No more seduction by spin

Instead of just running advertising campaigns and getting their representatives to spout glib slogans, political parties will attempt to gain support by winning the debates on the merits of their arguments and by developing policy quickly to deal with emergent problems. Content will at last prevail over form with success or failure being determined by material results in a context of growing emergency.

Issue specialists have always had a role in politics, but a minimal one. Politicians have usually waited until an issue has gained a certain public profile before accessing relevant information and expertise. The situation now demands that such expertise become an integral art of the policy-making process because issue complexity and urgency require it.

The current layer of political specialists (that is, public relations managers) who have come to define politics will get squeezed out as their orientation towards public perception is washed away by unavoidable material realities. Of course they will try their usual tricks for a while (wedge politics, distraction, and so on - nuclear power, anyone?) but as the crisis becomes clearer and more urgent, the voters, like everyone else, will be seeking viable solutions, not ideological posturing.

Government will necessarily change also. The current sluggish processes, due in part to politics and in part to the problems of departmental management, will increasingly fall short as emergencies arise. Governments will rely increasingly on their own issue specialists who can think and act quickly, and who are not immersed in the public service culture. No doubt the whole system will change under pressure, but in the mean time a new kind of political operator who combines a working knowledge of politics with a sound knowledge of the issues will be essential.

The revitalisation of politics will have a profound effect on wider society. Issue specialists, sidelined for decades by the combination of public relations and economic orthodoxy, will be galvanised by the realisation that their expertise matters, and will become increasingly focused in their work. Single-issue groups, often locally based, will be legitimised and will revitalise local politics which is the heart and soul of politics.

Of course, the cause of all this will be the emerging threat of catastrophe as strange weather and rising oil prices signify an unprecedented challenge facing modern humankind. Politics is about power, but it will become about the power to avert disaster and manage long-term change as opposed to the maintenance of class or sectional privilege. The prevailing ideologies of economic rationalism will give way to a much more balanced set of ideas, and the success or failure of policy will be decided not so much by the slick seduction of spin as by the hard facts of how many people may die and how much property may be lost.

The alternative, a politics that perpetuates narrow sectional interests based in old ideology and run by the usual suspects, means ultimate disaster for everyone. A politics that includes more open debate and promotes participation by those who actually understand the issues may yet get us through in good shape.