up to their expressed moral beliefs and it is the second definition that the question was intended.

    It was argued that in this sense the gap between beliefs and action can act as an incentive to close the gap. An example given was someone who is persuaded by moral and environmental arguments against eating meat but continues to eat meat. However, this hypocritical position may encourage the person to eat less meat and then only free range – maybe eventually given up meat altogether.

    A wide-ranging deliberation followed that took in motivations and intentions and freewill versus determinism. One interesting question was whether we can ever know our motivations and desires because they spring unbidden from our unconscious. This prompted a common thread about self-awareness to the extent that the more you know about yourself more likely it is that you might be able to identify your motivations and intentions and choose the ones you want to deploy. Self-awareness, it was claimed, enables you to make the change you want to make.

    Another interesting suggestion was that you should stop worrying about your intentions and consider only the impact of your actions on the grounds that good intentions on their own are not enough because they can go horribly wrong. There was also some discussion about whether all intentions are in some sense egoistic or self-centred or whether at least some can be altruistic in nature.

    It was pointed out that we were in danger of letting politicians off the hook for being hypocrites because they are human like the rest of us, but perhaps that referred to the first definition of hypocrisy rather than the second.

    The last word goes to the political journalist Michael Gerson: “Being a moral person is a struggle which everyone repeatedly fails, becoming a hypocrite in each of those moments. A just and peaceful society depends on hypocrites who ultimately refuse to abandon the ideals they betray.”

    Peter Curbishley; Dickie Bellringer

  • Citizens’ Jury: progress

    One of the projects the Alliance is keen to progress is to hold a Citizens’ Jury in Salisbury. The idea is to assemble a randomly chosen group of people to discuss a particular problem or topic in some depth. Advised by experts in the topic, the group comes together over several weekends and aims to come to some kind of conclusion. The idea is particularly useful with those knotty and difficult issues which can divide communities sometimes for many years. Salisbury has several of those for example, traffic, pedestrianisation and how the city should adapt to climate change. Views can become entrenched and often detached from any rational examination of the evidence.

    At a meeting of the core group today, we heard of the progress being made. Several political parties have CJs in their manifesto. A meeting was held with Kendal Town Council who held a jury on the topic of climate. Kendal is relevant because they are a parish council like Salisbury.

    We discussed the prospects for funding through the Area Board. We also considered how we could secure a majority of councillors keen to support the idea. On that front, progress is being made although there are some councillors who are not in favour. In view of recent voting results, there may be more of a groundswell of support by people who feel their views were being ignored and this in turn may be reflected in some politician’s attitudes.

    Further meetings are due to be held to see if the idea can be progressed into an actual project. For now, we can say there is cautious optimism that we may be successful in securing agreement and funding for a jury to be held.

    PC

  • Democracy Café: June 2021

    A discussion on ‘Wokeness’ and then the role of charities in society

    Woke has become a political factor which is being used to try and divide people into ‘woke’ and those who are not. One of the features of the new channel to be launched tomorrow (13 June 2021), GB News run by Andrew Neil, is to host debates and provide a platform to counter the claimed domination of our existing media by wokeness.

    One of the politicians promoting the ‘war on woke’ is the Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, who has issued instructions to cultural institutions saying the government does not support the removal of statues (a serious issue in 2020 in Bristol and elsewhere), that approach to contested heritage should be in line with the government’s position, reminding them of the spending review and asking for them to notify the department in advance of any actions or public statements in relation to contested heritage and history.

    The issue has also flared up in connection with ‘taking the knee’ at football matches. The government refused to condemn the booing which took place at a recent match when players kneeled. It was noted that the England Gareth Southgate asked players if they wanted to do this and the response was unanimously ‘yes’. It was suggested the discord it engendered was ‘manna from heaven’ for the government who wanted to create a divide.

    What does woke mean? One definition is: having an active awareness of systemic injustices and prejudices, especially those related to civil, racial and human rights. Which seems harmless enough but there is an attempt to make it sound like something you shouldn’t have. There was a deliberate tactic it was suggested to bring in other factors, such as defund the police, to add to the criticism.

