Only those who have actually been in government can ever appreciate just what an extremely challenging job it is. When it’s taken seriously that is, and not just used for personal gain and self-aggrandisement by amoral attention seekers. You can probably guess who I might be thinking of there.

Government is considerably more challenging these days, partly because of our increasingly complex and divided society. We need better government, and we need it now.
Firstly, we need a voting system that allocates seats in Parliament in better proportion to the votes cast. The present ‘first past the post’ system invariably results in governments that have only been voted for by a minority of voters.
Secondly, we need better decision making. Especially when it comes to difficult issues that need urgent action. Because politicians are invariably focussed short term, with their eyes fixed on popularity polls and impending elections, they are naturally averse to making decisions they fear might be unpopular and lose them votes. Consequently, too many vitally important decisions are being kicked down the road. Left for someone else to deal with, some other time, by when it may well be too late to avert an unnecessary crisis.

There is a better way, tried and tested. When faced with a particular issue that needs a difficult but vital decision to be made, you put together a group of citizens broadly representative of the entire electorate. They are selected at random to represent all demographics including age, gender, education, ethnicity, location etc. You give them access to experts and all the facts they need in order to learn about every aspect of the issue. Everyone has a voice, and the group is shielded from political interference. After thorough deliberation, the group comes to an informed decision and makes its recommendations.
It is then for the elected politicians to implement those recommendations. No individual member of government has to make a decision, and no decision is based on narrow ideological beliefs.

It’s called Citizens Assemblies, and it has been used successfully in other countries to address important issues. Examples include Canada, Netherlands, Eire, France and Poland.
Here in the UK a Climate Assembly of 108 citizens was set up in January 2020 to establish how best the UK could satisfy its climate change law mandate to reach zero carbon emissions by 2050. The final report was publish in September 2020, but unfortunately the government then rowed back on its commitment to provide a comprehensive response. Consequently, the report’s impact was extremely limited, and considered to have had at best only an agenda-setting influence. An opportunity wasted. Citizens Assemblies need to be taken more seriously than that. We need better government. And we need it now.