The latest Populus poll for The Times today may cool election speculation down to freezing point. While Gordon Brown’s personal ratings as Prime Minister are still strong, voters are unconvinced that his arrival, by itself, indicates a change in the direction of the Government. If the hustings are to be deferred until May at the earliest, then the Prime Minister has to alter that impression. His speech on the “new politics” yesterday was an attempt to revive a theme that events in the summer pushed on to the backburner.

Some of it was worth rescuing from there, while other elements should have been left on it. The strongest aspects of his new politics are rooted in substance and constitute a departure from the Blair era. The weakest elements, by contrast, contain too much of the faddist and merely fashionable about them.

The proposal to hold a Speaker’s Conference to discuss how to improve the electoral process is a sound idea. This device is not employed often — only five times in the 20th century — but when it has been used it has usually been on questions of electoral procedure. These should, if possible, be the subject of consensus between the parties rather than rammed through by the majority of the day in the House of Commons. It is entirely appropriate to examine whether electoral turnout would be improved by holding polling day at weekends rather than on a Thursday (it would plainly be worth the experiment) and whether there is a case for lowering the franchise to 16 (a more dubious proposition given the number of activities where ministers are thinking of increasing the acceptable legal age from 16 or 17 to 18). This forum should also be the place at which the wisdom of previous changes in the way that elections are conducted — the plethora of voting systems and a reform to postal voting that has been the catalyst for fraud — are revised.

The spirit of bipartisanship should mean much more than wooing ambitious but frustrated opposition politicians in an attempt to wrong-foot political opponents. There is an element of brazen cheek in Mr Brown co-opting Patrick Mercer, a Conservative MP whom David Cameron sacked after his tactless remarks about the Armed Forces and race relations. His fellow Conservative, John Bercow, and the Liberal Democrat MP Matthew Taylor are better qualified for their positions but this is no guarantee of success.

Whether those poor souls who volunteer to be involved in citizens’ juries are similarly qualified is another matter. This has become an immensely trendy concept in certain circles, despite having been around in various guises for years, with no compelling evidence that they improve the quality of governance. They involve bringing together a number of normal people to look at challenging issues — such as youth crime and the organisation of the NHS — providing them with what is allegedly a neutral assessment of “the facts” and asking them to reach conclusions (which may or may not then be adopted).

Why such people are to be deemed more accountable than politicians is unclear. How they would glean more from “the facts” than senior civil servants is as uncertain. It also seems something of a contradiction to hold a conference designed to encourage more people to vote while suggesting at the same time that glorified focus groups, not Parliament, should shape decisions.