There was general hilarity when I first told Colne Council (some 35 years ago) that they should ask local people their views.

"If you ask for problems you'll certainly get them!" said one Aldermanic worthy with predictable regularity. Public consultation is now bigger than ever. Time and again people say "What does it matter - you've already made up your minds!"

Last week the Cabinet Office issued a new consultation paper on - "Effective Consultation"! It's only 33 pages long but I had to work hard to stay awake.

What a dry and bureaucratic report on something that ought to be full of life, vigour and all the messy controversy of real democratic involvement by people!

One bit taken more or less at random gives a flavour: "The recent reforms of Impact Assessment should improve the quality of public consultations on Impact Assessments, not least because stakeholders will be able to form a more immediate view of the quality and sufficiency of the analysis."

It's full of "stakeholders" and "engagement" and "ownership" and lots more of the same kind of rubbish. Then they have the cheek to worry about "consultation fatigue".

A typical example of government-style "consultation" is just starting in Pendle. The Council and Pendle's "Local Strategic Partnership" (LSP) have jointly launched a "starting with a blank sheet of paper" consultation on two plans they are forced to produce.

One, if I've understood it right, is the Pendle Community Strategy which will cost the LSP large amounts of wasted public money.

The other is the Core Strategy (main planning policies) for the Local Development Framework which will slowly replace the Pendle Local Plan under ridiculous new labyrinthine (and expensive) procedures that are supposed to streamline and simplify the local planning system.

But involving people in the real world is not like this. Last weekend there was an outdoor meeting in Colne to ask people their views on proposals to make a new adventurous play area in an area of woodland and green called The Hagg.

A lot of people turned up. The discussion was frank and vigorous, not always comfortable for the organisers. That's what real local democracy is like. Untidy, passionate, awkward, people who care about the area they live in.

I doubt if either smooth-talking Cabinet Office civil servants or the Pendle Partnership members compiling useless plans behind closed doors would have felt at ease.