25 May

Who hates committees? Pretty much everybody. But committees in some ways are the heroes of modern life, it’s a fascinating history. Particularly after the Great Wars enormous effort was made to develop meeting procedures for not just organisations, but for all sorts of public associations too, like sporting clubs. There was a recognition that people always need to decide things as a group, at every level of society, and to do that they needed rules. Committees do most of the heavy lifting of democracy, in the vast middle ground between parliament and our individual lives. Many of us hate politics and politicians, and yet struggle to find a way to agree with even a handful of people on a committee - is it us that is the problem, not the politicians? Decisions have to be made somewhere, somewhere society’s compromises have to get made.