About Social Media Today
I'm giving a talk at the ippr today on why we need directly elected police chiefs.
This is an idea that's come a long way since I first argued for it in a 2002 paper for the Tory moderniser think-tank C-Change. I was subsequently hired by Tory HQ to flesh out this idea - and others - before the last election for the manifesto.
(Incidentally, the cool bits, which somehow didn't make the '05 manifesto, were published the month after the election in Direct Democracy ; an agenda for a new model party- described by the Spectator as "one of the founding texts for the new, revitalised Toryism...")
What is so revealing is that as with other aspects of the localist / direct democracy agenda, Labour does understand how popular it can be. But even then, Labour cannot actually bring itself to adopt it. Hence the bogus mimickry.
This direct democracy agenda is not only a way to defeat Labour. It is a way to recalibrate the terms of politics in this country forever.
