In what might considered by some to be its “finest hour,” the most universally popular, and long enduring method of deliberative democracy (The Citizen’s Jury) has pulled off a political miracle. 

Early in September, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown attended and participated in a

Citizen’s jury process in Bristol, England. The subject was the public education system.  This was to be the first of many such encounters with the citizenry in this particular format. The PM said it was part of his new thinking about how to really represent the

people’s wishes in governance. 

Fair Criticism 

Shortly thereafter, in a column in the highly regarded newspaper The Guardian about a week later, Columnist George Monbiot probed into a number of things that Brown has said and/or done concerning changing how government works in the UK…and hinting that he thought that this was mostly a public relations gimmick.  But that was hardly all.  Even if not, and even Prime Minister Brown was sincere, an even worse problem loomed.  As Monbiot put it: “Though Brown's intentions might be good, the new politics looks like a new con, another means of creating an impression that the political crab still lives, while the corporate maggots jostle beneath the carapace. The danger is not just that his proposals will fail to evitalise the current political model. The greater danger is that they will legitimize it.”

Brown Fights Back 

This, and perhaps other like-minded criticisms put the Prime Minister on the defensive, which led him to conclude that the best defense was a better offense.  So, he put himself into a possibly big political storm by saying that he was very impressed by the Citizens Jury method and that they had impacted him on some important issues in the UK.

Having watched it in action in several venues, it was his experience, said the Prime Minister to BBC, that “the juries signal a ‘new type of politics” one that takes what representative, deliberative samples agree upon and makes them at least part of his agenda.

He gave two instances of how his mind had been altered by the process.  According to BBC: “The Prime Minister said he had already changed his mind on casinos and cannabis after listening to the public.”

Somewhere, Ned Crosby must be smiling.

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