And Another Thing…

Actually, Tom, the reason turn-out is so low is because there’s bugger-all difference between iDave and Gordon Brown, other than that iDave isn’t quite as delusional as Brown. Yet.

I’m pretty sure a couple of years from now he will be just as bad.

But voters are disillusioned because there really is no choice between the parties. I suspect a lot of people are voting BNP just because they’re not part of the cosy consensus — which is frankly insane, but there you go…

Break the consensus. Offer real choices (not just a different soundbite) and people will take interest again.

I think turnouts are so low because no party does what we want. You all do what you want and justify it by saying you are doing what we want.

Just ask ordinary people, but of course you get the answers you dont want to hear.

So give more power back to the people and they may take an interset again.

Please look to yourselves before you blame others.

Low turnout is an excellent reminder of who is supposed to be in charge. Us.

Saddam and Stalin both managed 100% turn outs, let’s not forget.

[Quote]
And how dare the government and opposition parties interrupt our daily diet of Big Brother and Celebrity Soap Stars Do Their Washing Up or whatever just so that they can explain what they would do with the reins of power in the next five years
[/Quote]

How I wish you would.

Politicians of all parties spend most of the time telling me how bad it would be if the other lot are elected. If the person happens to be in power they tell me what they HAVE done (allegedly) NOT what they will do. If the person is in opposition they tell me how bad everything the government HAS done is and utterly meaningless platitudes about how they would do it better with no details.

The fact is that all parties are scared of saying in any detail what they WILL do in case it upsets somebody who might vote for them.

Keep it bland, keep it meaningless, slag off the other lot, don’t upset anybody.

You, as politicians, get some guts and tell us what you really mean, answer questions when your asked them instead of talking about a different subject or just avoiding the question entirely and you might start to get people listening to you.

I’ve just had my first election mail: an invitation from the Lib Dems to apply for a postal vote!

I think turnout is so low because the political mainstream no longer reflects the people it seeks to represent. To my own mind, the electorate are (broadly speaking) socially conservative and economically centre-left – you certainly couldn’t characterise the make-up of Parliament in these terms (socially liberal and economically neo-liberal).

Even so, I’m not sure it’s right to say all parties are the same – there are very obvious differences between them, though quite often this is on the level of modus operandi rather than ideology. Perhaps the drift toward localism that we are starting to witness will help shake things up a bit.

For anybody that might be interested, I have blogged about this here – http://wp.me/pJiP0-23 -

The media and politicians have both contributed to the downfall of intelligent political discussion in this country.

Headline grabbing quotes and soundbites replace any in depth coverage. A quick and scathing rebuttal is much better than a well argued disection of a new policy. A big idea (fluff) generally plays better with the public than an explanation of what resources are available and the hard choices that we have to make.

Even the broadsheets are failing the public miserably, but we’re not helping ourselves by buying the papers that have more pages devoted to BB or X-Factor than politics.

“But it was bad before then and it always will be.”

Nah Tom, it was never anything like this. Not in my lifetime.

I am a bit of a news/politics junkie. I can’t get enough usually. However even I am wincing at the idea of having to listen to the stuff that will flow over the next few months. We have passed through the looking glass, by-passed the twilight zone and have entered a dimension only previously witnessed in farce.

Why?
Your party has lied to us non-stop. Literally, non-stop.

I don’t mean like ‘politicians always lie’. I mean new depths of treating us with contempt that somehow seem to only reveal yet further depths.

Why should anybody think any differently to how you describe after what has happened>
Your party spent its latter period in opposition ruthlessly smearing the Tories, explaining so clearly why they are the antithesis of open and honest politics. Folks like Stephen Fry would go on TV with license fee pay riding his hip denouncing the Tories as the lowest possible people. They were scum leaching on the deserving public. The TV media everywhere seemed happy to send out the idea that the then government were some sort of ultra-evil.

New Labour, thanks to their own efforts as much as anything else therefore entered government as an answer, a cure, a new beginning.

Then it began, professional, relentless, venal spin and lies. It is so ingrained and culturally normal that I don’t believe the average Labour politician even senses it occurring any more.

