The Coalition government’s efforts to involve the electorate in helping to shape policy and spending decisions – what David Cameron describes as the ‘largest public engagement project ever launched by the British Government’ – closely follows a template created by Barack Obama. For the second year running, Obama has appeared on YouTube in a live question and answer session, responding to video and text questions posted and chosen by the American public – what they describe in America as “a virtual townhall gathering”. By the time the interview was broadcast last week, over 140,000 questions had been received and 1 million people had expressed their opinion on which of them should be put to the President.
As the host says in the introduction to this particular clip: “This is the internet and on the internet people love to have a more personal relationship with their elected officials.” I have no doubt that Cameron and his team are already planning their own citizen-powered question time.