by Alex Hilton

I saw something on the BBC this week that looked so silly I had to check it wasn’t yet April 1. It seems that Ed Miliband and Ed Balls are insisting that shadow ministers submit forms for approval before announcing any policies. Policy forms are a simple solution to the complex problem that we want to have policies, but we don’t want to be held to them.

But this solution will create more problems than it solves. Mostly, it will drive innovation into the hands of the two Eds, a centralisation of thought that exceeds even the worst paranoia-tinged years of government.

This approach has no resonance in a world where people expect a better quality of communication than can be achieved through a simple broadcasting of opinion from important people. And in an era when people are rightly mistrustful of pre-election promises, reassuring the public of our general values will become an essential factor in securing their confidence.

This can’t be achieved through a turgid conveyor belt mechanically analysing policies one by one and reducing them to their lowest common denominator. We can instead develop a more fecund environment for innovating in policy by reducing restrictions rather than reducing the pool of available talent contributing to their inception. (more…)