Baroness Helena Kennedy QC
We interviewed Baroness Helena Kennedy QC - who famously said of David Blunket, "he takes his lessons on jurisprudence from Robert Mugabe".
Whilst we're busy editing, here's an extract from her forward to the Power Inquiry's investigation into the state of our democracy.
"...The disengagement from politics ... cannot be dismissed as the preoccupation of the chattering classes. Its substance has come from the voices of thousands of people around the country who feel quietly angry or depressed. When it comes to politics they feel they are eating stones. Principle and ideas seem to have been replaced with mangerialism and public relations. It is as though Proctor and Gamble or Abbey National are running the country...
However, the blame cannot all be put at the door of politicians and when the first wave of emotion about political lying and politicians self-interest or ruminations about the fault of the media, a very different public complaint surfaces. The disquiet is really about having no say. It is about feeling disconnected because voting once every four or five years does not feel like real engagement. Asking people to set questions in focus groups or polling is a poor substitute for real democratic processes. Voting itself seems irrelevant to increasing numbers of people: even supposing there is a candidate you like, if you are in a constituency where the outcome is preordained and your favoured choice is not IT there is no point turning out to the draughty church hall and inserting your vote in the ballot box.
It is also about feeling that there is no choice, despite our living in an era when CHOICE is the dominant political mantra – there is very little on offer as the main parties now seem to be much the same. It is about a belief that even Members of Parliament have little say because all of the decisions are made by a handful of people at the center and then driven through the system. Politics and government are increasingly slipping back into the hands of the privileged elites as if democracy has run out of steam...
...People have changed. Lives are being lived in very different ways but the political institutions and the main political parties have failed to keep up...
...The politicos have no idea of the extent of the alienation that is out there. The people round the Westminster water coolers are clearly not having the same conversations as they are everywhere else. Their temperature gauge is seriously out of kilter. When politicians or party managers were asked for ideas for re-engagement, the suggested solutions were almost all about tweaking the existing system, with a bit of new technology here and there. The result is no political space is being created for new politics and new ideas to emerge; a new politics – whether in the form of new parties or the genuine revival of the existing parties – will only be born once the structural problems within the current system are addressed.
What political leaderships seem to misunderstand is that if you want to unite people around a distinct and common purpose you have to draw people in. Too often citizens are being evicted form the processes.
Ways have to be found to engage people. Markets, contracts and economic rationality provide a necessary but insufficient basis for the stability and prosperity of post-industrial societies; there must be leavened with reciprocity, moral obligation, duty to community, trust and political engagement. People in Britain still volunteer; they run in marathons for charity; they hold car boot sales to raise funds for good causes; they take part in Red Nose days and wear ribbons for breast cancer or AIDS...They march against the Iraq war and in favour of the countryside. They sign petitions for extra street lights and more frequent bin collection. They send their savings to the victims of tsunamis and want to end world poverty. What they no longer want to do is join a party or get involved in formal politics. And increasingly they see no point in voting. This is a travesty for democracy and if it continues the price will be high. The only way to download power is by rebalancing the system toward people.
This is the agenda.
Now we need the political will."
Member of the House of Lords
Foreword to ‘The Report of Power: An Independent Inquiry into Britain’s Democracy’
The Power Inquiry, February 2006
