One of the first jobs I applied for on graduating was as political researcher to the Labour MEP for West Yorkshire’s Bradford and surrounding region. I didn’t get the job. I didn’t even get an interview, despite graduating in politics from the city’s university with a 2.1 (quite something in those days). Perhaps he intuited that I had voted Conservative in the recent 1979 General Election and was personally responsible for the arrival of Margaret Thatcher in our midst. Instead, I signed up for chartered accountancy, underwent a very bad 80s, unlike the party I elected. And the rest is mystory. One in which I have voted for all three major political parties and one or two smaller ones. You may have noticed it’s local election time again. Shirstleeved candidates are knocking on our doors and dropping unspeakably bad leaflets through our letterboxes. My friend, Craig Dearden-Phillips, is on the stump himself, campaigning to break the Tory stranglehold of a local council seat in Norfolk on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. Chief Executive of the advocacy charity for people with learning disabilities, Speaking Up, Craig is examining his future lifelines as he approaches the tremendous age of 40 this summer. A couple of weeks back he asked me for some advice on the messages in his campaigning ‘literature’. Already an accomplished author, with a book and regular national newspaper columns to his name, Craig needn’t have worried. But others should. As I write, I’m staring with incredulity at the A4 folded leaflet from the UKIP party. In a bright dayglo pink and yellow combination (first pioneered by The Sex Pistols in 1977), I am invited to ‘Say No to the EU’. And the visual they use on their front cover is none other than Winston Churchill flicking one of his famous ‘V for Victory’ signs. Now, Churchill died in 1965, some 44 years ago, 8 years before the UK even entered the EU. The photo in question clearly dates from the last days of the Second World War. So, I question the wisdom, never mind the legality, of using the image of a politician totally unconnected to the party and its current proposition. The ongoing expenses scandal makes people wonder about the motivations of politicians, who jostle to expiate their sins by humiliating themselves in more and more irrational ways by the day. But, as far as most politicians are concerned, my wonder has always been around this point: what on earth is it about them that they think they have something to offer people in the first place? And there’s the rub. In politics, as in journalism and all the more venal professions, you just can’t get the staff these days. So, the ghosts of our distant past come to remind us how great we once were, in wartime, on rations. In the meantime, if Europe didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it. So, sorry UKIP, people have had enough of the negative message in politics. I’m following Obama when it comes to political inspiration. ‘Yes, we can!’
Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/
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For the last 30 years my dear old dad has been a local, and now regional, politician. Yet for many years he could not muster a single vote in our house for he was a Tory.
ReplyDeleteToday I cannot vote for him but I would. Not that I support his party - I don't. I don't support any party and that's the point.
My Dad represents his constituents- all of them. He is nominally part of a party but regularly votes against them if he thinks that the bulk of his constituents would want him too. He comes under party political pressure and he's old enough not to care about it. He's popular amongst he electorate because he represents them first.
This is what Democracy is surely about. Voting for an advocate to express our views.
As a student of politics, Mark, you will be able to explain when Democracy became subsumed by its new guise. Today we are asked to vote for parties. Parties that have fixed policies. Policies that were not formed with my concerns at heart. Policies that are designed for one purpose - to achieve power. Once thats done my advocate ceases even to feign interest in my views or the views of the other people he/she is supposed to represent.
The UKIP party in local elections is one extreme example of what I mean. They have one 'popularist' policy - and serve no purpose but their own.
The local elections are happening here too (in Ireland) and its only the bravest of candidates who have come to my door. For they already know I will ask the same question of them all.
"I am not interested in your party, tell me what YOU personally are going to DO for me and this community".
The polity simply couldn’t stand more people like your dad who go out there and actually represent their constituents. Why, that would be the end of ‘democracy’ as we know it! Interestingly, with your dad, it begs the question why he doesn't go independent. And why all MPs are not independent. And the answer is because he and they draw strength and resources from a bigger entity while constantly challenging and testing it. This happens in all the main parties and gives us all the perception of democratic exchange.
ReplyDeleteActually, democratic politics never really existed. Until the advent of communications media - penny newspapers, trains, radio, - most people didn't even have a vote. Power was always centralised - parcelled out when insurrection was feared. When new communications possibilities allowed people to finally see beyond the end of their village (sometime in the 19th century), they became more interested in the bigger, national picture. Although they had to be given the vote, the glamour of the larger world was forever cemented and the myth of local power forever put away. Interestingly, the internet is putting severe pressure on this. All the traditional power bases from bankers to politicians to journalists are feeling the strain. Yet, locally, people are still feeling powerless. As we haven’t yet harnessed the power of technology for political purposes, this is a pressure cooker situation – one in which the extreme parties can clean up, eg UKIP (as I write, Debs shows me the BNP leaflet that’s come through the door – “the BNP will bring our troops home and ensure that British soldiers are not abused on the streets of our cities by Muslims.”) It reminds me of the late 70s. These parties are working very hard; we’ve had nothing from the main parties. So, while it feels as if the 'local' has largely gone out of politics, paradoxically, the only real difference people can make is locally. Yet while so many have a view (see your local newspaper) very few act on it. Some, like my friend, Craig, then put themselves forwards as candidates. Usually on a negative platform (though not in Craig's case) - of being 'against' something. I want to know what people are 'for'. But then, if you ask people for their opinions in this country, we can tell you nine things we don’t want, before we get to the tenth. And that tenth will always be to pay lower taxes. This is a great conversation, but an endless one.