“You shouldn’t confuse democracy with elections,” Stephen Schwartz, a 24-year-old from Dumfries and Galloway told last week’s children’s planning conference (page six).
Before we rushed to conclude that we were witnessing an outbreak of Stalinism down by the Nith, he hastened to reassure us that the success of his council’s Youth Strategy Executive Group (YSEG, wise-egg - get it?) in allowing young people to “dip into” consultative exercises when they felt like it had shown that it was important “to provide opportunities and not structures”.
So that’s OK then.
