Bernard Ingham: The consultation that counts is when we vote

The theory behind this drive to restore a broken society is exactly the same as that behind our passion for suppressing carbon dioxide (CO2). If everybody reduces their carbon footprint, the planet will be saved.

In fact, even if we turned over the entire British Isles to nature in a collective act of mass suicide, we would have little or no impact on global CO2.

But that is by the way. Let me not decry personal involvement in the life of the nation. Millions of people already do more than their bit to help and improve society through a myriad of organisations alleviating the lot of anyone from deprived children to the demented elderly.

They clean up their towns after their filthy fellows and seek to preserve the countryside. They encourage sport and athleticism on a far greater scale than when I was a lad and they work tirelessly at preserving our heritage and records.

This is not to mention their heroic work among drug and alcohol addicts and the down-and-outs, led by the Salvation Army.

Even if William Wilberforce was once simultaneously associated with 62 societies for national or global improvement, I doubt whether we have ever seen more charitable endeavour.

So what on earth is Cameron on about? Surely, he knows that it is

an inflexible rule of mankind that it is only a tiny minority of the otherwise charitably disposed population that actually does the hard organisational work.

"Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. What the others don't do, the secretary must."

Indeed, it could be argued that if he concentrated on curing the ills that all these good people are trying to alleviate, he would do more for Britain than another million activists. Surely the tragedy of a modern, affluent society is that so many ills remain.

One of the ways Cameron is trying to encourage greater participation is through consultation. This has reached an early level of absurdity by asking public sector workers for their ideas on economies. It is rather like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas. No wonder Lord (Norman) Lamont, a former Chancellor, called it a gimmick.

In fact the nation – indeed Europe – is up to its neck in consultation. Speaking as secretary of Supporters of Nuclear Energy, I find it frankly impossible to keep up with the call for comments on this, that and t'other aspect of energy policy. The flow of invitations to participate in "debate" is endless.

It has been facilitated by the internet. Bloggery gives us, as it were, instant access to the pulse of the nation – or at least to the exhibitionist part of it.

And what are opinion polls, now two a penny, but regular checks on the temper of the populace? What is more, they seem to be uncannily accurate, as the general election showed.

All this might be admirable if anybody thought officialdom in its widest sense took a blind bit of notice between elections of how people respond to consultation. Indeed, some of us think that consultation is primarily designed to allow usually politically-correct non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to reinforce the prejudices of our rulers – NGOs, I may say, that may well be subsidised, especially by Brussels, actually to lobby the bureaucracy to do what the bureaucracy wants to do.

In the end the only consultation that has a chance of influencing policy formulation is when it comes equipped with a sanction – votes. This puts MPs in pole position. If enough of us bombarded our MPs with opinions on major issues, larded with threats about their next majority, we might get somewhere.

But that is crying for the moon. We are a much too passive people to turn massively nasty.

I suspect that what Cameron really wants is a more serious, responsible nation, perhaps offering an increased supply of politically alive

people, and that he sees one route to that through increasing

involvement in voluntary organisations.

Fine, let's encourage it. I'm all in favour of a participative democracy. We do need more activists, notwithstanding the already high level of voluntary work. But let's not demean a noble cause by

resorting to often meaningless consultation.

After all a lot of people vote for their MP to represent them. If they can't read the runes, feel it in their water and know what gives, they shouldn't be where they are in Westminster.