Bagehot: Otherwise engaged

摘要

Never underestimate the importance of fashion in politics. It's nothing to do with Gordon Brown's sudden flaunting of blushing pink ties or David Cameron waggling his Converse trainer-shod feet for an "at home" photo shoot. Political fashion is about ideas whose time has come. Which is why, if nothing else, the timing of the independent Power (as in, to the people) inquiry's report was so immaculate. Set up in the aftermath of the second general election in a row with low turnout, the inquiry looked into the causes of people's growing disengagement from the political process, and into remedies for it. Chaired by Baroness Kennedy, the unofficial convenor of bien-pensant opinion, it produced a 260-page report whose guiding premise is that "the current way of doing politics is killing politics".