Brown's Green Paper

Much excitement at Ministry Towers over Brown’s Green Paper on constitutional reform entitled, “The Governance of Britain” with sub-headings of , “Limiting the powers of the executive” and “Making the Executive more Accountable”.

It’s opening gambit clearly states Brown is seeking to, “re-new trust in our democratic institutions”, at least that’s grudgingly admitting there’s a trust problem, though “re-newing” implies there was something there in the first place.

Rather than drag you through the nuts and bolts, suffice to say the real rub’s in the small print. Little concrete action and nothing that actually limits the powers of the executive, makes them more accountable.

They do say it’s only, “the first step in a national conversation” and though we applaud the intention, it feels like we already had the conversation but no-one was listening.

Still, if Brown’s saying he’s ready to listen, it’d be a start if he accepted our interview request - this business of finding an MP to support legislation that would solve the “trust” problem overnight isn’t easy.