Those of you who caught Portillo's recent programme
Power to the People and have been following developments locally were probably given real food for thought.
The programme started from the premise that that representative politics is broke in the UK and that more decision making needs to be devolved back to the grass roots level.
I thought there were some great quotable moments which I'll let speak for themselves:
- Jimmy Drummond, the directly elected mayor of Hartlepool who said of local elections, "It's the only time you get to cast your vote fro someone who can make a difference to your day-to-day life".
- Portillo himself said "Feeling that we can't make a difference is at the heart of what's wrong with our politics".
- And Blunkett, "There's an enormous amount of frustration already in our democratic system that people can't get things changed that they want changing"
This
programme is worth a browse through in iplayer. If you do take a look, make sure you catch the last clip or two looking at incredibly well attended local assemblies which actually make decisions. Then compare them with the shambles we have.
For me this programme screams out about the importance of the local elections we have coming up soon. It is our chance to start to make a difference.