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Simon Barrow’s “Thinking Aloud” yesterday was late out since he was lost in the wilds of Birmingham (I didn’t ask for further details, but a canal was not involved).

The piece is about the limitations of the formal political process. Simon says:

“I am a ‘political animal’. Always have been. But political processes can easily become overbearing, distorting, disconnected and over-determining of the many features of life that they touch upon. I explore how and why the church might play some role in generating alternatives in this area. There’s also an anecdote about Nelson Mandela at the 9th WCC Assembly in Harare ten years ago, illustrating my point that “grace as well as power is needed to triumph over injustice, and to hold on to the vulnerable dream that a different world is possible.”

I see an echo of this in the demand that knife attacks be solved by policing and policy; like many things, I think that the long term solutions lie in the area of recovering a human scale and trust in local life. That cannot be mandated, since it has to be voluntary.

Visit Simon Barrow’s article The Limits of Politics.

For all too many people in Britain, politics appears to be a form of organised bickering and special pleading that intrudes in unwelcome or un-engaging ways on everyday life, but just has to be accepted – like road humps and rain clouds. For another, much smaller class of persons, it is a fascinating and all-absorbing occupation, seeping into every corner of human activity, demanding careful attention and observation.

The former demographic is, one can be sure, far closer to the heart of the Ministry of Justice, currently charged with finding ways of encouraging participation among the large number of people registered to vote who rarely participate in general elections and almost never in local ones – roughly 40 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively.

On the other hand, the professional political class, policy researchers, the commentariat and readers of worthy websites such as this one (who together probably make up less than 5 per cent of the population) are bound to be the ones salivating at the launch of Iain Dale’s new, all-encompassing print publication and online resource, Total Politics, which comes yelping at us like an excitable, over-informed puppy.