Elect Your Local Councillor by Lot
This was an the heading of an article in The Times yesterday, by Vernon Bogdanor.
He makes a convincing case, giving examples from fifth-century Athens and present day, British Columbia.
This is the last two paragraphs.
Oscar Wilde once said that the prime defect of socialism was that it took up too many evenings, but the experiment in British Columbia shows that it is perfectly feasible to extend participation in a modern democracy, and such participation need not be the exclusive province of the better-off and the better-educated.
Like most other democracies, we in Britain have hardly begun to harness the potential of the ordinary citizen. What better place to begin than with local government, the Cinderella of our political institutions?
I think his ideas are worth pusuing.
The Anonymous Widower 