Cnut, Jenkins and the law of Brownian motion

I wonder if they still do the experiment with smoke at schools to observe Brownian motion. Essentially you peer down a microscope at tiny particles suspened in air and track the complex paths that these particles follow. In doing this you are following in the footsteps of scientist Robert Brown who gave his name to these paths. What causes the complex shifts and changes in direction is the result of many tiny collisions at the microscopic level. Imagine a huge gang of people surrounding and running together towards a giant beachball. The ball will move but you won't be able to predict the direction.

The same effect can be observed in the media coverage of the MP's expenses scandal. Journalists are pushing in one direction, MPs another, the public have joined in, lobbyists and activists are running to the scene. There's an election so minor parties, PPCs, and councillors all want their piece of the action. The police, the speaker and the CPS have all been sucked in. The story is bouncing, not at random but in complex and unpredictable directions. 

So it is impressive that the electoral reform lobby managed to judge the moment and move the story in their direction. This is only possible because so much work has been done with the political class over the past ten years to embed the possibility of reform. Once it was mentioned, many people clutched at the issue as a way to move the story on. This helps journalists who are becoming bored at yet more duck islands and it helps MPs who want to talk about something, anything else. So there was a lurch in that direction but everyone's caught up now and so the Brownian jumps start all over again. 

Cnut isn't everyone's choice of poster child for public relations but he is well worth hanging above your desk. You will recall that he proved the limits of his wordly power by ordering the tide to stop. To no effect. Everyone caught up in the current maelstrom should remember that we can ride and harness the tides but we still cannot control them. 

David Cameron hopes that he can reap the whirlwind of reform without having to deliver proportional representation. Historically the Tories have been able to swat away the PR lobby with a quick comparison to Italy but Tony Blair and Roy Jenkins have provided a viable model. Alan Johnson has already called for a referendum on this model. It falls well short of what the Lib Dems seek but that wouldn't stop them supporting some reform rather than none.

None of us can really see where this is going. Most of us don't have to make calculations based on the unpredicatable path of an out of control public narrative but the leaders of our political parties do. Let's hope they remember Cnut and Brown as well as Jenkins.

Image is Cnut the Great and is public domain