Have posted my own comment on this robust debate as a separate post because of the timelag.

Power 2010 have a different process than the one you outline:

People send in ideas, then a panel of randomly selected citizens consider the ideas and pick their top five. These then get presented to candidates who are asked to sign up to it.

I quite like this process and am all for lots of different ways of campaigning, but some quick thoughts:

1. The ways of getting in touch are through the website (mainly) or post or turning up to a public meeting (details tbc). The responses are likely, therefore, to come overwhelmingly from people who are already politically engaged and economically well off.

To help get a more diverse set of responses, the public meetings could be held in partnership with local community groups in more deprived areas (possibly using the ‘Get Heard’ toolkit or similar). I’d consider, say, one in Rhyl, one in Glossop and one in Glasgow to get a mix of small town, rural and large town responses from across the UK (it’s almost certainly cheaper to hold events in these areas than in London, as an added bonus since the budget is limited).

2. Would be interested in the makeup & independence of the panel / safeguards against things going wrong. If someone sticks in a proposal suggesting, say, taking the vote off all immigrants, or abolishing all salaries & expenses for MPs, and the panel decides it is one of the top 5 would power 2010 really campaign for that?

3. What’s the incentive for MPs / PPCs to sign the Power 2010 pledge?

Ideas aren’t my starting point. I identify tribally with groups of people and the ideas I use come out of their situations.

That’s fine, but theirs is clearlya different way as its a different context.

If you wanted to push for reform of parliament, given limited resources, how would you do it?

“think tank comes up with ideas, then does outreach to get people to sign up to their ideas and support them, usually through lobbying. If the think-tank is more democratic than most, the ideas may get changed and prioritised differently in the process of reaching out to people”

That is considerably different from

“supporting oppressed peoples, organising around demands springing forth from their interests”

The first still disenfrachises people by setting up a hierarchical elite. The first is more of a liberal appraoch; I’m not a liberal so it’s hardly surprising I don’t think it’s best. Ideas aren’t my starting point. I identify tribally with groups of people and the ideas I use come out of their situations.

Like I say, the difference would matter less if I thought the ideas expressed were complementary to the process of organising the peoples I support.