Fear Will Maintain Our Status Quo

Photo by Roger Harris

It is a much discussed topic that the UK suffers from the illness of a two-party system, whereby either Labour or the Tories hold power over the Government, even though it is not evident that either party actually received the support of over 50% of the entire eligible electorate. Medicine for such a problem ranges from compulsory voting to increased relevance of parties to a change in the voting system. However, the tumour that eats away at British confidence in our political system is unlikely to be defeated for one simple reason - fear.

Since the early twentieth century, government control has remained firmly in the hands of either the Tories or Labour. Yet, especially as of late, dissatisfaction with this established status quo is high, represented in a drop of party membership and electoral support; for example, neither party received a majority in the 2010 election. As such, you would be forgiven for thinking that the popularity of smaller parties may have soared and these two parties would have been displaced. Sadly, this is not the case. Again, a number of reasons have been previously been given to this decline, including similarities between political parties and the lesser prevalence of political activism in modern-day life. Where membership of a political party used to be a major part of an individual's lives, this practice no longer remains, with a wider range of activities preferred.

Poll levels for these two parties are always fairly close or perceived to be close but are in no way representative of support from the full electorate. As such, the make-up of the House of Commons is even less representative of public opinion as the First Past The Vote (FPTP) voting system does not allow for such. Take, for example, the 2010 election. Out of an electorate of an estimated 45,603,078, 29,687,604 voted but only 10,703,654 voted for the Conservative party. Therefore, of the estimated electorate, only 23% voted for the Tories, whereas of those who voted, 36.1% voted for them. Yet, inexplicably, the Tories hold 47.1% of UK seats, representing roughly double the number of constituents who voted for them. In contrast, the Green Party received 265,243 (0.9%) votes, meaning that, for a properly representative House, the Green Party should have at least 5, possibly 6, MPs. It's no surprise that people become increasingly disenfranchised with politics as such a House doesn't represent them.

It is this lack of proportionality in the House that makes the situation worse. As people recognise that wide support for a small party doesn't necessarily result in representation in the House - the support needs to be concentrated under FPTP - they realise that their vote will only make any real difference if they vote for the Tories or Labour. It becomes a protest vote - worried that the worst of the two evils will take power if they don't vote, or they vote for a small party, people vote for the lesser of the two evils. People are fearful of a situation where the worse of the two options take power. Even though this feeling is quite widespread, and people know that concentrated voting for a smaller party could wreck the status quo, people fear that it won't work and, thus, stick to voting for one of the two major parties. While this attitude to voting continues to exist, we are unlikely to see anything different - maybe further coalitions are in our future, but we are bound to see the Tories or Labour form the majority of these.

Hence, the only real way to inspire confidence in voters and show them that there is a way to oust these two parties, is to introduce proportional representation, where every person's vote influences the makeup of the House of Commons, where 1% of the vote means 1% of the seats. Unfortunately, even this is unlikely to ever occur. Whilst Labour or the Tories hold control of Government and they know that a system of proportional representation would be detrimental to their prospects, we are unlikely to ever see this proposal make its way into law. The closest opportunity we had was when the Liberal Democrats coerced their coalition partners to hold a referendum on the Alternative Vote, a step-down from their original Single Transferable Vote preference, which would have barely bettered the situation but was voted away anyway, reducing any chance of us changing this system.

There are only two ways in which we are going to be able to change our two-party system. Either it will be a long process as small parties slowly grow in support as their small local successes begin to get noticed, but this is not an ideal approach. Alternatively, the process could be achieved through coalitions where smaller parties garner support through their successes in government but if we are to take the Liberal Democrats in this coalition as an example, confidence in smaller parties is unlikely to grow.

Also posted on Backbench

Don’t Make Box-Ticking Mandatory

 Photo by worldoflard on Flickr 

The Institute for Public Policy Research has recommended that voting is made compulsory for first-time voters, but they have seriously overlooked the point of voting.

The UK is most certainly experiencing a democratic deficit, from low voter turnouts, distrust in politicians and a lack of everyday political engagement and, therefore, it is a problem that must be addressed.

As the body that seeks to promote democratic participation, the institute reports that compelling first-time voters to place their ballot would have a wide range of benefits, ranging from forging a life-long habit of voting to ensuring that political parties pay more attention to the young vote. The options on the ballot would include each candidate in the area and an option to not place a ballot.
However, the proposal by the thinktank seriously undermines one of the core concepts of a democracy – choice. Although the thinktank provides an option for young people to place their vote, the idea that they must attend the ballot station and tick a box, or face a fine, is completely at odds with the definition of a democracy. And even if this policy were implemented, you may as well go the full mile and extend the compulsion to all members of the electorate; everyone has views after all.

