If we want people to trust us, we must blow our own trumpets

Luckily, this debate is taking place at a time other than in the immediate aftermath of an election. There is something of a tendency to plunge into a gloomy analysis of the "death of politics" on the weekend immediately after any given election. This is forgotten for a year or more in the frenzied coverage of precisely the form and language of politics that so repulses people in the first place. But not, it seems, this time.

Reading some of the reports on the "state of the nation" as the exercise was announced, two key themes become obvious. One is the discordance between the abstract and the concrete, closely paralleled by the disconnection between the national and the local. The other, which seems to flow fairly logically from the first, is the public's failure to connect changes or improvements in neighbourhoods or local services with the political process.

In other words, the government tends to get the blame for every failure, while the working of some invisible hand is believed to be responsible for new schools or hospital buildings, job creation or reduced crime.

I read one revealing quote from a woman who said the credit for the achievement of some new community facility should go to "those who complained". Well, up to a point I suppose.

Some, mind you, would argue that none of this matters. Britain is a land of peace and prosperity, goes the theory, and if large sections of the populace wish to dismiss politics as an occasional, irrelevant irritant then so what? But this ignores the fact that, by and large, it is the poorest people who are the most disconnected, despite having the most to gain.

It also ignores the truth that, nationally and globally, we have a great many hard decisions to make, centred on the balance between individual and collective responsibility for a whole host of major challenges, from environmental protection to transport to public health. To do nothing may court future disaster. To act without consensus may be too great a political risk for any party.

The government gets the blame for every failure, while the working of some invisible hand is believed to be responsible for new jobs or schools

Yet there is little or no chance of engagement at this level of debate, if so many people feel alienated and disconnected at the local level. As the new language of campaigning would have it, we have to win "permission to engage", not assume this will follow as a consequence of an election, a programme, a leaflet, or even investment in a new school.

If, of course, any of us had neat answers to these questions, we would be very highly paid consultants indeed, but a couple of things do seem obvious. First, governments pay a high price for their failure to "brand" effectively their achievements on the ground.

If my local council hands a fiver over to a voluntary organisation, this fact is tattooed on the forehead of everyone who goes near it. But national government can spend billions and "ownership" is at best split into segments, at worse, lost altogether. Take a look at the boards outside any major building project and you would be forgiven if you concluded the construction company was delivering the activity behind it.

This matters a great deal, because if people do not have a sense that their taxes are funding these projects, they will conclude the money is being wasted altogether.

I am not just pandering to a housing audience when I add that, below the radar of the national political agenda with its emphasis on health and education, we should pay more attention to housing needs.