A new kind of politics: a practical proposal to help the many and not the few set the political agenda and hold power to account.

All is not well with democracy in the UK. I propose improving it by letting a far wider range of people into the centre of the political process by means of a new programme – on TV or YouTube - on which party leaders would meet one-to-one with representative members of the public. The “reality TV element” is likely to ensure high ratings.

Just as for centuries, ordinary people were denied the right to vote, now they are excluded from the crucial democratic business of setting the political agenda and holding power to account. These roles are restricted overwhelmingly to a privileged few in our politico-media elite who almost always share all or most of the following characteristics - well-educated, well-off, middle-aged, white, London-based. Their agenda inevitably reflects their own background and experience.

On the proposed new programme, members of the public would be given proper airtime. They can have their say without having to yell a question to the PM visiting a hospital at election time or being packaged in a vox pop or shouting down from the audience to the panel on BBC’s Question Time.

Party leaders would meet a genuinely representative sample of the public, “the questioners”, in a monthly live show. The leader would be in one-to-one conversation with each of the questioners, one after another.  

If a questioner is shy, inarticulate or angry it will be for the leader to deal with the conversation as best they can. Leaders would demonstrate their own qualities such as empathy (or lack of empathy).

The programme would include all sorts of people from the whole range of our diverse population, who are not currently heard in the national political debate, such as: an 85 year old pensioner, an 18 year old single mother, a deep-sea fisherman, a paraplegic ex-soldier, a corner-shop owner or someone working hard on poverty wages and relying on a food-bank.

The proposal is rooted in the belief that everyone matters in a democracy and everyone has political concerns. It would dramatically widen the range of voices that are heard in the political debate, increase political engagement and help people escape their own information bubbles and better understand their fellow citizens.

In the same way that it is not necessary to be on Twitter to be aware of President Trump’s tweets, the programme would affect the political agenda beyond those who watch it.

Here are details of the proposal.

1. UK would be divided into 12 areas and the programme would come from a different area each month.
2. An independent body would select (like a jury) ten questioners per show from the area where the programme is based that month.
3. The questioners should collectively form a representative sample from that area. The factors used to select a representative sample may, for example, include sex, income, race, age, religion and disability. The selection process must be rigorous and transparent.
4. If someone selected does not want to take part, then someone else similar would be selected.
5. Each questioner would have five minutes one-to-one with the leader. 
6. There would be no chairperson and no studio audience. There would be the necessary security.
7. The programme would go out live (with usual short delay) and there would be an edited version of highlights.
8. An independent body would deal with any complaints or other issues.

Ideally, the prime minister, Theresa May, would agree to take part in the programme. Unfortunately, it is unlikely she would. She has shown an aversion to unscripted meetings with the public and the current arrangement suits her.

Jeremy Corbyn, however, should, I hope, agree to take part. The programme would be good for democracy and good for him too. He showed in this year’s election campaign how comfortable and effective he is talking to people of all ages and all backgrounds, whether or not they agree with his views.

Imagine if Corbyn is PM and under relentless attack from the media. This programme would enable him to bypass the media and go direct and unmediated to the public.

There is an obvious risk for any political leader in taking part. A questioner might launch a furious attack on them and they would be trapped for five minutes and it would all go out live. But the likely benefits for a politician should outweigh the risk and, as for the risk of a furious attack - even if the person attacking them is unlikely to be convinced, they can defend themselves and may persuade some of the watching public.

We should not fear the people, as those who denied them the vote once did. We should trust them to speak on their own behalf and to ask the questions that matter to them and to put their own issues on the agenda.

One day, a programme like this may well be seen as an essential part of any properly functioning democracy. 

If you would like to help turn this proposal into a reality, please email me on tomlondon@rocketmail.com 

Dealing with North Korea is significantly more difficult because of Libya 2011

The current confrontation over North Korea's nuclear weapons is probably the most serious such crisis since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Unlike in 1962, when the two main actors John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev could be expected to act rationally, the same does not apply to Kim Jong-un or Donald Trump.