Cash for questions? No cash for policy. Good days for burying bad news, university dissertations lifted from the internet and used as evidence in the most solemn of decisions, re-announcement after re-announcement, endless tractor stats, not one bit of humility once about anything. Scurrilous accusations to those opposed to your policies (including playing the race card as you yourself admitted, surely the lowest of all tactical expediency).
In the a not untypical move of leftie self-righteousness your party merged the notions of their own views and what is right, after that occurs, like with any zealot, anything goes. You threw away the last vestiges of the ‘spirit of the game’, any means possible are/were considered fair.
Tony promised to stay a third term, he knew he was lying. A referendum was promised, he knew he was lying. And people thinking your party venal somehow rubs you up the wrong way?

This is a really sweet country and I have always considered myself damned lucky for being born here. It takes a special kind of miscreant soul to screw it this badly.

You guys made your bed and then set it alight. No use whining now Tom.

“How will the public put up with the constant policy announcements, rebuttals, prebuttals and arguments between now and polling day”. Easy answer that with mostly boredom!!

Still there will be some excitement anything that leads to your town festooned with colourful posters and every lamppost awash with signs makes for a pretty sight.

Journalists will be happy as each party snipes and puts out policies. Printers and phone companies will be happy as buisness starts to prosper. Even if we where not out of recession there is nothing like an election to actually get things going again.

So happy new year to one and all and for those of us who enjoy this game it will be an intresting year.

Re: the post above.

1: Apologies for the grammar. No excuse.
2: I was not accusing you of playing the race card Tom. Merely your party.

“I think turnouts are so low because no party does what we want. You all do what you want and justify it by saying you are doing what we want.”

Nail. Head..

And when confronted with deep unpopularity, our dear leaders don’t change the policy, they change the spin on the message.

The question asked is ‘what shall we do?’. Never is the obvious question asked ‘should we do something?’.

It is not entirely politicians fault, however, lobbyists screech and scowl, and flatly refuse to take “***k off” for an answer, so small well motivated and funded groups of professional ***ts make big changes in policy without public support, or in some cases directly against the public.

It is unfortunatly, “The Triumph of the Shrill”

Good piece Tom.

Turn out is prinicpallt low because people don’t think they can make a difference & because they are bored with it all. Lets be honest – our politics is so much about spin. Far too much spin.

And that starts at the top. Even our prime Minister stands up at PMQ’s and berates the opposition about not putting forward policy ideas – HELLO! its PRIME MINISTER’s Questions, not L.o.t.O questions! He stands there for 30 minutes every week and ducks just about every inconvenient/serious question posed to him.

600+ MPs sit there for 30 minutes & its a complete waste of 300 man hours! All we get fed is the usual vitriol about Tory (IHT) tax cuts for “the rich”. Big deal, £3Bn a year when the PM conveniently omits to mention that equates to just 6 days borrowing under his “regime”. Its just one example of politicians treating the electorate like fools.

Its no wonder people are turned off politics – so much of it is just an endless stream of half truths & out of context irrelevant nonsense while nobody will face up to the real issues and say anything remotely controversial for fear of being branded a heretic (or in the case of Climate Warming Change Tax Raising Godsend, a “denier”. )

We know we are being fed rubbish & frankly we’re sick of it.

Those that don’t vote do need a good kick up the backside though because often as not they moan the loudest when things don’t go as they’d like. Everyone should have to vote IMO and there should be a “none of the above” option on the ballot paper.

I suppose non voting is also symptomatic of some of the lack of community and social responsibility we see in our society. Sadly far too many people also don’t give a toss & have an “I’m alright Jack” attititude. We see far too much of it everywhere.

Maybe that stems from a loss of understanding of value – not just of money; although heaven knows that’s gone miles out the window in both Government and with many individuals – though which came first I wonder??

But also a lack of social value in our society. We need to find a way to restore it. Ordering its restoration from the centre isn’t going to work and nor can you lot try & “buy it” – It’ll need to come from the ground up. Anyone fancy starting a Party?

Speaking of the election, I got leaflet through my door from your Rt. Hon friend Mr. Sarwar even though I live in Glasgow South. What’s that all about? Is your election machine worried that the good people of Pollokshields won’t approve of your pro-war agenda?

For once, Tom, I completely agree with you (and also with the bit about the ubiquity of bl**dy football on news programmes).

I entirely agree Tom. The level of political debate in this country is pathetic. Any politicians within their own parties who don’t toe a particular line are accused of ‘splitting’ their party. Any politician who changes their mind is accused of a ‘U-Turn’. They rarely get a chance to fully explain their position or expand on a point. Just look at Newsnight, a relatively high-brown political news programme. Paxman doesn’t let guests finish their sentence before he interrupts them and insinuates they’re lying.

