2 April

I’m proud to say I’m an expert on committees, it’s a big part of my job, I get paid to do it. Some observations about committees from years of working with them: 1) everybody hates them, but take them away and people will just reinvent them and call them something else 2) people think smaller committees are more sensible, because it’s easier to get agreement. The problem is, you still have to do the work of convincing everybody who’s *not* on the committee to go along with its decisions, so it’s a false saving 3) committees are central to civic society, they’re extremely sophisticated, formal ways to get agreement amongst people 4) every formal committee is a mini-parliament, connected in law to our main parliament 5) most committees are run very badly, and so get a terrible name, and 6) the fact that it can be a struggle to get even a handful of people around a table to agree shows our hypocrisy in hating politicians, when they can’t get millions to agree.