Under any circumstances, the position would be highly difficult and dangerous. What happened in Libya in 2011 makes a successful resolution - of this or any future similar nuclear stand-off - significantly more difficult.

North Korea claims the same justification as the eight other known nuclear armed countries - the USA, Russia, China, France, the UK, India, Pakistan and Israel - for having nuclear weapons, namely that they are needed for its own defence. 

If the world community and in particular the USA is going to persuade Kim to give up his nuclear weapons, it needs to persuade him that North Korea will not then be invaded and that he personally will be safe.

However, NATO's action in Libya in 2011 makes this almost impossible. In a recent interview Gary Locke, a former US Ambassador to China and an expert on North Korea, gave his assessment of the thinking of Kim and the North Korean leadership  “they believe that as long as they have a nuclear capability, the United States and South Korea will not invade them. They look at what happened to Muammar Gaddafi [in Libya]. He gave up his nuclear weapons, and where did it get him? … North Korea feels like the nuclear weapons represent their safety net.”  

Why should Kim now trust any guarantees given by the US (let alone by President Trump)?

Between 2003 and 2009 the Gaddafi regime voluntarily disarmed its nuclear capability. There have only ever been five voluntary nuclear disarmaments and this was the fifth. The others were three ex-Soviet states which found themselves with nuclear weapons after the collapse of the Soviet Union and apartheid era South Africa which disarmed before black majority rule.

The US and the UK promised repeatedly that they would not attack a non-nuclear Libya. In 2011, they did precisely that and Gaddafi was killed.

If Gaddafi had retained his nuclear weapons, in all likelihood he would still be in power and alive today. From the perspective of the regime in Pyongyang, the way the West behaved with Gaddafi must look rather like a sheriff in the Wild West telling the bad guy that if he puts his gun down he will be safe; and then, when he does so and is defenceless, shooting him.

Here is some relevant history. 

•   Gaddafi led a coup against the US-backed King Idris in 1969
•   For the next thirty years or so, Gaddafi was an enemy of the West and was held responsible for a number of terrorist outrages such as the Lockerbie bombing in 1988
•    Libya surprised the world by announcing that it would disarm its nuclear weapons on 19 December 2003. 
•   The key part of the 2003 deal was George W Bush, fresh from regime change in Iraq, explicitly guaranteeing there would be no such policy in Libya. There were words of reconciliation on both sides. Tony Blair said: -“Problems of proliferation can, with good will, be tackled through discussion and engagement.” 
•     Professor Jentleson, an expert in the field, wrote in the academic journal International Security in 2005, that in order to understand why Libya agreed to disarm : - “The repeated assurances the US and Britain gave Libya about not pressing for regime change were absolutely crucial.”
•     When IAEA and US inspectors visited Libya in January 2004 they found that Gaddafi’s nuclear weaponry was significant and larger than they had presumed
•     On 27 January 2004, a US plane left Libya with the first consignment from its nuclear arsenal. George W Bush attended for a photo op to celebrate the unexpected and welcome victory against non-proliferation. The White House hailed Libya for its co-operation and said its good faith in dismantling weapons would be reciprocated
•     Libya became an ally in Bush’s “war on terror” and sanctions were lifted 
•     In 2007, George W Bush sent the first US ambassador to Tripoli for 35 years
•     In 2008, Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice visited Tripoli
•     On 9 July 2009, Gaddafi shook hands with Obama during the G8 summit. The White House said that Obama ''wants to see cooperation with Libya continue in sectors such as Tripoli's decision a few years ago to give up its nuclear program, an absolutely voluntary decision that we consider positive."
•      On 21 December 2009, a Russian plane removed the last nuclear material from Libya
•       In March 2011, only 14 months after the six year disarmament program was finally complete and Libya no longer had nuclear weapons, NATO attacked Libya and effected regime change. Gaddafi was killed.

