Dominic Lawson: Why is the 'listening' PM so terrified of spontaneous public engagement?

Along with everyone in Britain bar one, I have no clear idea what Gordon Brown has in mind when he declares that he will "renew our constitution". If there is one thing that he should not do, however, it would be to abandon the constituency system through which our MPs are elected.

Every member of Parliament represents not just an abstract accumulation of votes, but real, identifiable people, to whom he or she is personally answerable. While those voters frequently complain that "we only see you when there's a general election", all MPs operate a "surgery" which their constituents can attend if they have a serious problem which they think requires the intercession of their elected representative. Beyond that, there is the MP's postbag, and a good constituency agent will not keep its contents a complete secret from the person to whom the letters have been addressed.

While it is true that busy Cabinet ministers will attend their surgeries less often than backbenchers, all of them do their duty. It follows, therefore, that Gordon Brown, throughout his 10 years as Chancellor, will have remained at all times aware of the sorts of things which most concern and irritate his constituents in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.

What then, is the man talking about, when he declares that he will break with the recent past by "listening to the British people"? Over the past fortnight he has spoken as if his ears have been sealed ever since Labour took office in 1997: "The last 10 years have taught me that the best preparation for Government is not meetings in Whitehall. The best preparation is listening to the British people."

The truth is that Gordon Brown is not really referring to himself at all. Without being so tactless as actually to name his predecessor, he is apologising to the public for Tony Blair on behalf of the Labour Government. While Blair began his Prime Ministership as a man apparently determined to reflect every shade of public opinion, he ended up boasting that he had always been true to his own inner voice: Vox Dei, rather than Vox Populi.

This was especially true in respect of the invasion of Iraq. By talking endlessly about "listening to the British people" Brown, I suspect, wants to persuade those who opposed that military campaign that he feels their pain. It certainly goes no further than empathy; in his answers to written questions from Independent readers earlier this week, Brown gave a predictably monosyllabic response to one who asked if it had been a mistake to invade Iraq: No.

At least the new Prime Minister dealt honestly and openly with the question. Unlike his predecessor, however, he seems terrified of any spontaneous engagement with the British public. Throughout his Chancellorship Mr Brown refused countless requests to go on programmes such as Question Time or Any Questions. Norman Lamont and Kenneth Clarke, who held the same position in a much less popular Conservative Government, were quite prepared to debate with the public in such uncontrollable and open forums.

This was not just a matter of greater confidence or courage on their part. New Labour has always believed that it can best influence public opinion by manipulating the press - and for a long time did so very efficiently; the Major government had such a hostile press that its ministers saw BBC open debate programmes as almost the only way to communicate with the public - and their political opponents - on equal terms.

Earlier this week the viewers of BBC Newsnight were given a vivid example of this continuing difference between Mr Brown and his Tory rivals. A film-maker called Jamie Campbell had some months ago pursued David Cameron up and down the country, asking him quite pointed questions, rather in the style of Michael Moore. Cameron, in Campbell's own words, was "affable, courteous and answered every one of my questions".

The difference with Gordon Brown was, as he reported, "striking". Brown's press minders saw it as their duty to obstruct Campbell's attempt to ask questions, sometimes physically. At one point we saw one of Brown's press officers call the police, who promptly hauled Campbell away and searched him, invoking counter-terrorism legislation: this, despite the fact that they knew he was a journalist working for the BBC.

Such heavy-handed intimidation does not sit well from the private office of a man who proclaims that he now wants "a different type of politics, a more open form of dialogue". Brown's office might justifiably retort that Mr Campbell is not an ordinary member of the public, but a smart-arse film-maker. The point remains: why was this encounter so terrifying for Gordon Brown's minders that they had to call in the men with bullet-proof jackets and machine guns?

In a wider sense, too, the "listening government" line is more spin than substance. All administrations, after a long period of office, are widely declared to be "out of touch". Countless New Labour focus groups will have passed this information up the line to Downing Street. The appropriate public relations response to this has always been to declare that the Government is "listening". It was this which led to New Labour setting up its "Big Conversation" during the mid-term lull of the last Parliament - although no reference to its results appeared in New Labour's 2005 election manifesto.

There's a reason for that: it's very easy, as a Government, to listen, but it then needs to decide what to do. Contrary to the fashionable view that politics is about reflecting some sort of immanent consensus, the public is deeply divided on most matters of any importance and whatever a Government decides will usually disappoint as many as it pleases. Mr Brown may decide that the public wants much more "affordable housing" - but will he then also "listen" to the howls of anguish when green fields are earmarked by the construction companies and property developers?

There are some matters on which there is an overwhelming consensus. According to recent opinion polls, about 75 per cent of the public want to have a referendum on the forthcoming EU treaty. After all, according to such experts as Angela Merkel and Valery Giscard D'Estaing, it is intrinsically - though not rhetorically - identical to the European Constitution which New Labour had promised to put to the British people in a plebiscite.

Mr Brown, understandably, does not now want to expend his political capital on such an uncertain and fraught enterprise. Fine: but if he is not prepared to accede to a clear popular demand for a referendum --on a matter which a number of other European countries will put to their own people - he should not expect us to take too seriously his claim to be a "listening" Prime Minister.

d.lawson@independent.co.uk

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