John Stuart Mill postulated that a democracy requires both the voices of conservatism and liberalism, supporting both what is and what might be, in order to fulfil its mandate.
'It is almost a commonplace that a party of order or stability and a party of progress or reform are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life, until the one or the other shall have so enlarged its mental grasp as to be a party equally of order and of progress, knowing and distinguishing what is fit to be preserved from what ought to be swept away. Each of these modes of thinking derives its utility from the deficiencies of the other; but it is in great measure the opposition of the other that keeps each within the limits of reason and sanity.'
At present this debate is playing out in several ways; there is the debate between the central authority furthered during Labour's years in office (Ringen, 2010) and the devolution of the state's institutions to facilitate people in doing things for themselves (Huhne, 2007); and there is the debate as to the role of taxation and public bodies in providing or supporting services (BBC, 2012). But important debates like these are often born from and swallowed up by ideology.
The facts about them are often distorted. Other facts are simply discarded. And facts are often used like a 'drunkard clings to lampposts - not for illumination, but for support' (Prodi, 2006).
An important part of this problem is the sectarian nature of the political process. The political divide and the systems that reinforce it - whether habitual party allegiance, the gerrymandering of constituency boundaries or the competition over concentrated power - all of these factors make reasoned debate and evidence based policy extremely difficult.
It is a problem that needs desperately to be overcome as, at worst, the obscuring of truth or the outright manufacturing of mistruth, is dangerous.
Dr Ben Goldacre (2012) has argued that the absence of an evidential basis for policy 'is a disaster'. As part of the solution to this problem, Goldacre and others wrote a Cabinet Office paper explaining the how and why of policy testing. It is a positive step to try and establish the scientific method at the heart of government, where reason can play a substantial part in developing policy.
But there is far more to be done. There are still great inconsistencies to be found in the UK's democratic institutions - unelected lords and bishops with the power to propose and amend law (Clegg, 2012); an electoral system based not on representation but on competition for office; systemic and institutional corruption that stretches beyond parliament, into complicated exploitation and dodging of the tax system (Leigh, Frayman & Ball, 2012); and, an administrative nightmare created by a complex and multi-tiered system of local government, that overlaps constituency, police and health authorities, leaving jurisdictions lacking transparency and oversight.
Each of these matters needs to be tackled, and reason, the scientific approach, offers the best route. It can serve as a guide to developing better institutions and also serve at the centre of them. Accomplishing this requires debate, testing, evidence and co-operation - where the arguments for the old and the new, for what is and what might be, as John Stuart Mill hoped, both play a part in the rigorous testing of ideas. What it does not require are two groups playing by their own versions of the truth, to prevent change or advance it, as part of an ideological adherence.
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References:
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+ John Stuart Mill's 'On Liberty'; 1859.
+ Vernon Bogdanor's 'Multi-party politics and the Constitution'; Cambridge University Press, 1983.
+ Stein Ringen's 'The Economic Consequences of Mr Brown'; on RSA Animate; 14 September 2009.
+ Duncan Brack, Richard Grayson & David Howarth's (ed.) 'Reinventing the State - Social Liberalism for the 21st Century'; Politico's, 2007.
+ BBC's 'Anti-austerity marches take place'; 20 October 2012.
+ Romano Prodi quoting George Bernard Shaw, 3 April 2006; quoted in 'Prodi v Berlusconi: Italy's ugliest election?'; on spiked-online.com; 11 April 2006. Report in Italian at 'Premier nervoso in difesa'; on repubblica.it; 4 April 2006.
+ Ben Goldacre's 'Here’s our Cabinet Office paper on randomised trials of government policies. Read it.'; on badscience.net; 20 June 2012.
+ 'Nick Clegg: Lords reform plans to be abandoned'; on the BBC; 6 August 2012.
+ David Leigh, Harold Frayman & James Ball's 'Offshore secrets revealed: the shadowy side of a booming industry'; in The Guardian; 25 November 2012.
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