I’m all for massive constitutional change with considerable devolution of power and fiscal responsibility to the lowest, local, functional level: allied to federalism and proportional representation to sweep away our lousy “elective dictatorship”. But Norman Strauss’s wordy proposal for a kind of supreme technocratic institute directing government policy and action is baffling (Letters, 11 October). Who’s going to “brilliantly” select and train this elite group and are they expected to be an ideological vacuum? Technocratic governance was exemplified by Tony Blair’s ideology-lite approach, with its PFI, outsourcing, privatisations and light-touch regulation of finance. This helped maintain our massive levels of inequality and social dysfunction that Tory misrule has made far worse. Rule by any kind of elite, be it unrepresentative technocracy or otherwise, usually degenerates into authoritarianism coupled with sidelined democratic institutions to lend it a kind of spurious legitimacy.
Philip Wood
Kidlington, Oxfordshire
• Even on a third reading Norman Strauss’s letter still baffles. I can make some sense of and certainly agree that “new era-defining paradigm shifts are what spark change”. But I don’t think he’d agree with me that the defeat of Thatcher’s 40-year disastrous experiment by a rational socialist government could deliver the paradigm shift we need.
John Airs
Liverpool
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