They're a rum thing, these public consultations.

The idea behind them is the devolution of decision making to the people that it directly affects. A shining beacon of democracy to cut through our convoluted corridors of power.

But in reality, the people who govern us don't really want to be told how they should do so. They're all for elections, where once every few years they can pound the street, knock on doors and fill the airwaves with the sound of their voices. But what they really want is for us to then leave them alone to get on with making the big decisions that they're so much better qualified to make.

Take the Lisbon Treaty, for example. When the people of Ireland told their government in no uncertain terms that they wanted no part of it, did Michael Martin go to Brussels and tell his mates to go and stick it?

No. With a wearied sigh they thought: 'how can we square this one'? They couldn't, after all, let the great unwashed decide anything so important as the fate of their own country and get in the way of their big ideas.

Or the mystically named Your Health, Your Future. It was originally named Your Health, Your Future, (But We Make The Decisions), but the suffix was dropped when people suggested that it gave the game away. That is, that there were actually two very narrow options which "health chiefs" were happy to implement and residents had to decide between.

That left them to make decisions on essentially technical aspects of the changes to the area's major hospitals. Most of us are more broad-stroke on the subject of health and the NHS. We'll tell the NHS what we want - more GPs, shorter waiting lists - and let them figure out how it works. Some parties, including many Barnet councillors, claim the consultation was a sham because it didn't let people say what they really felt.

Because of those voices of discontent, of course, the decision has now been referred to the Secretary of State for Health, whose minions in the Independent Review Panel are now scurrying around the borough finding out what people think of the plans.

Technically, I don't think this is a public consultation, but a review of the public consultation. Even though there does seem to be more consultation than in the original consultation.

Confusing, isn't it?

Public consultations are endemic in the planning arena, although the Government are now proposing to streamline the process so that they can fast-track important-but-controversial plans like nuclear power stations.

It would seem that they're tinkering with the balance between what we, the public, can and can't have a say in, although there doesn't seem to be any formula to decide this. We weren't consulted on the Iraq war or 42 days detention, which a lot of people would have liked to have a say in. They could always have taken a leaf out of the Your Health, Your Future book and asked whether we wanted to invade Iraq from Kuwait or Turkey, or wanted 42 days or 41 days detention.

More recently, we've had the Healthcare for London public consultation, to gauge support for Lord Darzi's polyclinics and a whole raft of other proposals. Personally, when it comes to health, I'm more than happy to let other people decide. I find it strange that while we can't decide on issues of conscience (Iraq, detention), we can on largely technical matters.

There is also a big difference between doctors (some of whom become "health chiefs" when they earn their feathers) and elected politicans. To be a doctor takes considerable academic ability, years of commitment and training. To be an elected official takes...well, commitment at least. Jeffrey Archer was elected as an MP. Jeffrey Archer, people.

In any case, as I reported this week, Barnet will be immune to the most controversial aspects of the Darzi report. Hopefully my GP will not. Unlike some, I'm not particularly attached to him and if I need to see him, it would be nice not to have to take a day off work.