Any clout in people power?

9:29am Thursday 15th May 2008

IT has been a week of desperate measures for Gordon Brown. A week in which he has been forced to relaunch his Government, not only in the eyes of the electorate, but also in the eyes of his own jittery MPs.

On Tuesday, Mr Brown was forced into an unprecedented emergency budget to offset the damage caused by the 10p tax rate fiasco.

However it is dressed up, this was a Labour Prime Minister seen to be taking away from the poor and giving to the comparatively well off. He had to do something about it and his £120 tax giveaway to more than 20 million people was an enormous u-turn that had to be made if he was to retain any semblance of credibility.

Yesterday, we saw Mr Brown bring forward his draft Queen's Speech proposals which hadn't been expected until July.

With a potentially crushing by-election in Crewe and Nantwich next week, Mr Brown needed to follow his 10p tax climbdown with a package of enticing measures aimed at shoring up his creaking administration.

It is interesting that a central theme in yesterday's proposals was "people power"

with community involvement given greater emphasis in all the key public services: patient satisfaction surveys influencing hospital funding, parents being given greater access to information about their children's progress, chief constables being made accountable to a directly elected representative and councils being forced to respond to petitions.

People power is clearly a key element in Gordon Brown's vision for taking the country forward.

But will it actually mean anything? Ask the thousands of people who campaigned to save their local post offices.

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