Gordon Brown calls for a "Democracy Day"

Various newspapers took what I assume to be a Press Association wire based upon a Downing Street briefing, and reported Gordon Brown's desire to have a 'Democracy Day'.

This is the Guardian's version:

He will tomorrow try to put himself at the helm of the move for political renewal in the expenses scandal by promising a "democracy day", holding referendums to change the voting system for the election of MPs and to endorse a wholly elected second chamber replacing the Lords.

However, this is what Brown eventually said:

But I have one final mandate to ask of the British people as well. It is a mandate to improve public trust in our democracy and in our public life. Politics has been scarred by recent events. In the next few days I will put forward a comprehensive plan so that the people of this country can be sure that there is transparent, accountable, open and democratic politics being pursued in this country, at every stage accountable to them in the future. And I want us to renew the contract between the people and those who they are sworn to serve.

From a prime minister with no direct electoral mandate over vast swathes of government policy in England, and from one who baulks at reform of the Barnett Formula, this is a laughable statement. But where is the mention of a 'Democracy Day'? To me 'Democracy Day' implies a national 'Britishness' day, for example the 7th June "to remember the Reform Act 1832 also known as the Great Reform Act". Sadly it seems likely that Brown has in mind a one-off Democracy Day on which the public can vote on Gordon Brown's idea of how Britain should be governed.

Brown also told the assembled press core of his plans for the marketisation of England's police, cancer care, general practitioners and schooling, all dressed up as a guarantee "to every single citizen of Britain".

''And I want to give a direct guarantee to every single citizen of Britain that, when you need the police, when you need help with cancer care, when you need your GP at the evenings and weekends, when you need as a child to have personal tuition in your school, then these public services will be there, directly guaranteed to you as individual citizens when you need them, and accountable to you and your family.

All that was announced previously as part of the 'Working Together' policy document.