The headline news on BBC Radio 4 this morning is that Prime Minister Tony Blair refuses to release details of discussions with Enron concerning energy policy in this country after financial contributions had been made mainly to the Labour Party.
The headline story in the Financial Times this morning is that US Vice-President Dick Cheney refuses to release details of discussions with Enron concerning energy policy in the US after financial contributions had been made mainly to the Republican Party. As far as I am aware, no defence implications were involved in these discussions and the changes in energy policy in both instances became public. They were, respectively, the rapid launch of new natural gas-powered electricity generation stations in England, and the deregulation of electricity generation in the US. Both of these -- as far as I'm aware -- were to the benefit of the customer in both countries. So why are Blair and Cheney withholding information? What is there to hide? This obduracy is just another aspect of our present type of "democratic" governance which is increasingly alienating an increasing proportion of the electorate -- so much so that politicians now need immense campaign funds at election times in order to get their faces and policies in front of the public. One possible defence of this secrecy is that modern society is now so complex that matters of policy are too difficult for ordinary people to understand. On any one policy issue it may be the case that most of the electorate haven't the time or the interest to study specific policies. But the present system not only excludes the majority but also a minority of ordinary people who make it their business to become interested in this policy or another. So we need a new governmental system whereby all those who have something to say have a forum in which to contribute their views. We need what I call "Policy Forums" in which all may take part if they are capable of doing so, and in which all information is open. In the most developed countries, there never have been so many lobby groups of all sorts representing interests on both sides of the production process so I believe that in a gradual, fumbling sort of way, this "Policy Forum" type of governance is gradually taking shape. The quicker this develops the better. Keith Hudson __________________________________________________________ �Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say.� John D. Barrow _________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________
