Rafael Baer's piece in Sunday's Observer ("Enough of the big conversations. Let's have a fight") is an entertaining and provocative critique of the notion of 'consensus' in British politics. It also finds immediate application in the week's news: the Independent's "Liberal Democrats launch attack on Brown's surveillance society" claims that such plans "threaten to wreck Gordon Brown's hopes of a cross-party consensus to tackle the threat of terrorism". But as Baer points out,

"Everyone can agree that blowing people up is bad. Once that is settled, the tricky issues haven't gone away. Either you think draconian measures are justified by the threat or you don't...I'd like parties to represent conflicting positions and defend them in public so I can make up my mind."

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that Labour pressure group Compass, in its new dossier attacking Conservative mayoral hopeful Boris Johnson, claims that Johnson "threatens the very large progressive consensus in the capital" ("Forget the buffoonery, Johnson is really Tebbit in clown's clothing, says Compass").

But again, whatever one thinks of Boris Johnson's ideas, does the objectionability lie in the fact that they break up a 'consensus'? Shouldn't these ideas (which presumably find some public support) be fought over through the democratic process rather than excluded as an illegitimate part of the debate? There is a danger that, as Baer says,

"The consensualist takes his own view, uses it to frame the terms of a debate (claiming with bogus humility to be consulting the public) and then assumes that opinion outside those terms is beyond the pale."

Yet Baer's conclusion, that Gordon Brown should "forget 'national conversations'...just make the decisions and I'll send you my views in a ballot box", is puzzling. It is the very flaws of the majoritarian approach that Baer attacks - a lack of inclusion for minorities; the infrequency of elections; inability to voice one's opinion on specific issues at the ballot box - that necessitate a widening and extension of the democratic process. The 'big conversation' may be a sham, but that doesn't mean that liberals should give up on public consultation just yet.