Why liberal England is not at all sure it wants to hear the voice of the people

MATTHEW PARRIS

'The Net Election — are you ready?' asked Guardian Unlimited on its invitation to an Internet launch last week. I went along.

A gathering in a theatre where people from the worlds of the media and politics have come to discuss a Guardian/Observer political website is not a right-wing occasion. Not that the audience amounted to a conspiracy or even a community; but let us just say it had a flavour. The assembled company were not, as it were, hungry for the good news about William Hague.

The panel on stage were briskly chaired by the Guardian's political editor, Mike White. Mo Mowlam joined the senior analyst at Forrester Research, Caroline Sceats, and the chief of Newsweek's London bureau, Stryker McGuire. Alongside was James Cronin, co-founder of FaxYourMP.com. 'Will the Internet alter the way people vote?' was the question.

There were short presentations from each of the panel. Questions were invited from the audience. The prospectus which the webmasters at www.guardian.co.uk/politics wanted us to to talk about could be summarised thus: that the means are now available, at little cost in time or money, for all interested citizens to gain almost immediate access to politicians, their news — and news and commentary about them — unmediated by the filter of editor, broadcaster or printing press. Unmediated access is the key. That was the possibility this audience of avowed democrats was to contemplate.

Nobody quite said so, but they were not at all sure they liked it.

Among the reasons for this, of course, will have been the usual self-interested ones. Ms Mowlam and others wondered how most Members with limited resources would be able to cope. A constituent seeking access to his or her MP has in the past been obliged to attend a 'surgery' — or at least write out a letter, address an envelope, pay for a stamp and walk to a postbox. Most of us have at one time or another considered writing to our MP, even formed the intention of doing so; but we don't get round to it. What if the task became the work of a moment? Too many people would try.

And journalists among the audience were, I suspect, conscious of a career interest in remaining the intermediaries between the politicians and the public. I had the distinct impression of a 'ho-hum — what have we here?' attitude towards the

systematic provision of direct access to politicians. Where does that leave us journos? Is it not our job to tell the public what the politicians think? And it's surely our job to tell the politicians what the public thinks. When an MP wants to take the temperature of the mob, he looks at the Sun. The Daily Mail speaks for Middle England, while the Daily Telegraph will tell William Hague what the better sort of Tory thinks. Our journalistic role as go-between makes us interesting to both sides.

And we like to decide what is the news. Broadcasters especially do so. The news, as we know, lasts three minutes. Listeners and viewers cannot browse as readers can, and broadcast news must be a ruthless excluder of potential stories. By what they exclude, as well as by how they present what they include, news editors wield enormous power.

If the medium is the message, then do not expect the media to welcome our own removal from the exchange. We may feel about direct public access to politicians much as estate agents feel about `no middle-man' house sales on the Internet. We cast around for reasons why it would not be a good idea, wouldn't work, won't take off.

And perhaps it never will. I have no useful comment to add to the debate about whether we really are on the verge of an information revolution in politics. There do seem to be severe practical difficulties about the separation of wheat from chaff, about information-overload, about the verification of identity and about authenticity of voice. I do not overlook the difficulties. But this assembly of pre-eminently modern and progressive-minded democrats seemed to be clutching at them with a kind of desperation: the anxiety with which Roman Catholics seize on medical evidence that embryology may not deliver the breakthroughs for which scientists hope; the anxiety of those who hope to be rescued from arguing that something should not be done by the merciful arrival of reasons why it cannot be done.

But at that Guardian launch, I sensed that journalists, broadcasters and politicians are uneasy about the prospect of an unmediated meeting of politics and the people, for a reason beyond a selfish wish to avoid any disruption of our cosy careers. I sensed a fear of what real democracy would be like.

The Estonian ambassador in London (a former deputy prime minister of his country) put it this way to the panel: Estonia, he said, had experimented with websites on which every citizen could post his views. 'A problem,' he said, was that 'people started to say some things which were not nice.'

Other contributors raised the danger that undesirable pressure-groups would find the Net an easy place to get bandwagons going. And, as discussion proceeded, I began to realise that what really concerned those present was not how politicians might use the Web to influence and explain, but how the electorate might do so. As one of the panel put it, the people might be gripped by a temporary mood of demanding something — without any requirement that they consider the longer-term costs of providing it. Another raised the difficulty, when expression of opinion is instant and easy, of distinguishing between considered views and sheer popular caprice.

But these are arguments against democracy. One has always known that a High Tory has doubts about democracy. They arise from a snobbish attitude towards the common people and a fear that the mob may storm the citadels of his privilege. What was amusing, however, was to realise that liberal England also has doubts. Snobbery is partly to blame there as well, but also a genuine fear that enlightenment and the age of reason may not be a popular cause if put to people in its particulars, and daily, and a la carte, and as popular moods, anxieties and enthusiasms arise, rather than every four years, table d'hôte and take-itor-leave-it, us-or-the-other-lot.

The day is coming when the science of marketing and the availability to every elector of easy, daily, cost-free access to political decision-makers may enable the governors to mould themselves upon the image of those they govern. Thus will the people become truly masters. This exercise of power may civilise the governed. Or it may vulgarise the government. At last week's launch of politics online by the Guardian, I realised that the progressive part of British opinion is no more confident of the first of those alternatives than Lord Salisbury would have been.