New Dawns

Gordon Brown has completed the handover of power from Tony Blair, he has assembled his new cabinet. The emphasis is on 'change': new personnel, 'new talents' and a new style. So he is making every effort to change, but will we - the voters - change? Will the electorate turn against its slide into deeper apathy? The new prime minister can package this 'change' in the most dynamic and cerebral terms, but will the voters respond? Will they see it as a subtle form of spin or will they just change the channel to that other type of reality show?

The Electoral Reform Society thinks that a new government can provide a new opportunity to re-connect with voters and reinvigorate the electorate. Lack of faith in politicians with an emphasis on party-politics has stifled debate and limited the influence of ordinary voters. A well thought out reform of our democratic system is required. "A fair, modern, electoral system is needed if genuine differences of ideas and policies are to be honestly discussed and debated by everyone." A new system reflecting new politics will:

• Make all elections genuine contests so that all voters have an incentive to vote and all parties have an incentive to campaign everywhere;


• Increase the power of voters, by making votes count, and avoiding the pressure for tactical voting, through allowing voters to rank their choice in order of preference;


• Better reflect the views of voters and the diversity of the electorate.

Brown emphasises change, but is that changing all Blair's unpopular policies or changing a political system on a wider more radical scale. Two developments indicate that he is looking to expand our political sphere.

The inclusion of leading business figures in a British Council for Britain shifts the influence of big business from behind closed doors and open to suspicion; to being influential, valued and provided with responsibility. Business has been advancing society in areas government could not reach for decades, and making leading figures part of his 'all the talents' strategy accepts the new reality that market-economics often define citizens' lives far more deeply than government. Big business was flattered and seen as too valuable to upset in the early New Labour days, but it is now respected, treated as an equal partner and part of the process. This a new dawn but big business' day arrived a while back now.

http://www.thebusinessonline.com/Document.aspx?id=BF4471DE-1D72-4E6E-9023-A16A89F072A1

The second strand of Brown's renewal is his desire to construct "a government of the talents". The approach to Dame Shirley Williams - following the declined invitation to Paddy Ashdown - could pave the way for a new era of consensus politics, possibly preempting a hung parliament at the next election. Or it could be a political strategy aimed at undermining the Liberal Democrats. Paddy Ashdown's expertise in diplomacy and the minutaie of ethnic struggles has been shown in Bosnia. But Shirley Williams is a strange one. She has a strong background knowledge of international affairs, but so do hundreds of UK academics. Brown's own version of the "big tent" has the potential to create a new type of politics, but unless it is effective and consistent, it will simply be looked at as another political trick. It is unclear what contribution academics like Toby Dodge, Gareth Stansfield or Fred Halliday make to foreign policy especially for the Middle East, but such expertise and knowledge provides a extremely valuable resource.

http://www.politics.co.uk/news/zopinion-former-index/legal-and-constitutional/ministerial-hopefuls-await-browns-call-$475493.htm