 |
 |
|
 Who Runs Britain Vote 2005
Who runs Britain? That’s the question we’re asking in this year’s Today Programme Christmas poll. We’ve invited three ‘bloggers’ to follow the arguments. Read their biographies.
You can also comment on the blogs on our message boards:
____________________________________
Monday 19 December: OLIVER KAMM
The discussion among John Sergeant, John Cole and Julia Langdon was somewhat disjointed rather than being on the theme of a single agent of power. In rough summary, Sergeant and Cole argued around the point that many immense changes in British society have taken place without any reference to politics or Parliament. Ms Langdon maintained that power really lies in what she called the interplay between different institutions, often unobserved by the public.
Given that there is no definitive answer (other than "no one") to the question "who controls Britain ?", all of the panellists' points are right in their own way. Certainly there has been a shift in public attitudes, over just a generation, to social issues such as the structure of the family, race relations or homosexuality. On almost all such issues, Britain has become a more tolerant place concerning difference. This has huge cultural significance: one has only to compare the language of popular culture now compared with the 1970s, when racial and sexual stereotypes were a staple of television sitcoms. People will have different views on these cultural changes (I regard them as an unequivocal advance in the quality of public life), but the important point is that they have taken place at a more fundamental level than just legislative changes.
Nonetheless, the role of politics is important in the formation of this public mood. One can see this by comparing British society with the United States . I am a strong Atlanticist and admirer of America 's political culture. But one aspect of American politics that I regard as damaging is the judicial influence in policy-making (a point that John Cole touched on). I support permissive abortion legislation, but regard the management of this issue in the US - a constitutional right to abortion, enshrined in the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade judgement of 1973 - as damaging to civic culture. In removing from the political arena a subject on which many people have strong religious and conscientious objections, and attempting instead to sublimate it in the language of rights, the American system has rendered the abortion controversy incapable of negotiated resolution. The British approach to abortion - legislation by majority vote in Parliament - is, I am convinced, a much better route to social reform and to the creation of social consensus.
Julia Langdon's remarks replicate the notion of 'the hidden wiring' - the title of a book by Peter Hennessy on the structure of the (unwritten) British constitution. It is true that much of consequence is decided by convention rather than anything that can be codified. But the 'interplay of institutions' appears to me to be rather weak, and I wish it were more robust. An increasingly corrosive part of our political culture is the ceding of power from Westminster to pressure groups (or NGOs, as they are euphemistically known). The present government is particularly good at creating 'public consultations' that, while sounding an unexceptionable way of seeking the insights of civil society, are an ideal arrangement for the loudest sectional interests to exercise unaccountable power. Deliberative democracy is continually menaced by what James Madison, in his Federalist Paper 51, termed "the mischief of faction". This is a more important (and destructive) source of power than anything mentioned by Ms Langdon.
Go BACK TO 'WHO RUNS BRITAIN' main page
 Back to Reports Homepage
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
