Thursday 28 February 2008

The Democratic Deficit (2)

Back in last June I was blogging under the title 'The Democratic Deficit' and in that particular piece I mused about what I considered to be the self evident problem about how government ministers could deal with simultaneously representing their constituents and formulating policy. In a perfect world I suggested it would be a good idea for different people to carry out these two functions but as to how to do this - well that's another question!

I'm returning to this subject now because the opposition are pointing to the following conundrum. On the one hand the government have instigated a review to significantly reduce the number of post offices in the land. At the same time certain government ministers (Jack Straw and Jacqui Smith were among those mentioned) are putting the case for the retention of certain post offices in their constituencies. Hypocrisy shout the Tories. We are just representing our voters rejoin the Ministers. This just illustrates the point I originally made I feel. But again I don't pretend to have the solution.

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