    In this connection, the process of diversity training was mentioned and how some organisations see it as ‘a joke’. A YouTube video was mentioned called White Fragility in which the author discusses the reaction and responses to racism among white people in the USA. It seems the antipathy was based on fear. This was especially so in America where there is genuine concern that the white population will be in the minority in around two decades time. This fear was also evident in the UK where, although the numbers were a lot smaller, there was still this worry about being taken over or ‘swamped’ by refugees and immigrants. The recent debates about slavery had also caused mixed responses: some felt it was appropriate that this unsavoury part of our past should be discussed and brought into the open. Others (in the wider public) felt it was all in the past and we should ‘move on’. In this connection, a post on the Salisbury Soap Box Facebook page which said: No white person alive today ever owned a slave. No black person alive today was ever a slave. We can’t move forward if people want to keep living in the past was mentioned and the fact it had been ‘liked’ well over a hundred times, presumably by mostly Salisbury people. Many people had written to object to the post but it did reveal an attitude of mind.

    The murder of George Floyd in the USA – and the Black Lives Matter movement which it spawned – had changed the world. We were reminded on the Rodney King attack a quarter of a century ago where a black man had been savagely beaten by police who were subsequently acquitted resulting in riots. This time, the policeman was convicted of his death.

    Someone mentioned seeing a poster displayed in a house saying ‘British values: kindness’. This drew the immediate response that victims of slavery, those conquered in the pursuit of empire, and victims of the opium trade in China may not see it is as particular British quality. It also rather implied that non-British people were unkind.

    The second half of the session debated the relationship between the state and charities from the point of view of who does what. One view was that charities like Help for Heroes should not exist as charities: the government sent soldiers into theatres of war and it has a duty to look after them if they are injured. Using a charity partially absolved the government and the MoD from this duty. It was suggested that this was part of the Conservative philosophy of small government and low taxes. The Cameron notion of the Big Society was mentioned. What did happen to that?

    It was also felt that basic needs – housing, health, education and transport were instanced – should be the responsibility of government since it was important that all citizens had reasonable access to these things. Prof Guy Standing suggests that it ‘was a way to procure services on the cheap, transferring activities done by professional employees to those on precarious contracts and ‘volunteers”. He notes that half charity’s income comes from government. It was suggested that charitable activity should be ‘icing on the cake’ not the whole cake.

    It was pointed out that disposition of charities was very uneven around the country. The prosperous south had large numbers of people who could afford the time to devote to a cause. In poorer parts of the country, where the need was greatest, had fewer people able to devote such time.

    Looking at what charities do reveals that there are popular causes which attract huge sums and other causes which are less popular which struggle to raise money. It was very uneven. A look at the top charities in the UK shows 4 animal charities in the top 20 for example. It was also noted that in the area of disability, the under 18s had fairly generous provision, but once they reached 18, this abruptly stops. Giving was strongly influenced by emotional factors rather than on need.

    Another issue was billionaires who sponsored causes close to their hearts. This meant who got help depended on the beliefs of these individuals not on what society felt might be needed. Many paid no tax so that denied the ability of government to offer more help.

    Charities did however enable people to offer help and this was a good thing in itself.

    We moved onto the question of who helps Syrian refugees for example – should it be the state or charities? Our response was compared unfavourably to Portugal. The worry was expressed that if we were too welcoming this would act as a draw and more would come. Our performance in this regard can be seen on the UNHCR site which discusses some of the myths and misinformation which is common in the press and elsewhere. There was no ‘regular’ way for refugees to enter the country.

    Finally, it was noted that it was harder for charities to make problems known because of recent legislation designed to limit lobbying. This has had a ‘chilling effect’ on the ability of charities to voice concerns on behalf of the causes and people they represented. So although charities were playing an important role in society, legislation made it hard for them to speak about it.

    Two interesting debates and for once, not closely related.

    Books mentioned:

    The Precariat, Guy Standing, 2011, Bloomsbury

    Black and British: A Forgotten History, David Olusoga, 2021, Picador

    Not mentioned but readers may find this book interesting in relation to our slaving history:

    The Interest: How the British Establishment Resisted the Abolition of Slavery, Michael Taylor, 2020, The Bodley Head

    Peter Curbishley

  • Democracy Café: May

    This meeting took place via Zoom the day after the results were known of the Hartlepool by-election and of some of the local election results as well. The Hartlepool election was a significant win for the Conservatives in what had been long regarded as a safe Labour seat. They won by a significant margin and with a big swing to the party. (We were reminded in the Sunday papers that the captain of HMS Amethyst in the ‘Yangtze Incident’ was the first to be MP when the constituency was formed).