In 2011, the North Korean Foreign Ministry said, that what happened in Libya “fully exposed before the world that “Libya’s nuclear dismantlement”, much touted by the US in the past, turned out to be a mode of aggression whereby the latter coaxed the former with such sweet words as “guarantee of security” and “improvement of relations” to disarm itself and then swallowed it up by force.”

Whatever the justification for breaking the pledges made to Gaddafi, doing so has seriously harmed the chances of dealing with nuclear-armed "rogue states" - not only North Korea but potentially elsewhere too in the future.
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Let the many and not the few set the agenda and hold politicians to account

Many would agree that all is not well with democracy in the UK. One way to improve our system would be to let a far wider range of people set the national political agenda and hold leading politicians to account. I propose doing this by means of a new programme – on TV or YouTube - which would mix real politics with reality TV.

Just as for centuries, ordinary people were denied the right to vote, now they are excluded from the crucial democratic business of setting the agenda and holding to account. These roles are restricted overwhelmingly to a privileged few in our politico-media elite who almost always share all or most of the following characteristics - well-educated, well-off, middle-aged, white, London-based. Their agenda inevitably reflects their own background and experience.

On the proposed new programme, people would be given proper airtime. They can have their say without having to shout out a question to the PM visiting a hospital at election time or being packaged in a vox pop or trying to engage from the distance of the audience to the panel on BBC’s Question Time.

Party leaders would meet a genuinely representative sample of the public, “the questioners”, in a monthly live show. The leader would be in one-to-one conversation with each of the questioners, one after another.  

If a questioner is shy, inarticulate or angry it will be for the leader to deal with the conversation as best they can. They will demonstrate their own qualities such as empathy.

The programme might include all sorts of people from the whole range of our diverse population, who are not currently heard in the national political debate, such as: an 85 year old pensioner, an 18 year old single mother, a deep-sea fisherman, a paraplegic ex-soldier, a corner-shop owner or someone working hard on poverty wages and relying on a food-bank.

The proposal is rooted in the belief that everyone matters in a democracy and everyone has political concerns. It would dramatically widen the range of voices that are heard in the national political debate, increase political engagement and help people escape their own information bubbles and better understand their fellow citizens.

In the same way that it is not necessary to be on Twitter to be aware of President Trump’s tweets, the programme would affect the political agenda beyond those who watch it.

Here are details of the proposal.

1. UK would be divided into 12 areas and the programme would come from a different area each month.
2. An independent body would select (like a jury) ten questioners per show from the area where the programme is based that month.
3. The questioners should collectively form a representative sample from that area. The factors used to select a representative sample may, for example, include sex, income, race, age, religion and disability. The selection process must be rigorous and transparent.
4. If someone selected does not want to take part, then someone else similar would be selected.
5. Each questioner would have five minutes one-to-one with the leader. 
6. There would be no chairperson and no studio audience. There would be the necessary security.
7. The programme would go out live (with usual short delay) and there would be an edited version of highlights.
8. An independent body would deal with any complaints or other issues.

Ideally, the prime minister, Theresa May, would agree to take part in the programme. Unfortunately, it is unlikely she would. She has shown an aversion to unscripted meetings with the public and the current arrangement suits her.

Jeremy Corbyn, however, should, I hope, agree to take part. The programme would be good for democracy and, I believe, good for him too.

There would be an obvious risk for any political leader in taking part. A questioner might launch a furious attack on them and they would be trapped for five minutes and it would all go out live. 

But the likely benefits for any politician should outweigh the risk. They could connect with voters across the UK, speaking to them directly and not mediated by an unsympathetic or hostile media. And as for the risk of a furious attack - even if the person attacking them is unlikely to be convinced, they can defend themselves and may persuade some of the watching public.

We should not fear the people, as those who denied them the vote once did, but should trust them to speak on their own behalf.  Let them ask the questions that matter to them and put their own issues on the agenda.

One day, a programme like this may be seen as an essential part of any proper democracy.