Aye.
The irony of a call against powerful remote ‘elites’ being made by a powerful, remote ‘elite’ of the likes of Neal Lawson hasn’t gone unnoticed. And the effrontery to set the agenda, and position Compass as the platform stinks.
For such a movement to work and have any legitimacy, it needs 9among other things)
a) to be non-proprietary,
b) to have broadbased support before being launched
c) not to have the agenda set by the few
d) no conflicts of interest (i.e. nobody parachuted in as advisers etc to set it up)
e) not to be a platform for the grandstanding of the usual limelight-seeking suspects.

To quote their petition: “Power, for so long hidden in the pockets of a cosy elite, has been exposed. Those who wield it have been found wanting – in scruples, in morals and in decency.”

You don’t sort out structural problems by pointing to personality types, and the fact that they use this kind of language suggests they’re going to fail. Locating societal problems in a small imagined elite is a classic study in the art of going nowhere. I’d sign this if it didn’t display such bigotry and lack of regard to social complexity.

I’m in favour of anything that restores democracy to this corrupt cesspit of a country and this is potentially a great idea but the difficulty will be in the practicalities beyond getting the rich to cede one iota of the power they’ve bought.

Some rough examples: If the group is required to meet in a physical location rather than by post or internet, where do you put them? How do you ensure such a random sample isn’t disproportionately packed with the barking mad? How much independence would they have or would another elite prepare rigged proposals for them to vote on? How long would they serve? What punitive measures would be taken against the corrupt? How much would they be paid? What would be their responsibilities to the greater public? How would those who have existing jobs have enough time?

You could just abolish the House Of Lords and draw a thousand random names from the electoral register and let them serve for five or ten years with full autonomy, free of any stated party political alleigance.

It could work better by selecting at random a small group of say 20-30 from within the main group of a thousand to investigate each issue as it arises with the ability to direct a professional staff in order to create a report for the remainder of the group to vote on. Different groups being chosen to investigate each issue.

I do not know the political slant of many of the signatories, but any list that contains Polly Toynbee, Laura Pennie, Will Straw, and Dave Prentis will automatically alienate a broad swathe of opinion. Since it also involves the expenditure of taxpayers money, I would hazard a guess that this idea will die a quiet death.

I suppose the people putting forward the idea wouldn’t happen by any chance to want to sit on that Jury themselves?

It strikes me as another Fabian (so-called) progressive Left expression of the notion that they know best, and they should control what we plebs get up to.

Unfortunately for them I think the population at large would have some very diffrerent opinions to such jury…

As @1 said:

“The irony of a call against powerful remote ‘elites’ being made by a powerful, remote ‘elite’ of the likes of Neal Lawson hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

Nor do I imagine that involving the Fabians or, heaven forfend, “activist blogs” utterly unknown by 90% of the population, would be a particularly brilliant idea – how to lose friends and alienate people, start talking political strategy from the perspective of a Westminster village idiot (wonk).

The concept isn’t a bad one, but why only 1,000 people? A small jury reporting on matters is all very well, but it is too easily co-opted / corrupted by the kind of centralist, elitist arseholes that ruined things in the first place…

Citizens juries were actually introduced as Gordon Brown’s ‘big idea’ back in 2007 (borrowed from the US, of course). They soon became notable for their success in holding our banking elite to account for bankrupting the country, holding our media elite to account for industrial scale criminality and our policing elite to account for endemic corruption. I don’t know what we’d have done without them.

Hey, I’d support it, with one caveat:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/01/jury-out-on-elite-plan

“No one who has signed the letter, no one proposing this possibly desirable exercise, may take a paid position if and as the People’s Jury is created. Not in the secretariat, not in preparing evidence for the jury, not in presenting evidence to the jury, not in the preparation of research. No salary, expenses, research grants, nor even consideration for a public honour. All of the signatories will immediately agree to this restriction, as they are purely motivated by their sense of public duty. Similarly, all supporters will be willing to donate their expertise without payment as they will also be motivated by a sense of public duty.”

Of the groups you listed who have not been asked to support it, you missed one vital one. The People’s Front of Judea.

The jury will then be asked to consider whether or not academics and “think tank” CEOs have enough free time and a sufficient sense of their own importance.

The Compass campaign has come up with an answer to people’s anger before that anger is fully expressed. What if the public’s more profound concern is with corporate power as such rather than the elite’s disregard of the “public interest test” in dealing with it?

What will the wider public make of the agenda of the five issues the call sets out for the 1,000 strong citizens jury to deliberate upon? It is a list that stipulates in advance the great questions needed to be addressed to bring our masters to heel. But it omits liberty, the database state, the national question, immigration. And the EU as well, which is arguably undemocratic, corrupt and an influential aspect of elite control in the UK.

Quite. How did the campaigners arrive at the first five topics to study?

Media ownership and the public interest
The role of the financial sector in the crash
MP selections and accountability
Policing and public interest
How to apply a ‘public interest first’ test more generally to British political and corporate life

As far as I know they are not on the tops of people’s agendas except when they are respectively in the news.