    This prompted the winning topic of discussion: Why do people vote Tory? The government – and Boris Johnson personally – had for weeks been mired in a variety of sleaze allegations the most recent of which was the huge cost of redecorating the No 10 flat using money allegedly from a Conservative party donor. This had resulted in a number of enquiries being set up to establish the facts. Previously, there had been the Greensill lobbying saga involving the previous prime minister, David Cameron, and before that a series of allegations of contracts being given to friends, acquaintances or supporters of the party and its ministers, the so-called ‘chumocracy’. Despite this, and other shortcomings including one of the worst per capita Covid-19 death rates, the Conservatives romped home to a comfortable victory and made significant gains in the English local elections as well.

    One participant kicked off with a series of ideas about why this was the case. They thought:

    • politics was no longer about facts but a matter of style. There was a link to the game of ‘cavalier and roundheads‘
    • politics was more about show business and by inference, Boris Johnson was brilliant at this
    • there was a high degree of ignorance about how politics worked
    • the first past the post voting system made the system as a whole dysfunctional
    • politics was now the province of ‘mountebanks and snake oil salesmen‘

    To which someone added:

    • The election had to be seen in context, similar to war time, people opt for safety first. Later, it was suggested it was a kind of ‘Falkland’s moment’ not forgetting that until the time of that war, Mrs Thatcher was really struggling to make headway.
    • there was a high degree of pragmatism as the government had aimed to give them what they wanted eg the freeport with its promise of lots of jobs for the area. An interview in the town revealed that the vaccine success was a major factor (and could have mentioned that in a Brexit supporting town, the poor performance in the EU with their vaccination programme was also a factor).

    It was quickly pointed out that the Conservatives were not being that true to their core beliefs at present. They were a party of small government, low public spending, low regulation and the pre-eminence of the free market. The pandemic meant they were spending heavily, printing money and engaged in considerable government activity, the very opposite of the austerity years.

    It was also pointed out that voting Conservative was a ‘respectable’ thing to do. Some thought voting Conservative was risk averse and that once the pandemic had faded from view, the problems of Brexit will resurface. On the other hand, statements by various ministers that the sleaze stories had not made an impact (not ‘cut through’) with the public were described as shameful. Sleaze did not seem to matter because the public were not interested. Whatever happened to integrity?

    It was not long before Labour’s performance was brought up and Sir Keir Starmer was thought disappointing although it was pointed out he had been unable to campaign in person because of the pandemic. He is seen as dull. What Labour stood for was also very unclear.

    Back to Hartlepool and it was noted that the area had changed significantly over the years. It used to be a solid working class town whereas now it was trendy and gentrified with a social mix that had changed considerably. Had Labour recognised this change both here and elsewhere? The election had focused on the pandemic and Boris Johnson is seen as successful in having led a successful vaccination programme many believed. The easing of lockdown also brought a feelgood factor into play.

    The Conservatives will be emboldened by these election results. A worry was that a range of restrictive legislation will be quickly enacted. Restrictions on Judicial Review, the risk of being arrested and acquiring a criminal record for campaigning, and immunity for some wrongdoings by military personnel, together with harsher immigration and refugee regimes were all likely to proceed at pace. A voter ID system will further entrench their hold. It was pointed out that many of these policies are very popular among the public. Reductions in overseas aid for example received overwhelming support.

    Part of our discussion focused on the notion of a change from a ‘we society’ to a ‘me society’. People were less and less interested in collective solutions and more on what they could do for themselves. To an extent this struck at the heart of the Labour party project.

    Another factor was short-termism. Attention spans were short and by the time facts became known, we had all moved on. It makes changing policy week by week that much easier. Whatever happened to the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ for example which was a key policy less than a decade ago? An enquiry into what happened with Covid will not report until people have long forgotten what took place. An article by Vince Cable on this topic was recommended. It was a piece about short-termism and its relation to actions on climate change.

