Brian Monteith: Less Facebook, Dave, more face-to-face

Published on Sunday 11 July 2010 15:56

IT had to come. In these days of social networking using computers, laptops and mobile phones it was only a matter of time before we had a prime minister that told us to be hip and tell him what we think of public spending cuts using a dedicated Facebook site.

I am not impressed. In fact I am absolutely bored with this type of self-indulgent gesture politics. If that makes me a square then it is to the power of ten. I can think of nothing worse than a Facebook discussion of the merits of protecting overseas aid whilst raising VAT to 20 per cent.

I had hoped for better from David Cameron. I had hoped that despite his brief career as a public relations man he might have taken his premiership more seriously and swept away all the double counting, quick-fix gimmickry and the easy attraction to new technology to make him look appealing and one of us.

It is not as if I do not know my soft copy from my hard drive or my USB from my YouTube; I have been using computers from the early eighties and had my first Apple Macintosh in 1987, I have an i-phone, an i-pod and e-mail has been my downfall as much as my saviour. I am not an old stick-in-the-mud who avoids new technology - but I do believe it has limits.

I gave my mother a computer for Christmas two years ago and she is now more in touch with the family than ever before - but use Facebook to contact the government? This Blairesque idea actually disenfranchises people such as my mother rather than empower them, it makes those that cannot, or choose not to, use such means less important to the new political dispensation.

There are already a number of Facebook sites discussing politics including one called "David Cameron's a prick" which shows his photo with a Hitler moustache drawn on. Childish it certainly is and the level of debate is not a great deal better.

On "David Cameron's a prick" someone observed that "Maggie took the Milk and Cameron took the Child Trust Fund." Well Maggie did not take the milk, she limited free milk to only those entitled to free school meals - which means she took it from the middle classes. Cameron is ending the Child Trust Fund - a fund that we do not have the money to pay for and thus would have to be paid for by those receiving it once they were adults.

Do not expect any of these detailed points to appear in the one-liners that constitute a normal Facebook contribution.

What would Cameron do if Alex Salmond made a public call for everyone in Scotland to engage in the Facebook debate? What if the legions of cybernats, those dedicated internet commentators from around the world that assail anyone who happens to question the arguments in favour of Scottish independence, descended on Cameron's Facebook telling him what we in fact want is not public spending cuts but sovereign independence - and we want it now?

If they formed the majority of those participating does that mean they should be listened to and Cameron should succumb to the end of the union? Would Cameron show respect to the Facebook responses? And why stop at just one new dedicated Facebook site for the cuts? Why not have Facebook sites for every government department and every initiative that department takes?

On Thursday night's BBC Question Time there was a seminal moment when, after the comedian Ed Byrne had made a plea for more rather than less public spending as the solution to our ills, Michael Forsyth laid waste not just to the idea of continuing to spend money we do not have but also the notion that cutting the deficit is enough.

Forsyth argued that the deficit is the amount by which our national debt rises every year, that our debt doubled under Labour and that the spending predictions show it will double under this new government unless the deficit can be reversed into a surplus - and that the way to do this is not through cuts but by delivering greater economic growth that results in higher tax revenues. In a few short minutes Byrne and Forsyth had communicated to millions the basics tenets of the two opposing philosophies and Byrne had the smile wiped off of his face.

Cameron will not find such insight on Facebook. Yes,he should engage people, but he would do better to learn from John Major and get a soapboax and go round the country saying what he thinks is right - and then listening to the responses - than putting up a Facebook wall for those in the loop to give us their streams of unadulterated consciousness. To use Facebook as a substitute for debate is to patronise us.

What we need is a prime minister that gives us leadership, not followership. This requires a prime minister that believes in his own message. Instead what we have got is a prime minister who thinks the medium is the message. Followership is the new leadership in Britain, just as war is the new peace in Afghanistan.

Debate is good, consultation is good, but Facebook is virtual debate and virtual consultation. It is time for Cameron to get real and go out and listen to the people rather than hide behind self-serving gimmickry.

• Brian Monteith is policy director of ThinkScotland.orgz