To compel young people to vote would be to create a false politics, with an inaccurate measurement of political participation. What the thinktank does understand well is the need for politics to appeal to young people and that is the approach that should be taken. It’s been said over and over again that political parties need to speak to young people, perhaps even before they begin to vote, rather than just wait for when they have the power to make a difference. But as young people live their lives so differently to the majority of the electorate, with different living, employment and financial arrangements, the majority of political decisions lay in relation to a future not yet completely comprehended by many young people. Issues such as tuition fees, the Educational Maintenance Allowance and same-sex marriage can appeal to young people, whereas others such as pension reform and care home standards bear no relevance yet.

A mixture of a lower age of participation and better political education will do a far better job at increasing political participation than this proposal. Allowing people to engage at an earlier age can create a habit as much as compelling them to do so. But this will only work if politicians make politics relevant and exciting to young people, making them understand that decisions made now can have an effect on their later life even at such an early stage. And it also relies largely on their close family and friends who may display complete dissatisfaction with politics – older members of families in particular may pass on negative views about the political system to the younger generation and their lack of a habit to vote may make voting seem an abnormal or worthless thing to do.

Furthermore, it’s no question of a doubt that the majority of the things we are forced to do are the least enjoyable. Why add politics to that mix? Politics should not be something that people are made to do, but something that people want to do. Forcing people to vote is more likely to push people away from politics, than be a ‘nudge in the right direction’. A democracy is about consensual participation, not mandatory box-ticking once a year.

You can show your opinion in a poll at the Guardian, but that’s your choice.

Also published on Redbrick and Backbench

Misconceiving the Green Party

The Green Party Logo

It is a horrible misconception of the Green Party to take their name literally and assume that they are a single-issue party – that is to say that their policies are always, at the very least, tenuously linked to environmental policies. However, this is not the case. There’s no denying that the environment is at the core of a lot of Green policies but, despite this, the Greens have a vast manifesto full of policies on education, crime and personal economy. And, unlike other smaller political parties such as UKIP, their policy focus is not one that can easily be solved in one policy change. The Green Party is essentially a left-leaning party with Socialist ideals; hence, similar to the Labour party before it abandoned its roots and repositioned itself under Blair’s New Labour. It’ll be impossible to talk through all of their manifesto points in 600 words, but we can at least look at some of their biggest policy areas.

The basic Green Party policy page alone outlines their attitudes towards the banking system, health and the jobs. The Green Party offer support for policies that attempt to make society a more equal arena, for example, a “living wage” as a new minimum wage which they predict would be around £8.10 an hour. One specific section on young people states “we think it’s unfair that young people are demonised for hanging around on our streets” and then goes on to promise more spending on youth services and free travel on off-peak buses for those under 18 or in full time education. Furthermore, their extended manifesto highlights policies relating to the equality of those who define as LGBTI, women and disabled. They also have a keen focus on further democratising democracy by extending the right to vote to those aged 16 and 17, and changing the voting system to proportional representation for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and allowing a right to recall your MP.

Of course, it would be deceiving to talk through the Greens’ manifesto points without whipping out their environmental policies. As environmental policies make their way into mainstream politics of the three main parties, it is often questioned what more The Green Party has to contribute to the field; some argue that there are only limited, realistic ways of achieving an environmentally friendly society. It is, in fact, the opposite of this; although the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats do offer environmental policies in their manifestos, these are quite often easy to complete and more anthropocentric (to conserve what is for human consumption). In contrast, many of the Green Party’s policies can be interpreted as ecocentric (focused on the welfare and value of nature).

Using the credible source of Wikipedia, we only have to look at the party’s encyclopaedia entry to note that they are not simply an Environmentalist party, but are often attributed the characteristics of being republican, progressive, democratic, socialist and soft Eurosceptics. Upon Natalie Bennett’s successful election in August 2012, she announced that the UK needed “investment in homes, investment in jobs, investment in energy conservation, renewable energy and public transport.” This clearly shows that, although the party does have an Environmentalist focus, they have room to focus on the wider social and fiscal issues that the people of the nation find important. If you find all of this surprising, visit www.voteforpolicies.org.uk and you will see most participants have discovered that the policies of which they most agree with are those of the Green Party. Try it yourself – choose four policy areas and choose which you most agree with; see what party you should be voting for. The fact that you won’t be able to spot The Green Party’s environmentalism in every area shows that they are not just a single-issue party.