    Bearing in mind the strange times and the dominance of Covid and the vaccination programme, will a return to ‘normal’ politics see people changing their minds? Maybe, but it was noted that people are very slow to change their minds. Will concerns about Brexit begin to take over from the pandemic in a few months?

    I am not sure we ended up getting to the bottom of these events. The Conservatives have done well to sell themselves with snappy slogans such as ‘levelling up,’ ‘take back control’ and ‘Get Brexit done’ which have served them well. Thinking of a Labour or LibDem equivalent is hard. The successful vaccination programme and easing of lockdown has also served them well. Hartlepool was a keen Brexit town and Boris Johnson has delivered on that front. Labour’s choice of a pro-Remain candidate seemed ill-judged. But whether this will last is another matter. The Jersey fishing dispute – which happened a day or two before the election – is perhaps a taste of what is to come.

    A recommended website which was mentioned in discussions is: https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/ Another site with Covid facts is https://covidfaq.co

    Peter Curbishley

  • Trusting the people

    On several occasions on this site we have talked about Citizens’ Assemblies or Citizens’ Juries where a carefully and randomly selected group of people come together to discuss a topic of local interest. They have been used more and more around the world to try and find solutions to those tricky decisions that can so divide communities. People have great faith in democracy the assumption being that electing people who believe in certain things will result in good government, local or national. A quick look around us should have put paid to that belief.

    Shortly, we shall be having local elections. We have been trying to persuade the various local parties to include CAs in their manifestos with some success. A letter by Dickie Bellringer in today’s Salisbury Journal (29 April 2021) discusses progress so far:

    “There is one political party holding out against People Power in the upcoming local elections – the Conservatives. Before last week’s online candidates’ hustings , organised by the Salisbury Transition City, two Parties – Labour and the LibDems – had already committed to the idea of Citizens’ Assemblies in their manifestos.

    “LibDem candidate Victoria Charleston confirmed that commitment during the debate. The idea is in the Green Party’s national manifesto and the Green candidate Rick Page nailed his Party’s flag to the local Citizens’ Assembly mast.

    “Independent candidate Annie Riddle said we would needed to develop more grass roots democracy including CAs. We don’t know yet what the other Independents think. And Labour’s Clare Moody and Green’s Sarah Prinsloo made the important point, in answer to a question about how to educate people sufficiently to take part in CAs, that participants received information from expert witnesses so that they can make informed decisions.

    “At Salisbury Democracy Alliance we have kept the flame flickering for Citizens’ Assemblies over the past four years despite a cold wind of indifference from the Conservatives – apart from a glimmer of hope when the former City Council leader Jeremy Nettle warmed to the idea.

    “There was, however, silence from the Conservatives on the issue at the hustings and there is nothing in their manifesto. So, if the Conservatives don’t change their minds and if you don’t want to live under what Conservative peer Lord Hailsham called ‘elective dictatorship‘ don’t vote Conservative!”

    Dickie Bellringer is a member of SDA

    Peter Curbishley

  • What does -‘Independent’ mean?

    Increasingly frustrated by poor decisions being taken by local politicians in Salisbury, several people are standing as independents in the forthcoming May elections. Here, SDA member Dickie Bellringer cautions getting too carried away with the idea that independents will automatically solve problems in a letter to the Salisbury Journal two weeks ago.

    “AS a member of Salisbury Democracy Alliance (SDA) and the Labour Party, I welcome independents who want to stand in local elections.  However, it should be pointed out that the description ‘independent’ is not necessarily the same as the description ‘apolitical’.  All independence means for sure is that the candidate is not a member of a political party. It may mean that they are also apolitical in the sense of having no interest in politics but this is not guaranteed.

    “In other words, independents may be just as political as members of political parties – we just don’t know what those politics are. And, by the way, Labour does not have a whip on the city council.  Further, simply standing for election, whether as a member of a political party or not, does not mean you are partaking in a democratic process tout court.

    “It could be argued that what we have would be better described as representative government in which the wishes of the voting public are kept as far away from the policy decision-making process as possible.  Which is why SDA is campaigning for Citizens’ Assemblies in which members of the public are randomly selected to deliberate and advise elected representatives on important local issues.

