Letting go
Good fringe last night organised by the Centre for Policy Studies on politics and the internet, featuring inter alia Jeremy Hunt, the DCMS shadow, Iain Dale and Robert Colvile of the Telegraph. Interesting split in questions from the floor, with one or two voices worried about the unrestricted freedom of the internet and others welcoming the loss of control this brings.
Hunt himself was very good - and Salieri liked his characterisation of the internet as offering the potential for ‘collaborative individualism’ - a very Cameronian concept that.
What makes that interesting in political terms is that we might have reached the high water-mark of message control that has been developing in the parties since the 1980s. It stifled debate, promoted dull conformity at the expense of free-thinking, and - most importantly - turned voters off and lowered turn-out. It was partly conditioned by the invincible stupidity of the British press and the BBC (especially the Today programme) with its obsession about splits and its lack of engagement with the issues. But party leaders loved it too.
It would be a great thing if Brown, the control freak par excellence, were the last of this kind of leader. British politics would be healthier for it.