The Political Compass

 

I recently decided to retake the Political Compass test, having previously found it a useful and more accurate tool to find out where on the political spectrum I am situated and, hence, to find the party whom I would most likely be more political aligned to. It came as no surprise that the closest party to me was the Green Party as before – being the only non-nationalist UK party in the bottom-left quartile, it wasn’t hard to see. Perhaps what I found most surprising was that I have moved a little to the right since my last test – I can’t speculate as to what may have caused this and I don’t think I want to; these are my views, and this is an accurate representation of them, so I shall leave them be, and retake the test in March and see what it says then. If you’ve not been on this website before, it’s a good basis to finding out who you should be voting for in the General Elections rather than simply basing it on the leader’s charisma.

My figures stand at:

• Economically 4.62 to the left;
• Socially 7.9 towards libertarian.

I’d be interested to hear what everyone else’s are, so if you’ve taken the test, post your most recent results, and if not, take it and post the results. I was once told that for those who have taken this test before, or based the test on politicians as they’ve grown older, that most move towards the right and towards authoritarian; in all honesty, I hope this doesn’t happen to me. So it would be interesting to see how others matched on the chart and whether this is reflected in reality.

Also, if you’re particularly interested in making sure you decide on the basis of your ideologies, I’d recommend a website called Vote for Policies – the website is a little out of date, but uses the 2010 general election manifestos of the 6 main UK parties and asks you to choose which you most agree with. At the end of the test, it tells you which party you most agreed with. Again, I found myself with the vast majority of Green Party policies. Perhaps if everyone used these tools and voted on the basis of the results, we’d have a much more interesting General Election. Couple that with a proportionally representative voting system, and it would be even more interesting. But that’s far off and very unlikely.

Gasp! Shock! Horror!

Photo by Staffs Live on Flickr

Au contraire; perhaps more accurately descriptive words are “meh”, “so” or “duh” – the PCC elections were nothing different to what we expected. Low turnout, a high number of elected Independent candidates, and Liberal Democrats no longer showing as the third party, it’s not a surprise. Let’s go through it.

The Electoral Commission warned the Government of a predicted 18.5% turnout but (and here’s probably the biggest surprise of the day), it was even less than that at 15%. Some regions including my own, the West Midlands, which hosts the bustling population of Birmingham, boasted an incredibly low 12%. One ballot station in Newport received not one single ballot paper throughout the day – that was an easy count. With the lowest turnout at11.6% recorded in Staffordshire and the highest at 20% recorded in Northamptonshire simply demonstrates how apathetic the nation were towards these elections, and who can blame them? It was a disaster and simply shambolic.

30% of winning candidates were unaffiliated to political parties as part of their election campaigns. And again, this is no surprise. There was huge hostility towards the party politicisation of the police force so of course Independent candidates were going to thrive in these. And, in all honesty, well done to them! Aside from that, it’s perhaps not a surprise that Tories still managed to gain a simple majority of the positions (40%) despite their continually decreasing reputation. Why? Simply because this policy will be most popular with their party members, hence, their party members will probably make the bulk of voters. Other political party members will be ambivalent, not necessarily have a candidate fielded from their party or decide not to vote in protest.

UKIP have risen to the third party – well again, that’s not surprising for two reasons. Firstly, it’s difficult to argue that the Liberal Democrats have not lost all credibility they may have ever had, even to their own party members. I won’t dwell on this point. Secondly, the collapse of the Euro and the continuing use of our funds to bailout Eurozone countries is less than dissatisfactory to the electorate. The crisis is not one we can ignore, and our own financial difficulties are often blamed on this. So it’s no surprise that the electorate are increasingly supporting a party that wants to distance the UK from Europe as much as possible, and as the three main parties are not as committed to this cause, there is just the one party to turn to. UKIP are already the second largest party representing the UK in the European Parliament. Before long, the dissatisfied right-wing supporters of the Conservative party are sure to migrate to UKIP and increase their representation in the European Parliament in 2014, and perhaps the Commons in 2015.

So just one question remains; will the Government continue commencing this ridiculous policy, or will they reverse it? The elected PCCs begin their roles on Thursday; they will get paid between £65,000 and £100,000; this election cost over £75 million, and; the majority of them only have 7% of the complete electorate’s vote.

