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When Gordon Brown became prime minister, he promised to…

…build trust in our democracy, I’m sure we need a more open form of dialogue with citizens and politicians to genuinely talk about problems and solutions. It is about a different type of politics, a more open and honest dialogue…’

So what the hell happened? Take the government’s consultation on nuclear power for example. It’s bent…

Late yesterday we received an astonishing response to our complaint to the Marketing Research Standards Board about the government’s second public consultation on nuclear power. The board sets the standards for opinion research and found that the market research company Opinion Leader Research breached the Code of Conduct. The board said Opinion Leader “information was inaccurately or misleadingly presented, or was imbalanced, which gave rise to a material risk of respondents being led towards a particular answer.”

Is that an ‘open form of dialogue with citizens’ and politicians talking ‘genuinely’ about ‘problems and solutions’? Is is ‘a different type of politics’ and ‘a more open and honest dialogue’?

I’m going to hazard a ‘no’.