Can I just say – I endorse many of the ideas central to this post, by Paul Evans?
Indeed, much of my post about Red Toryism (and my view more generally about the conservative task) is to regenerate our political being; my enthusiasm for localism (rightly understood) is very much one of enabling and encouraging people to come together again, and re-learn the art of being a community, working through disagreements to compromise.
For that reason, I do share some of Evans’ reservations about the Tory proposals for local government, especially the use of plebiscites on… well, just about anything. I also am not enamoured of elected police chiefs – they’ll either be toothless whingers or petty tyrants; elected executive mayors, however, I think have significant potential, given the changed nature of the relationship between bureaucracy and voter. (Much of the rest of the world seems to survive fine with them, as well.)
So, yes, I’m with Paul – for politics before any ideological principle. I think it was Martin Diamond who said that the American Founding Fathers designed their constitution on the premise that “the common people are usually sensible, but rarely wise” - and it’s a sound principle. Most people have, well, lives, which means that their engagement in politics is changeable, transient. We need a politics which engages them to understand their aims and aspirations, but as a part of dialogue, not to passively adjust.
Political institutions should be designed to achieve good government – decisive where it matters, deliberative where it doesn’t. Because of heated passions and concentrated interests, pure democratic majoritarianism doesn’t work* – referendums (I believe this was Thatch) “are devices of dictators and demagogues”.
I say all this, and I remember too that it was a Labour Government which, with the support of its members, brought us plebiscites on devolution in Scotland and Wales (the Welsh one passed with about a quarter of the electorate backing it), on local mayors, and a mania (as Evans alludes) for relentless consultation which undermined the political authority of local government institutions. I recall that it was a Labour Government which gave this country its only nationwide referendum (on membership of the EEC in 1975; this was the occasion for the Thatcher quote).
So, while I agree with Evans that the drift of Tory policy is “dangerous”, I can’t agree that it’s necessarily “reactionary”, except as maybe a gamble; indeed, typically, the notion of institutions providing pure democratic rule is something considered Left, progressive.
It may be that the times have changed and tables turned. Possibly, the unmet demands of democratic majorities (or, anyway, pluralities) now lean more to the concerns of the Right (increasing police authority, NIMBYism, taxcapping) than of the Left (redistributionism, diversity). This is probably part of why I’m enthusiastic for a political localism; that people, empowered to govern themselves, will typically help to regenerate our social and cultural fabric. But note that Evans and I (Left and Right) would seem able to find some consensus on means here, even as we may differ significantly on ends; so let’s not damn referendum madness as a sickness only (or even primarily) of the Right.
* Incidentally, because of transient engagement and our tendency to tribalise, proportional representation model tend to undermine good government; too often, they finish up approximating a proof of the Schmittian critique of Parliamentarism.