    “To date two political parties – Labour and the Lib Dems – are known to have included Citizens’ Assemblies in their manifestos as part of their plans for more open local government.

    “Let’s inject some real democracy into our community!”

    Dickie Bellringer

  • People power

    This is the title of a letter from our chair published in the Salisbury Journal on Thursday 15 April 2021 on the subject of Citizens’ Assemblies.

    It is time to restore the faith of the citizens of Salisbury in the political process.  To that end, it is heartening to see so many candidates for the City and County elections to be held on May 6th embracing the idea of giving a voice to a wide cross section of the citizens of Salisbury.  Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and Independent candidates have all pledged their support for the idea of Citizens’ Assemblies or Citizens’ Juries to consider deeply issues like how to meet the climate emergency or how to revitalise our city centre.  The Conservatives are the notable exception.  Have they not learned that they need to restore the faith of the citizens of Salisbury after their shabby treatment of us in recent years?

    Members of Citizens’ Assemblies/Juries  are chosen by a process called ‘sortition‘, where letters are sent out inviting citizens to participate and those who respond positively are then chosen at random to be representative of the make up or our community in terms of income level, ethnicity, gender and age.  The citizens who are chosen to attend are paid to attend much like a jury in a trial.  This process ensures that people who would not normally be engaged in such issues are give n the means to participate.  

    The participants study the evidence from all sides and make recommendations for our community which are not based on political dogma, sectional interests or personal favour.  Councillors – for all their commitment and hard work – rarely have the opportunity to focus so closely on one issue, hear from the experts scrutinise the evidence and work collaboratively with others to make fully informed recommendations.  This deliberative process is being used in communities throughout the world.   A recent OECD report covered 300 examples world wide.

    Why will the Conservatives at both city and county level not back a process which gives power to members of our community in Salisbury?  We have seen the consequences of poor decision making by the councils for our city.  It is time to restore power to our community. 

    Dr Mark Potts

    Chair of Salisbury Democracy Alliance

  • Democracy Café – April

    The chosen topic this month was ‘have we become inured to corruption in the UK?’ The question was posed following a fairly long stream of events over the past year or so but with little in the way of reaction and no resignations in prospect. The planning row with Robert Jenrick; the same minister awarding funds from the Towns Fund to his fairly prosperous constituency in a secret process; contracts awarded to a range of individuals without due process, some of whom are Conservative party funders; Boris Johnson and the Jennifer Arcuri influence case, and most recently, the Greensill saga and David Cameron’s attempts at influencing the Chancellor and other Treasury ministers to award it funds before the firm’s collapse. A lengthy but incomplete list. The question though, was why no fuss? Why no resignations, nor indeed any shame? Has sleaze actually become the new norm?

    It was suggested that it probably started back in the days of the Blair government when the practice of employing large numbers of outside consultants got under way. They were brought in to advise on some quite ludicrous tasks such how to communicate with other departments.

    Was it the system itself which engendered corruption? The example of affordable housing allocations was given in which council planning officers meet developers to agree on what percentage of a development should be for affordable housing. This was done in private meetings. There was also an imbalance of power since the developers could afford a range of high quality advice whereas LPAs, following cuts, could not. The issue here was not corruption but a lack of democratic accountability. ‘Democracy dies in darkness’ someone noted.

    Expectations of our politicians is lower now. There was a general discussion around whether there has always been a degree of corruption but the media in previous times had not published it for a variety of reasons. The argument went both ways on this. The example of Peter Oborne at the Daily Telegraph was quoted who exposed HSBC’s bank for the wealthy in Geneva to enable them to hide funds from the taxman. This was spiked because HSBC was a major advertiser and Oborne resigned. Not many other journalists could afford to do this however. There have been a series of articles in the media about the ‘chumocracy’ the word itself having entered the language. It had been quite widely reported including in the Sunday Times. The extent of it was much greater now however. The sums involved ran into millions.

    Was it because it didn’t affect the local population much? A worry was that a common response was ‘they [politicians] are all the same’. This meant people did not feel a change would not have any effect – just a different set of politicians with their noses in the trough. Another problem was that some of it involved esoteric financial matters. Whereas people understood someone in their community who was a scrounger, the complex financial shenanigans of an organisation like Greensill Capital was less well understood.

