Yes politics is broken but the Independent Group don't want to fix it.

I've a feeling this should be headed "how is politics broken?" but I've chosen the headline from The Independent Group's shiny website as my text:

To change our broken politics, we need a different culture. The Independent Group aims to reach across outdated divides and tackle Britain’s problems together.

So what do they - the TIGs - actually mean by "politcs is broken"? Sadly they don't explain in their statement, preferring instead a list of broad brush statements designed to make nice noises rather than define a programme for a better politics. I guess the nearest statement of the new groups ideological position is this:

Our aim is to pursue policies that are evidence-based, not led by ideology, taking a long-term perspective to the challenges of the 21st century in the national interest, rather than locked in the old politics of the 20th century in the party’s interests.

Working with the slightly clunky English, I assume the last part is a suggestion that 20th century politics was all about "party interests" rather than "national interest" (an interestingly populist position that I'm sure Matteo Salvini, Nigel Farage and Donald Trump would endorse). We are, however, no closer to understanding just how British politics is 'broken'. Or indeed what needs to change to fix it.

And the stuff about 'evidence-based' not ideological - a sort of utilitarian wet dream - fails to explain what you do when evidence tells you to do something unpopular (reduce immigration controls, abolish tariffs, build roads not railways). Indeed this utilitarian statement is deeply ideological - there's no room for democracy, for risk or for taking a punt, if the computer says "yes", we do it.

As it happens I do think our politics is badly damaged and that what we see from the populists - right and left - reflects how people are responding to this damage. The creation of this new independent group - whether it grows into a different party or remains a club of independents - probably doesn't get anywhere close to fixing the problem. The set of bland statements from the group simply doesn't deal with the disconnection between government and the governed that is at the heart of our problems:

The Trust deficit in our core institutions -government, business, media and NGOs -between the Mass and the Informed public has never been bigger. In the UK only 40 per cent of the Mass public say they trust in institutions, compared to 64 per cent of the Informed public –a record breaking 24 percentage point gap –the biggest of any of the 27 country’s we survey. By comparison the gap in Donald Trump’s America is 13 percentage points.

This is from Edelman's Annual Trust Barometer and shows that the British public, wherever they sit in the ideological spectrum, have lost most of their confidence and trust in politics. And out in that real world we will hear how this is described - when one of the broadcasters ventured out of London they heard MPs described as children, politicians as useless, and our political leaderships as incompetent (they didn't ask about the media or they'd have heard a similar set of sentiments). All of this is, in part, about Brexit and the endless circling round a decision (in the hopes it will go away, I fear) but it goes deeper. The Edelman survey shows how people feel unrepresented, unable to voice their fears and concerns, are often angry, and that this sense is strongest among the mass of the population.

This collapse in trust - in government, in politics, in the media - describes how our democracy is damaged. It isn't a democracy if people feel that, whatever action they take, it will either be ignored or worse that they'll be told they are wrong and that the elite - who, of course, mostly trust the institutions they control - know better what is good for people. At the same time the way in which public services are supposed to serve communities becomes compromised - firstly by the 'one-size-fits-all' approach of centralised government and then by the capture of public services by producer interests. "Members of the community", as many public employees patronisingly call regular folk, see their services - police, NHS, councils - as obsessed with matters of identity, political correctness and PR rather than the day job of providing communities with services.

People are told they don't understand when they complain about the lack of police response to burglary or bad driving especially when they point to hundreds of coppers seemingly trawling through the internet looking for rude things on Twitter. Folk get frustrated when they see unaccountable NHS boards dodging responsibility for bad management and poor decision-making. And parents see dealing with the school or college as a battle against often barely comprehensible bureaucracy rather than a partnership dedicated to the interests of the child.

Worse still and too often, the response of the authorities to challenge - angry, irritated challenge on occasion - is to throw the diversity book: racism, misogyny, transphobia, islamophobia. Add to this a desire of some to micromanage every aspect of people's behaviour - drinking, smoking, cream cakes, burgers, salt, sugar and snacks - and we have a bureaucracy, directed by an out-of-touch elite, that has misplaced priorities and a condescending, sneering attitude to the genuine worries of those people Edelman's survey calls "the mass".

So, yes, our politics is broken but the fix isn't down in Westminster. The fix isn't about who likes who in parliament, about a new set of mates for a bunch of grand MPs. The fix is about restoring trust in our institutions - courts, police, parliament, NHS. The fix is about seeing democracy as giving ordinary people - not MPs - power over the things government does that affect their lives. The fix is about accountability, about allowing people the right to be angry with government without fear of the diversity police or the sound of doors to decision-makers being slammed by their gatekeepers.

None of this is on offer from the first eleven defecting MPs. They only offer an elitist - "the experts will tell us what to do and we'll do it" - approach to government. And they don't want to get your endorsement for their plans - "Sarah Wollaston calling for second referendum whilst seemingly refusing to stand in a by-election herself. This is why people despise some politicians", was one comment.  These people fear democracy and want the certainty of a system where the vagaries of voter choice don't affect their careers or power. This is not changing politics, it's more of the same just in a different bottle with a different badge.

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