Ask the audience

Subrosa raised the question of citizens' initiatives, and now Witterings has helpfully picked up Denis MacShane's effusion against referenda. MacShane has produced a pretty perfunctory piece - maybe he kept forgetting which of his many laptops his latest draft was on. If he's hoping to make a career as a commentator, in case he is kicked out of the Commons, he'll have to do better than this.

Witterings charitably accuses MacShane of "lack of knowledge". MacShane of course knows perfectly well that referenda take place in California and other US states - he's just practised at suppressing inconvenient truths.

However, Witterings is bang on the money when he says it might just be possible to accept the banning of plebiscites "if the occupants of the Commons actually listened to the people". Listened and acted as participants in a representative democracy, that is.

So why was a referendum required for Scottish devolution? Because it suited the political establishment. Neither side wanted the responsibility for the final decision, so it suited them to ask the audience. Never mind on that occasion that the issues were complex.

Under the surface of national politics, Richard North has dug out some examples of local referenda on council tax levels. Flawed? Sure. Does this bolster the case for annual national votes on the state budget (referism)? No, because it's easier to understand the tax impact of spending increases at a local level. But these local votes do further undermine MacShane's odd case that letting people vote on a particular issue is somehow anti-democratic.

Or maybe it is that MacShane shares Richard's view that one person one vote democracy is inherently dangerous.

But the biggest gap in McShane's argument is the question: what are voters to do if their representatives club together to ignore their views. EU? Greenery? Stronger punishment for criminals? Richard North might say, Aux armes, citoyens. One could certainly construct an argument that any arrangement which makes lawmakers' lives comfortable is probably wrong.

And ... could or should Scottish independence happen without a referendum?

On some questions you just have to ask the audience. But then - horrors - the audience might start demanding to set the questions.