Well, well. I have just watched Gordon Brown deliver a speech on the global economy and the web at the Google Zeitgeist forum at The Grove hotel. Someone has definitely put something in the PM’s tea, because this was a very different Gordon to the testy, embattled figure of the past few weeks.
Confident, relaxed and witty, he delivered his speech without notes, pacing the stage and playing the audience at this excellent event.
Instead of lecturing them – the cream of the new media world – he praised them for their part in the ‘biggest re-structuring of the global economy we have seen in our history.’ He urged them, in troubled times, when the popular clamour for protectionist measures will inevitably grow, to be resolute, patient advocates for free trade and globalisation.
In the questions afterwards, he leant back in his chair and roared with laughter when asked about Britain joining the euro. I asked him what lessons there were for the political class to learn from the web revolution and the rise of what Don Tapscott calls the ‘Net Generation’: disdainful of hierarchy, free of deference, taking their cue from ‘peer-to-peer recommendation’ rather than the instruction of elites.
Gordon’s answer was unequivocal: ‘people power will become an explosive force in history’. Social networking and blogging would give the public the ‘power directly to influence change’. Even foreign policy, he suggested, would be affected: if Rwanda happened today, he said, the images and stories dispersed on the web would make it impossible for the international community not to intervene. Indeed, the challenge in this era of ‘direct people power’ was for global institutions like the IMF, the World Bank and the UN to match this growth of a global demos on the web.
So – believe it or not – the great practitioner of Treasury command-and-control finally declared: ‘I believe in the wisdom of crowds’. We’ll see if words are matched by action, especially in public service reform and the true devolution of power to neighbourhoods rather than simply to town halls.
But this was a start for those of us who have been urging the PM to embrace the new world of wiki-politics and the cultural revolution of Web 2.0. More immediately: whoever has been coaching Gordon on his delivery is on to something (you’ll be able to see his performance on YouTube shortly). This is precisely how he should give his speech at what will probably be a make-or-break speech at the Labour conference in September. Perhaps he really is listening and learning.
Comments