A Truly 21st Century Fix

Tom brings our attention to this:

Nothing like this has been tried before. We have set out the process in detail below but we don’t know what the response will be and exactly how it will work. So we may need to tweak the process slightly. But we wont do that without signalling any changes and getting comments.

To be effective we think the policies selected should tick as many of the following boxes as possible:

* Mix populism with principle
* Be both sellable and workable
* Mix achievability in the short, medium and long term, addressing current policy agenda and looking into the future as far as you want
* Be prefigurative i.e. symbolise the kind of society we want to live in
* Balance spending with raising revenue
* Provide a sense of electoral analysis by appealing to key coalitions and constituencies
* Help build social democratic institutions and organisations e.g. unions, local government, community groups etc
* Tell its own story e.g. rail in common ownership – speaks to market failure and privatisation failure, the need for a holistic approach to public services, fairness agenda in terms of fares, climate change, and democratisation if we get a new model right.
* Be relevant across the UK
* Mix what people can do, what civil society can do and what the democratic state can do

In my opinion, the high is not so much in relation to the content as the process.

More here on the latter.

Definitely worth further cogitation.