Here, Martin Sime, chief executive of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, argues that politicians appear to have lost the battle for people's "hearts and minds".

Looming elections mean that our media is full of debate about the so-called big issues of our time - independence, the economy, the war in Iraq.

The party machines are grinding into action. Glossy manifestos are imminent. Our politicians will shortly announce what they promise to do for and to us over the next four years.

Martin Sime, who has spent 20 years in the voluntary sector

Yet enthusiasm for politics is in steep, maybe terminal, decline. Party memberships are down and who would have thought that fewer than half the electorate would bother to vote in only the second Scottish Parliament in 300 years.

Growing numbers of people don't seem to care about who gets elected or what government does.

Could it be that our politicians are on the wrong track? Over the last eight years we've had swathes of new legislation and regulation, strategies and action plans.

There's been an unprecedented growth in the public sector - more people doing more things for us. Does 21st Century Scotland need more of the same?

One way to address that question is to examine the really big issues and challenges facing our society and how we, government and people, might tackle them. From this it is possible to present a compelling argument about why politics and government must change.

Take health as an example. By any analysis we need a radical shift which is more about improving health and enabling those who do have health problems to live as normally as possible.

We need our politicians to see themselves as enablers first and as regulators and managers a poor second What do you want from politicians?

Spending more and more money treating more illnesses with our growing elderly demographic is unsustainable.

Our politicians may well be right to go round banning things like fast food and smoking but is it enough?

Public service adverts exhorting us to eat more healthily or not to take drugs seem to have little impact. Just what, exactly, are our politicians to do?

A similar story can be seen over recycling and energy. It was never going to be enough just to drop multi-coloured bins outside our doors and expect everyone to fill them with the right things.

Despite record investment, the quantity of rubbish keeps rising and landfill sites are filling up. A throw-away culture has taken hold.

'Nurture the good'

The same is true about energy and fuel consumption, only on this issue there are the added expectations of an economic growth agenda which has wide political support.

Again our politicians seem to have very limited powers to make significant inroads into rising demand.

What these examples show is the limits of political power in the modern world. The really big issues are about our behaviour and actions and what we choose to do individually and collectively. And we increasingly don't seem to care to be legislated, regulated or lectured to by a nanny state.

Positive ways forward will require a change of mindset. A start might be for government to spend more time and resources nurturing the good than outlawing the bad.

Is this how we see our politicians? Far-off and remote?

Self-help and mutual aid help many people with long-term conditions for a tiny fraction of the cost of the NHS. Community food initiatives, keep-fit classes and voluntary sports activities could do so much more with the right support.

Part of the way forward is about winning hearts and minds and many of our politicians seem to have lost the ability to do that. New solutions to pressing problems need to be built on the foundations of the small scale, on personal and group initiatives working upwards from the community rather than downwards from some party manifesto.

Car sharing, furniture recycling, bike co-ops and sustainable community energy projects already exist, but must move from the periphery to the strategic centre as exemplars where people are taking responsibility and making a difference.

In short we need our politicians to see themselves as enablers first and as regulators and managers a poor second. Such a cultural shift will not come easily nor is it simple to help people help themselves.

But more of the same really isn't fit for purpose in our new circumstances. By all means let's have our ritualistic debates on traditional ground, but we also desperately need a different kind of government with subtler notions of how to work with the grain of our society.