I think Anthony Barnett’s just added another reason why Britain’s left are so useless. Adding political naivety to economic ignorance makes me wonder why people bother.

Look up the role of “institutions” in a basic-level political textbook, read Anthony Barnett’s fantastic books on the British system, and pretty much anything by Peter Hennessy.

There is a reason why politics isn’t run by a 1,000 people who know nothing; and it’s not because there is a conspiracy.

To broaden the appeal of such a citizen’s jury, they could always include bringing back the death penalty on the list

In essence is this not part of the big society ” getting the people involved scenario”.
Many of the rightists on the site (which seems to be the majority) have dismissed it out of hand because of where it has come from and who has signed up. A lit
tle closed minded. Sorry Tim W you are the exception.
Also why do you rightists post on the site. You have most of the press and blogosphere and yet you spend your time making snide comments on an obscure leftist site.
Sad.
You are in power. Surely you have better things to do

I’m anything but a rightist, but I know bigotry when I see it.

Furthermore, they are promoting nothing progressive – only reactive.

‘an obscure leftist site.’

Theres no need for that.

“Many of the rightists on the site (which seems to be the majority) have dismissed it out of hand because of where it has come from and who has signed up.”

No, people are criticising it because it’s a mediocre idea that has been badly executed.

No, people are criticising it because it’s a mediocre idea that has been badly executed.

Not so much badly executed as downright arrogant. Marginal, insignificant campaigners with no support among the population have decided that they can just _declare_ themselves to be important and everyone should go along with them. Just how _mental_ do you have to be to think this is a good idea??

There are two main problems with the concept as I see it; one specific, one general.

The specific aspect is that Compass is little more than a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Labour Party, those nice people who brought you under-regulated high finance, ever more politicised policing and (as Anthony Barnett points out) the database state and mass surveillance. The idea that people who – even to put it at its kindest – sat on their hands while all that was going on could possibly gain sufficient trust to have traction with the public is risible. It’s little more than another wonks’ jolly.

The more general aspect is that we have a hideously under-educated public. I don’t just mean in terms of formal education (although the dumbing-down, test-fixated, everyone-should-be-given-a-university-place ethos of recent years doesn’t exactly help), but in terms of people’s awareness of what is actually going on in the world (or even in their own town), rather than the partial version which all media outlets peddle. It may be all very well for those of us whose reading ranges across a wide spectrum of outlets and opinions to think that most people are as genned-up as we are (although we’re as guilty of confirmation bias as they are); the unfortunate truth is that any ‘citizens’ jury’ which could be created which wouldn’t reinforce the status of the self-styled savants would likely be comprised of (to adapt Herbert Spence’s phrase) “a thousand people of average ignorance”.

What this might entail would be, for example, such a ‘citizens’ jury’ coming out in favour of capital punishment (or life-means-life sentences for a wider group of offenders); the curtailing of all immigration (even to the extent of removing the right to seek sanctuary from torture or murder); the surveillance and/or monitoring of those who are – at that particular moment – the public’s pet folk devils.

I’m not saying it necessarily would be like this, but the probability is fairly high, I would say.

To which some might argue that those ‘citizens’ on the ‘jury’ would need to be led. To be led by…well, how about someone from Compass, for example? In which case we simply have the perpetuation of the de haut en bas attitudes which have prevailed for so long.

The best weapon against corruption, indolence and insolence amongst the ruling élite of any society is a well-educated and well-informed citizenry (which may be why we don’t have one, either here or in the US). Unfortunately, I don’t think we have one; nor are we likely to in the foreseeable future.

This idea should therefore be put back in the think-tankers’ dressing-up box where it belongs.

Thanks for these comments. While I have my concerns (obviously) there is a shocking kind of CIF-type attitude (sneering, poking, denigrating) creeping in here. The concept of a Citizens Jury is of a body selected by due process. Of course it is not about the signatories wanting to be part of it. The incapacity of some people to recognise a modest generosity and genuine public spirit in others is disappointing and maybe reflects something about themselves. Also, the idea that the public is mad, bad and incapable, is simply false. Give the public a poor choice (eg between Cameron, Brown and Clegg) and you will get a poor answer. But if the public has the chance to do something well it can rise to it. Never forget it was the elite who supported the invasion of Iraq and the public who thought it unwise.

@11. ukliberty: “Quite. How did the campaigners arrive at the first five topics to study?”

I’m working on a deployment programme for Windows 7 and I have been asked to remove the Start menu entry “Connect to Projector” by customer reps. For most business users and 99.9% of home users, the entry is entirely pointless. But it was obviously rated as an important feature by the people who designed Windows 7.

The campaign topics suggested by the great and good are like “Connect to Projector”. The engineers at Microsoft are like the think tankers. If something is important to them, it should be important to the rest of us. Both probably have market research data to support their propositions.

