By the people, from the people, with the people.....

Opinion:

When Tony Blair was elected Leader of the (Labour Party) Opposition in 1994, he talked in his Sedgefield constituency about a new community politics, working closely with the local electorate, in order to re-invigorate national politics.

My ears pricked up at the time. It sounded like a refreshing move of engaging and working with people again 'at the grass roots', finding out what their concerns were and working with them to formulate a vision for change. But Blair seemed to have a rather shaky notion, at the time, of how this community focus would really mobilise new people to engage politically.

What a difference with Barack Obama!  He has a sense of what a new politics really means.  His approach to fund raising, mobilising local groups to work together, transforms the way we view politics.  By contrast, Patrick Wintour, in today's Guardian newspaper, reports that Labour's 200 most senior activists are to meet in private this weekend to decide Labour's policy platform.

David Lammy, a bright young black lawyer, a classmate of Obama's at Harvard, has been blunt about Labour's inability to draw in new faces or to use these new methods - open primaries or community fund-raising. "For many people, the good things that we are doing sounds more like a list of bullet points, rather than a mission to change society.  So they switch off..." The article also quotes Sunder Katwala (Fabian Society general secretary):  'Obama is showing the political messages and methods of the 1990s look very tiredand out of date'.

I support that sentiment.  I too find Labour's managerial language alienating.  Tony Blair's first utterance was about being "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime".  But I find Labour's quick fixes to social problems, while ignoring the underlying causes, shallow and sickening.

Obama is being treated as a star during his visit to Europe. He is due to meet Tony Blair, as well as Gordon Brown and David Cameron in the next few days.  I doubt very much whether his fresh ideas will brush off on our wilted British politics.