Translating popular opinion into public policy

Above: the Sun published this picture of Diane Abbott yesterday. It accompanied a story that Diane Abbott had charged £300 for writing an obituary, claiming that there had been an irregularity about the payment. Notice how the newspaper has put an advertisement adjacent to the story saying “get cash for your stories…”

Interesting article in the Daily Mail shows Diane Abbott as the most popular of the candidates for the Labour Party leadership:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1281363/Diane-Abbott-tipped-win-Labour-leadership-race.html

Diane Abbott stated as her reasons for wanting to stand the fact that the other candidates were all from a particular demographic (male, 40-50, ex policy researchers etc). She complained that no women were standing for the leadership. She also called for "A proper debate on immigration, where children of immigrants like me also have a voice."

There is no lack of discussion about immigration. The issue seems to crop up whenever ordinary people are allowed to speak to their representatives. The difficulty seems to arise in translating popular opinion into public policy (“when are you going to do something”).

For instance, David Cameron is putting out to “consultation” the numerical cap on non-EU immigration. However that consultation will only be with other experts in the field, and will not involve any public consultation. Therefore the suspicion must remain that he is only consulting with people who will agree with him.

Immigration is one of three key areas where ordinary people feel the political elite are ignoring the popular will (the other areas being European integration and Globalisation).

They are all areas where enormous changes have been imposed on the United Kingdom without a specific mandate (it is no use civil servants pointing to the small print of parliamentary bills passed in 1972 etc). Without a popular mandate none of the changes, which go back forty or fifty years, are valid. Without a valid basis to the laws that have been passed the whole system is discredited (as has been revealed recently, although some politicians still seem to be in denial over the level of public rejection).

PS on Newsnight yesterday Jack Straw said the previous government “never forced through” constitutional change. And yet the Lisbon Treaty was certainly forced through. Does Jack Straw think he can tell lies in public, on television, and no-one is going to notice?