Rebuilding
Legitimacy

The Guardian's Hugo Young, as he so often does, puts his finger on the key problem . Professional politicians, he argues, face a corrosive loss of legitimacy, and must think of ways of rebuilding that legitimacy, if they are to retain power and position - he is well worth reading 

But in arguing that the salariat should make greater use of the referendum, he is advising them to leap from the frying-pan into the fire.  For central to the long-term legitimacy of the salariat is the politician's claim to a special competence in the skills of government. The electorate will not take kindly to a political class which abdicates its responsibility to govern.

I agree that the problem is a real one - and that it must be solved, by every modern democracy. And Hugo Young is right to argue that, if the power of the salariat is be retained, they must give some of it away.

My solution, however, is different.  For example, if I were a politician I would never call a referendum - for major decisions in large countries, that must be the worst possible governmental device.  The questions posed have to be grossly over-simplified, and the results too often tend to the random outcome of 50/50.  Even on the Euro and the new EU Constitution, I say the issues should be argued out in the course of an early General Election - which would consolidate the authority of the salariat, rather than weaken it.  

But apart from that - this is our politicians must do.

• Disperse power among a larger number of professional politicians, so that there is a better chance that each salariat member will be able to deliver to his or her promises. That process of enlarging the salariat, and of redistributing power to new sections of it, is already under way - indeed, I live in a UK province, Wales, where the process is already well-advanced.

• Disperse power outside the 4,000-strong governmental salariat, involving representative institutions, both special and general, throughout society - local Councils have a huge potential to accommodate power-sharing formulae - ordinary citizens, working part-time and on a voluntary basis, must be given a far greater role in the governance of the country - the salariat cannot hack it alone, and that lies at the heart of their problem..

• Strengthen Human Rights commitment - the salariat has become a closed, intolerant hierarchy, seemingly contemptuous of ordinary citizens.  That is undermining public trust, and the legitimacy of a government institutions seen as the province of a closed, privileged, "elite". The Home Office, under both the Tories and Labour, has exemplified this New Intolerance.  The Labour Government has been profoundly reluctant to implement open government, and a meaningful Freedom of Information system.  The House of Lords has been retained as convenient retirement home for the salariat, without being opened up to popular election. 

• Devise new political institutions capable of engaging thousands of extra citizens in playing an active role the governance of their communities - I have plenty of ideas of that is to be done..

• Reduce the privileges of the salariat, which alienate ordinary citizens - the salariat is becoming increasingly insensitive to the public impact of its own privileges - those privileges are now themselves undermining its authority, its very constitutional legitimacy - its self-assessment of its own increasingly generous salaries, its emergence as an inward-looking self-perpetuating cadre, its obsessive domination of political Party processes, its abandonment of the State Old Age Pension while improving its own state pensions, its own holiday, travel and workload privileges. 

We all have a huge task ahead of us, to re-build the legitimacy of our democratic political institutions.  The problem is not merely that the "Westminster/Whitehall State" is too centralised.  It is that politicians seem almost to have made virtue of their personal claims to power - the exercise of power seems to have been generated its own monopolistic psychology, preventing its dispersal.  The egocentricity of power generates resistance to devolution - hundreds of arguments are marshalled by conscientious centralisers to support the moral rectitude of their own grim craft, not merely its practical political convenience.

These tendencies must be countered.  Moulding the organisation and structures of our society (which is the stuff of all politics) is an intriguing, challenging, and interesting subject - which millions more of our fellow-citizens should be given access.

• Jury trial, and the Lay Magistrature, both English constitutional glories, should be cultivated and extended;

• Community, parish and town councils should be cultivated and empowered to perform a much wider range of governmental functions;

• New special-purpose democratic institutions (in health, education, planning, recreation, environmental protection) should supplement the work of local Councils, even replacing Council functions altogether;

• The salariat should be much more actively employed in provincial and regional government, in addition to their legislative functions - they should work harder, in managerial mode.  That would increase their legitimacy.

• Party structures should be reformed, to reduce the stifling dominance of the salariat over the rank-and-file.

• And the salariat should dismantle some of its own most unpopular and objectionable privileges.

Western society faces a crisis of political legitimacy, which threatens to undermine civic order generally.  Our political cadres are at the eye of that storm, and they are the ones who must solve it.

773  28 July 2003