Of course, this Government will sit them out until 2016 – but will they continue after that? That’s something that could be a surprise.

 

Also published on Redbrick

Choosing a Leader

Image by Cabinet Office on Flickr

It’s a funny thing choosing a leader for your country and essentially choosing someone to place your trust in to for a prolonged amount of time, with no real ability to recall your vote. It’s a big decision we must make, and most often one people end up regretting by the time the chosen one has finished dismantling the hard work that someone else has put in.

In the wake of Obama’s victory and re-election in the United States, it’s a little overlooked that we are now halfway through our Condemned Government (of course, unless by some stroke of luck, Parliament is closed) and that means we can officially count the days until we are certain their mandate will end. That wonderful time at which we can hold Clegg and Cameron to account and completely humiliate them with what will probably be a resounding Labour win is now closer than the time we voted them in (although this is arguable in itself.) The end is nearer than the beginning, although not exactly nigh yet.

It’s no secret that all of the parties are already planning their election campaigns for 2015, deciding who will lead their campaigns and what their manifestos and key policies will be, making predictions for what will happen over the next few years and be high on the agenda in 2015, so I’m going to make some of my own:

• Nick Clegg will be replaced as leader by Vince Cable either for the election or as a result of the election
• The PCC elections will show to have little support and little turnout and the decision will be reversed or reduced
• The Labour Party will not have tuition fees as a key policy or will only reduce fees by a small amount
• UKIP and the Green Party will see a small rise in support
• Labour will win an overwhelming majority, but still not match Blair’s 2001 majority. Lib Dems will lose a large number of seats and Nick Clegg will not win the Sheffield seat.
• The UK will enter another recession in 2013.
• Another European country using the Euro will collapse.
• There will be further military intervention in the Middle East, Syria or the Faulklands.

Some may seem far-fetched, and some might seem plain obvious. I think all of these are highly possible, but let’s see how the next two and a half years pan out, shall we?

Why the PCC Elections are a bit of a Farce!

Image from UKHomeOffice on Flickr

Like me, you should have received your polling card through your letterbox this week – and if you didn't,  why aren't you registered to vote? It might even be your first opportunity to vote in a national election. But if you're not someone who follows politics or current affairs very closely, you were probably confused by what it was for or discarded it as yet another takeaway menu – but what you held in your hands was another place marker in history that this Government has created.

You might have seen the rather menacing and, indeed, graphic awareness advert that has recently been released (you know, the one where the man gets beaten up on this bus, and the bus shelter gets smashed up). If not, here it is - try not to get too upset:

It’s probably the first and last you’ll hear of it, however – with the exception of this post. The Electoral Reform Society is expecting only 18.5% of the possible voting population to actually turnout at their local polling station; this is compared to 65% in the 2010 general election. And commentators are largely blaming the lack of publicity about both the elections and the candidates. Nominations for candidates, who are usually put forward by political parties, closed only this week, meaning that voters cannot yet find out about the candidates even if they wanted to.

But why is it all so important? Well, basically, you need to decide which politician you want to spend £65,000 to £100,000 to tell police officers to stop people committing crime. OK, maybe not so cynical… although, despite our regular condemnations of their service, I don’t think employing forty-one of these Police and Crime Commissioners is going to make the service any better than it already is.

And even so, isn’t it possible that each candidate, like all politicians, will be looking to find the “popular” crimes? And, by that, I don’t mean ones that criminals like committing, but those that most people are concerned about or the victims of. For example, littering, anti-social behaviour and drunkenness; perhaps neglecting the more serious and damaging crimes of serial theft and rape. (Again, cynical me…)

Perhaps this new initiative is just a way of allowing the Government, and politicians, to stick their oar into a part of society they haven’t yet got full control over yet. Now the legislation is through parliament, though, there is little we can do to stop it; and the fact that it was (and still is) little reported in the media means that the majority of society won’t even have their say.

Sceptical as I am, I can’t stress enough the importance of making sure you vote in this election though. If you want to make sure you have a say on what the Brum police get up to, grab your polling card and go to your local polling station on November 15^th. And definitely make sure you check out the details of the candidates on www.choosemypcc.org.uk from October 26^th.

Don’t forget and don’t miss out.

Also on Redbrick: http://www.redbrick.me/2012/10/pcc-elections-a-farce/