Who Remembers The Big Conversation?

One of the important roles of the media (and one that unfortunately often gets forgotten) is to act as a public memory bank and to remind us of things that politicians would rather we forget. It’s a role that Marina Hyde takes on with much relish in today’s Guardian when she writes about the legacy of The Big Conversation.

Do you remember The Big Conversation? Not many people do, it seems. It was launched with much fanfare by the Labour government in November 2003. It was our chance to tell the government what we thought was important. Marina Hyde got a flash of memory when the government launched its new initiative Let’s Talk yesterday and she decided to find out what happened to The Big Conversation. It was harder than you might expect.

“You mean Let’s Talk,” snapped the No 10 press officer. No, definitely The Big Conversation (never let it be said that bandying these idiotic monikers with a civil service machinery that once served Churchill and Attlee demeans us all). “What’s The Big Conversation?” Well, I vaguely remember a splashy launch, consultation exercises in church halls, text voting (text voting!), a website … possibly Kate Thornton. Happily, this proved enough of a madeleine to get me directed to Labour HQ, where a spokesman asserted that the exercise ran all the way up to the last election (much in the manner of someone claiming the continued existence of Jack Cunningham) and produced two conclusions reflected in the manifesto. One: people wished Labour’s record on international development could be trumpeted louder and expanded upon. And two: they wanted more focus on primary care within the NHS.

Let’s hope that Let’s Talk is a bit more successful. And is remembered for longer. But I wouldn’t hold out too much hope.

Apparently The Big Conversation web site now sells fireplaces. I can’t confirm that as, for some reason, it’s blocked by the firewall here.