“Connect to Projector” is not an evil feature and some people may find it to be useful in their work. And there a lot to be said for a public discussion about “The role of the financial sector in the crash”. But neither would be considered as the most pressing topic or must-have feature.

—
Use of the adjective feral also has to be questioned. The term “feral underclass”, whilst having some meaning, is gratuitously offensive and counter productive; if you treat him as an animal, why should you be surprised if he acts like an animal; and why imitate vulgarity and contempt?

@21. Anthony Barnett: “The concept of a Citizens Jury is of a body selected by due process.”

Jury in a UK court of law is a bunch of adult citizens selected randomly from the district. Qualifications are that you do not have a legal impediment (eg relevant criminal conviction), that you are sane, that you are proclaim to be unbiased.

In a way, that disqualifies all of the signatories from membership of the Citizens Jury but does not disqualify them as expert witnesses (eg David Marquand would have useful things to say about electoral democracy).

So how would you generate a Citizens Jury of 1,000 random citizens (with the proviso that they are checked out for “sanity”)? Or why bother?

Campaigns that change political decisions arise organically. The campaigns for National Assemblies in Scotland and Wales were broad based, they interested people, they were relevant. No2ID was organic. This Citizens Jury proposal appears to come from the top; it is very New Labour in style.

And on a slow news day in the middle of summer, the Citizens Jury proposal has been covered in one newspaper. Oops.

I don’t mean to sneer but the consistently low quality of the policy suggestions is noteworthy.

Moreover, the poor quality of the political analysis (a pair of dull thinktankers blaming a “feral elite” for unrelated crises) underlined the real need was for the left to *finally* move on from its comfort zone of insults and oppositionalism and start engaging with the world, from the ground up.

Political power is connected with authority. A citizen’s jury could be vested with authority by the public if it was handled with real skill. In this case, the jury is being posited effectively as an alternative means to oppose the present government by the opposition; it will fail.

@24. AnotherTom: “Political power is connected with authority. A citizen’s jury could be vested with authority by the public if it was handled with real skill. In this case, the jury is being posited effectively as an alternative means to oppose the present government by the opposition; it will fail.”

A fair argument, AnotherTom. You have identified two flaws: if the Citizens Jury just sits inside our current political system, it is powerless; if is is a third way for creating or amending laws, the UK requires a new constitution.

The Left has been getting into bed with populism for several years now and now it wants to institutionalise it!

I don’t think populism and democracy are synonymous, as Anthony Barnett implies, and the Compass campaign pretty much explicitly states.

Moreover, this campaign seeks to further undermine our existing institutions by misrepresenting them and attempting to replace them with something else entirely.

If we have a “cosy elite” now, what of the (pre-Murdoch) elite of 40 years ago, that has been progressively opened up? Or does history actually only start 1 year and 3 months ago?

There is some irony in the Citizen’s Jury being told what to look at first.

Not sure if my post got through so let me restate it.

First, I love the idea that we should have an unelected body directing our ELECTED democratic representatives.

But what this really about is very simple. The progressive left have lost and election to a government they detest, and are watching their power base be eroded. They are not likely to be back in power for some time.

Solution? Have another body, popluated by the same progressives, which sits above the government which limits, controls and directs it actions. Effectively supplanting the elected government.

It’s the Fabian dream – bien pensents in control of the levers of power without any recourse from those with opposing ideas or those not “qualified” to give input.

The Left has been getting into bed with populism for several years now and now it wants to institutionalise it!
And you right wingers haven’t. Do you not read the Sun or the Mail.

I don’t think populism and democracy are synonymous, as Anthony Barnett implies, and the Compass campaign pretty much explicitly states.
Agreed, mainly because the agenda has been in a group of individuals who have the power and the media outlets

Moreover, this campaign seeks to further undermine our existing institutions by misrepresenting them and attempting to replace them with something else entirely.

I think your right wing press has done that job over the years which is leading to us to a privatised world controlled by corporations instead of the nation state. it might even be a move for the better, I couldn’t care less.
If we have a “cosy elite” now, what of the (pre-Murdoch) elite of 40 years ago, that has been progressively opened up? Or does history actually only start 1 year and 3 months ago?
Unfortunately you will always have “cosy elites”.
I agree with some of your points and it does sound , in parts the scheme is unworkable but at least we are debating issues such as the relationship between the aristos and the plebs.
What do suggest ?

26 Tom, 29 Guttman, I certainly do NOT think populism and democracy are synonymous! Don’t know how I gave that impression. On the contrary, democracy is constitutional or it is nothing. See a post that I think will go up soon by me on CIF about the parliamentary petitions.

Neal Lawson and Dan Leighton replied to me at length in a constructive way (and have have responded) here in openDemocracy’s OurKingdom
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/neal-lawson-and-dan-leighton/next-steps-for-britains-jury-of-people-response-to-anthony-b

Can this new initiative hold our ‘feral elite’ to account? | Liberal Conspiracy http://t.co/dlAw488 via @libcon