Masters of the Universe
I was talking to someone about how political parties can change. In our case, how the SNP and the Greens have grown while Labour has managed to write itself out of Scottish politics in less than 20 years. But the person I was talking to also mentioned the disasters that other countries' political parties have suffered and I looked them up.
The first I saw was Canada where, in 1993, the Progressive Conservatives (now there's a name to conjure with) suffered among the worst ever defeats by a governing party in the Western world, when they lost more than half their vote from 1988 and all but two of their 156 seats.
Actually, I never got past Canada, although the same thing seems to have happened in Australia, Germany and New Zealand. I think this is stunning. How on earth did these people go from running the federal government to being more or less wiped out in 5 years?
It's worth mentioning that the Progressive Conservatives have never recovered after 1993. Their big problems seemed to be a lack of connection with voters and a suspicion among electors that politicians were doing fine but not all of the country was. And they haven't been forgiven. Sound familiar?
If ever there was a warning to the self-satisfied, over-confident, out of touch Labour and Conservative Parties of the UK, this is it. These parties have hung on to a first-past-the-post electoral system long past its sell-by date. That system has kept one or other of them in power for a long time and they are reluctant to give it up. They also have the backing of print media and TV journalists, unlike smaller parties.
Right now, it's almost a pleasure to see the Conservatives faced with a challenge from the Brexit party that may bring about the end of the Tories. I'll shed no tears over that myself, except that the people of England will then be at the mercy of the likes of Nigel Farage. But, like the Labour party, Tories have the means to change the way they behave. They just won't. They want to go on doing the same things they have always done. They reckon their past ideas will appeal to their voters (mainly the old). Tories hang on to 'respecting the wishes of the electorate' in brexit (there's always a first time) just as Labour go on telling us they stand for socialism and solidarity with the workers, while doing nothing to get themselves into a position of power to promote either of these ideas.
Both Labour and Tories lament that voters are not willing to go out and enter their mark on a bit of paper, apparently not realising that many voters are passing a comment on UK politics by refusing to vote.
Note that the parties are not offering voters a different way to vote either. While Finland now votes for everything online (so there's at least one system the UK could buy instead of writing off half a billion quid on a new system, which is what Westminster usually does, and then finding out it doesn't work), Westminster still has MPs spend hours tramping through a lobby to record their vote. It's like watching the 18th century in action.
Things have changed and they will go on changing, but the main political parties don't seem to have noticed.
Very few people are interested in politics, at least interested enough to switch on the TV news or buy a newspaper. These things are for old people. And even some of us old people can't be bothered. I've given up on the first 15 minutes of any so-called 'national and international news' bulletin. I don't want to see and hear more tosh about Brexit or the Conservatives' attempts to elect a new leader or what Donald Trump is doing. I refuse to watch more unrepresentative propaganda from the BBC or STV about what's happening in Scotland. I sometimes follow a story on the internet and, especially, on Facebook. I take care with sources on Facebook, which is not always reliable. But I never look at twitter, which is nasty, uninformative and is too often in the hands of a small group of what we in Glasgow call fuds.
There are lots of attacks on the internet: how misleading it is; how it's in the hands of 'keyboard warriors'; how it slants information. As if TV and newspapers don't have these faults. The latest worry for otherwise intelligent people is 'fake news'. Donald Trump started this and it now looks as if anything that doesn't chime with his view of life can be written off as 'fake news', even if you can prove it isn't fake - and he can't prove it is.
But the internet is how people communicate now and it's never going away.
The old politics and the way it's reported are dead. If politicians really want to engage with the voters, here are a few suggestions:
- Stop sending millionaires (usually middle-aged and elderly men) to parliament. This isn't the 19th century when a seat in parliament was reserved for the local gentry
- Don't let MPs stay in parliament for more than the life of 2 parliaments
- Stop the expenses fiddles (especially over second homes) - MPs may not think that's what they are but the public does
- Update the parliamentary voting system and get parliament and voters too into the 21st century
- Get politicians, civil servants and the press out of their comfy seats in London and let them meet some of the pensioners - just to take one example - who are going to struggle to pay for a TV licence from now on
- Take parliament on walk-about all over the UK - the MPs will hate it but they might learn something outside the cocoon of Westminster.