    On the positive side, it was noted that young people did seem to be more interested these days.

    Was it because that politicians were drawn from a narrow pool? This was a reference to the public school sense of entitlement and simply not recognising that there was anything wrong with the behaviour. Once upon a time, it would lead to resignation – now it didn’t. Profumo was mentioned and in particular, that he did not expect to be ‘outed’ in the media because of the old boy network and was genuinely surprised when it went public and became a major scandal.

    The media came up again and someone said they found watching or listening to the interviews quite difficult these days because obvious questions were not asked. Andrew Marr was mentioned as someone who was too soft on interviewees.

    The theme of the effect of corruption on our democracy surfaced several times. There was real sense of crisis and how impossible it was to achieve change. Were we indeed heading for a fascist state? The opposition parties were weak and spent too much time in internal arguments it was said. There was some sign of life however, with Labour pressing for answers with the Greensill saga but there was a need for a progressive alliance to be formed to challenge the status quo. This was the theme of a Compass paper. The loss of so many One Nation Tories from the party was lamented. Too many sensible voices had been lost and recent events in Northern Ireland were almost certainly a direct result.

    The environment and the role of the public and democracy was discussed with the example of the proposed coal mine in Cumbria. This arose from a comment about the government’s desire to build its way out of our economic troubles. There were two sides to this argument it was noted: on the one hand, people didn’t really have much power since the planning system meant decisions were made on planning grounds only and relating to the various planning acts. Appeals went to the Secretary of State. On the other, local people wanted the mine because of the promise of economic prosperity – jobs etc. They seemed little concerned with the environment.

    The increase in populist governing was discussed. It was the case that MPs voted according to their consciences and their own judgement in the Burkean sense. Now they tended to see themselves as delegates and followed what they thought to be the popular will. Brexit was a case in point. The death penalty was an example where, left to MPs, it would never be re-introduced but if they followed the popular will, it could be voted back in. It was pointed out however that there was a narrow overall majority against its re-introduction.

    We then went on to discuss the second topic – do we have a free press? One answer straight away was that we had a reasonably free press but not an unbiased one. Another question was what facts? It was as much about the selection of which facts or stories to report as much as the facts or reporting itself. There was concern at great swathes of the media were owned by a handful of oligarchs who were free to push their agendas. It was noted however that newspapers were commercial enterprises and needed to sell their papers to be viable. If their views did not match those of their readers, then they would not sell. The views expressed in the tabloids especially, represented what many people thought and believed therefore.

    Examples included a front page story of someone given a £2m house in Kensington which was, it was claimed, biased. Another example was a photograph of an apparent nose to nose confrontation between a policeman and a protester. It was later revealed that the space between them had been cropped. The Battle for Orgreave was shown as the miners charging the police. It was later revealed that the footage had been reversed and the police had charged first. To this day however, the story of aggressive miners lives on. This reversal of footage was likely to have been a simple mistake however. These came up in the context of a biased media.

    The print media is in steady decline and it was social media in its various forms where many, especially younger – people obtained their news nowadays.

    A major point was the importance of distinguishing between opinion and facts ‘comment is free, facts are sacred’ as the Guardian puts it. Several newspapers make this clear distinction but others mix the two.

    ‘Balance’ was mentioned and in connection with the BBC in particular. The problem had been for a long time, climate scientists were put against climate denialists in debates who, although were for the most part not from the scientific community, made the discussion seem much more balanced than it actually was. The BBC no longer invites denialists onto these discussions following many protests.

    The two discussions were closely linked since what we believe and what we know is heavily influenced by the media. Bias or simply not reporting inconvenient news will distort our view of the world. However, the media is a collection of mostly commercial enterprises who have to sell their product to a sceptical public. To an extent therefore they are a window into what the majority believe and think. If that public is relaxed about corrupt goings on in Westminster, then that will be reflected in the coverage. Despite considerable media and political interest in the level of immigration, very little has been said about the potential for large numbers of Hong Kong Chinese to settle here.

    An interesting debate around two topics which were in the event closely related.

    We were delighted to welcome two new members to today’s discussion both of whom are hoping to set up democracy café events in their home area.

    Book mentioned: How Democracies Die, 2018, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Viking

    Peter Curbishley