"An established government has an infinite advantage, by that very circumstance of its being established; the bulk of mankind being governed by authority, not reason, and never attributing authority to any thing that has not the recommendation of antiquity."

So wrote David Hume, one Scot few would begrudge a place in a United Kingdom government. Unfortunately that was 1754.

But, whilst there's been much talk of "constitutional reform" playing a big part in Gordon Brown's early premiership, and all the main parties have been lining up in recent days and weeks with encouragement for Brown to go further and be more "radical" or with proposals of their own for devolving power, all have, I fear, taken Hume's accompanying warning too much to heart:

"To tamper, therefore, in this affair, or try experiments merely upon the credit of supposed argument and philosophy, can never be the part of a wise magistrate, who will bear a reverence to what carries the marks of age; and though he may attempt some improvements for the public good, yet will he adjust his innovations, as much as possible, to the ancient fabric, and preserve entire the chief pillars and supports of the constitution."

Regular readers, both of you, will know that I have a passion for tearing up the UK's tax code, but I also have a passion for tearing up our unwritten constitution. And Hume also foresaw that there might come a time when the arrangements so imbued with the recommendation of antiquity would prove inappropriate for a new type of world. I believe that time is now and anyone worth the name of a constitutional reformer must be way more radical than anyone has so far postulated.

Our "constitution" and in particular our representative democracy was developed in and for a time where travel and communications ware difficult and took a long time. There were no other more reliable mechanisms for getting messages from one end of the land to the other than to appear in person at court or parliament. A time when the Berkeley family hunted across lands it owned all the way from Gloucester to London to spend a few months of the "season" at court and then hunt all the way back to their Welsh marches fastness for the remainder of the year.

And even until very recently in political evolution this situation obtained. It's only thirty years since more than half the UK's households had a telephone for example. Similarly, in 1972 only 52% of households had access to a car (I am a bit taken aback to realise that I was in the top 9% of households at the time that had access to two cars, even if one of them was a Ford Anglia). Think about that - about the limits it puts on one's movement and choices.

It must have still been something of an event even for leading political figures to make a "progress" around the country in the elections of the fifties and sixties. Compare that with the breakfast in Tooting, lunch in Truro and after-dinner speech in Thurso (if not Tennessee) style of modern political travel.

Even just twenty years or so ago news reports from Afghanistan took several weeks to compile and get back to us, broadcast almost as historical documentaries in big slots in the middle of news programs. Now we can have our news programs presented by the regular anchors live from Kabul one day and the same anchor in Kansas the following evening. And in between we can have been fed thousands of articles about what's been going on with "in depth" analysis from any perspective one could possibly imagine.

Last week I was struck by something in a TV article I nearly missed. There was the opening of some artistic or anthropological exhibition somewhere, in Britain I think, and people were surprised that someone like the Iranian Foreign Minister or First Vice-President turned up and was saying that such cultural events were a good reminder that "our two peoples both want peace whatever their governments say and do". Well, quite.

Ground up government

So I always come back to Hume, and his "Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth". Localism is the key. True "ground up" government. Yes, it's time to grind up the current arrangements and go local. Last week I was at an area planning committee meeting of the North East Area Committee of Oxford City Council. The room was packed. People say that it's the "usual suspects" that turn up to such things, but even if that were the case scaled up to national proportions it's the equivalent of a Westminster select committee sitting in front of a full Wembley stadium of interested people all pretty much able to have their say on the particular issues that they care about.

Hume's idea seems to me a good place to start. You elect a hundred representatives to each of a hundred county assemblies. Those counties each send a representative to a national forum (and the second choice gets to go to a national sort of opposition/scrutiny forum). Most government functions are exercised by the counties themselves in their own areas. But other initiatives can filter up from the counties or through counties working together. If they affect other counties or the whole commonwealth they can be called into the national forum. Sometimes the national forum comes up with its own ideas but they have to be passed by a majority of the counties before they can become law.

Most issues requiring taxation are dealt with at a county level, with a precepting arrangement for things like national defense when the counties of course agree that as a priority. Tax competition between counties (that could be similar to the tax competition between US states) democratises the shape of where economic activity waxes and wanes across the country.

And before you say that this is pie in the sky nonsense for a small island country, a similar system does seem to serve at least one modern, economically successful, and most importantly relatively peaceful western nation quite well. I commend to you all a two and a half century old prescription for modern ground up government. Go read it, and then tell me it's not the beginnings of a sensible way of governing for the third millennium. A global millennium. With connectivity between peoples and, more importantly, individuals, that the world has never before seen. We don't need a bunch of powerful individuals who dare to dream that they can uniquely represent sixty million of us and our different priorities and opinions.

Technorati Tags: Constitutional reform, Perfect commonwealth, ming campbell, gordon brown, David Hume