Will it happen? I doubt it. And frankly, I don't care. The events of recent years have made me think more than ever that watching the Westminster parliament is like watching a quaint but foreign country. Someone on Facebook recently called England Ruritania. Not far wrong in my opinion.
The first I saw was Canada where, in 1993, the Progressive Conservatives (now there's a name to conjure with) suffered among the worst ever defeats by a governing party in the Western world, when they lost more than half their vote from 1988 and all but two of their 156 seats.
Actually, I never got past Canada, although the same thing seems to have happened in Australia, Germany and New Zealand. I think this is stunning. How on earth did these people go from running the federal government to being more or less wiped out in 5 years?
It's worth mentioning that the Progressive Conservatives have never recovered after 1993. Their big problems seemed to be a lack of connection with voters and a suspicion among electors that politicians were doing fine but not all of the country was. And they haven't been forgiven. Sound familiar?
If ever there was a warning to the self-satisfied, over-confident, out of touch Labour and Conservative Parties of the UK, this is it. These parties have hung on to a first-past-the-post electoral system long past its sell-by date. That system has kept one or other of them in power for a long time and they are reluctant to give it up. They also have the backing of print media and TV journalists, unlike smaller parties.
Right now, it's almost a pleasure to see the Conservatives faced with a challenge from the Brexit party that may bring about the end of the Tories. I'll shed no tears over that myself, except that the people of England will then be at the mercy of the likes of Nigel Farage. But, like the Labour party, Tories have the means to change the way they behave. They just won't. They want to go on doing the same things they have always done. They reckon their past ideas will appeal to their voters (mainly the old). Tories hang on to 'respecting the wishes of the electorate' in brexit (there's always a first time) just as Labour go on telling us they stand for socialism and solidarity with the workers, while doing nothing to get themselves into a position of power to promote either of these ideas.
Both Labour and Tories lament that voters are not willing to go out and enter their mark on a bit of paper, apparently not realising that many voters are passing a comment on UK politics by refusing to vote.
Note that the parties are not offering voters a different way to vote either. While Finland now votes for everything online (so there's at least one system the UK could buy instead of writing off half a billion quid on a new system, which is what Westminster usually does, and then finding out it doesn't work), Westminster still has MPs spend hours tramping through a lobby to record their vote. It's like watching the 18th century in action.
Things have changed and they will go on changing, but the main political parties don't seem to have noticed.
Very few people are interested in politics, at least interested enough to switch on the TV news or buy a newspaper. These things are for old people. And even some of us old people can't be bothered. I've given up on the first 15 minutes of any so-called 'national and international news' bulletin. I don't want to see and hear more tosh about Brexit or the Conservatives' attempts to elect a new leader or what Donald Trump is doing. I refuse to watch more unrepresentative propaganda from the BBC or STV about what's happening in Scotland. I sometimes follow a story on the internet and, especially, on Facebook. I take care with sources on Facebook, which is not always reliable. But I never look at twitter, which is nasty, uninformative and is too often in the hands of a small group of what we in Glasgow call fuds.
There are lots of attacks on the internet: how misleading it is; how it's in the hands of 'keyboard warriors'; how it slants information. As if TV and newspapers don't have these faults. The latest worry for otherwise intelligent people is 'fake news'. Donald Trump started this and it now looks as if anything that doesn't chime with his view of life can be written off as 'fake news', even if you can prove it isn't fake - and he can't prove it is.
But the internet is how people communicate now and it's never going away.
The old politics and the way it's reported are dead. If politicians really want to engage with the voters, here are a few suggestions:
- Stop sending millionaires (usually middle-aged and elderly men) to parliament. This isn't the 19th century when a seat in parliament was reserved for the local gentry
- Don't let MPs stay in parliament for more than the life of 2 parliaments
- Stop the expenses fiddles (especially over second homes) - MPs may not think that's what they are but the public does
- Update the parliamentary voting system and get parliament and voters too into the 21st century
- Get politicians, civil servants and the press out of their comfy seats in London and let them meet some of the pensioners - just to take one example - who are going to struggle to pay for a TV licence from now on
- Take parliament on walk-about all over the UK - the MPs will hate it but they might learn something outside the cocoon of Westminster.
Will it happen? I doubt it. And frankly, I don't care. The events of recent years have made me think more than ever that watching the Westminster parliament is like watching a quaint but foreign country. Someone on Facebook recently called England Ruritania. Not far wrong in my opinion.
Comments
Post a Comment