Obnoxio, Johnny Norfolk, Michael – if you don’t like what the two main parties are saying why don’t you do something about it? Form your own party like the working man did a hundred years ago. Or form a party like Ukip which squeezes one of the main parties in to a particular position (there are no pro-EU Conservatives left apart from Ken Clarke). Or join one of the main parties and shape it in to something you’d like.

Just stop whining that its all politicians fault.

It’s certainly true that the level of political debate is not high.

But it’s unarguable that politics is more interesting when there are plots about.

And I believe there’s one coming to the boil at the moment, featuring a final attempt to unseat Mr Brown.

Will it succeed? Nah, doubt it.

Pity.

Exactly Tom!

These are the same journos that wrote all summer about ’3 month holidays’ for MPs whilst never leaving Westminster because they knew full well that’s where they would get their interviews. Hypocrites.

“Maybe democracy is a rubbish way of running a country,”
————

Oh no; democracy is a wonderful way of running a country. The trouble is, we don’t have a proper Democracy. We have an elected Dictatorship – and that pretty-much goes for whichever Party is in Government.

Once a Party has been granted sufficient votes to achieve a majority and form a Government, it can do pretty much what it likes. All the electorate can do is put up with broken promises; failed policies and even a change in Prime Minister until such time as a General Election is again due. When once again, it gets to exercise ‘choice’for about 5 second.

Now that worked reasonably well when the two main contenders for power represented different ‘tribes’ and had very different philosophies. But the fact is, with our electoral system, any potential governing party has to pitch itself for the middle of the road “nti-politics” brigade – those who have no strong feelings or political philosophy. They are the people the hardest to interest in the political process, but ironically are also the ones who effectively make the decision about which Party will form the Government. That is why politics has become so bland; all the characters have been sidelined so they don’t offend the mainstream middle of the road core voters.

Our Democracy needs revitalising. I don’t know how we will do it because we are so resistent to change. I don’t think proportional representation is the answer …. I think probably the UK needs to move to a properly federal system with a written Constitution based on the American model with an Executive, ‘Senate’ and House of Representatives. We can keep the Monarch as Head of State, but remove all vestiges of political power and with a directly elected Prime Minister.

One thing is for certain – after the current disasterous incumbent – we can never again have an ‘unelected’ Prime Minister.

I largely agree with you but you have to accept some responsibility for tolerating Alastair Campbell and Charlie Whelan (Jo Moore was only a bit-player) who debased politicians in the public view. My parents were honourable local councillors (as were almost all their colleagues in both parties) but in the last dozen years public perception has fallen so low that when my wife and I urged our son to vote (no direction specified and we support different parties) to dilute the BNP vote in the European elections in the region encompassing his university he chose the Monster Raving Loony Party on the basis that they had introduced more progressive policies into the political debate than any of the three major parties (you may, like myself, dispute this but it was an arguable proposition and anyway he’d voted by then).
Of course one can, and should, condemn journalists who smear politicians for an easy cheap headline: you may be especially annoyed when it comes to abuse about legitimate expense claims as journalists are notorious for making unjustified expense claims. However some of this is due to the new rules introduced by New Labour: neither the opportunities nor the tendency for abusive claims were visible under previous governments and I can remember my father returning from a meeting addressed by the MP from a neighbouring constituency,when I was a teenager, at which he had responded to an aggressive question about his salary by pointing out that his expenses were more than twice as much.

Tom, you don’t like football ? At least in football there is a clear FACT which is undisputable – the final score. In politics there is only dispute and counter-dispute, with both you lot and journos going for the emotive (knee-jerk) responses rather than anything that might count as thought.

In any case, when a party (yours) can go about wrecking the country having had only 22 % of the total available vote, it does make us feel, and behave, like fodder – no choice as to who gets to eat us.

Not to mention that 87 % of laws/impact on us comes from the EU, where even when we vote it is for only a toy parliament with no powers.

One thing I would do is make voting the right of only those who have a stake – no representation without taxation, thus removing the social recipients of workers’ taxes from any right to a voice. Boston Tea Party in reverse.

Alan Douglas

“Not to mention that 87 % of laws/impact on us comes from the EU, where even when we vote it is for only a toy parliament with no powers.”

I won’t embarrass you, Alan, by asking you to source that “fact”. Because it’s not true – it’s another of these crazy ideas that Europhobes bang on about without actually bothering to research the facts. Which are here.

@Alan Douglas
Only those that pay tax can have a vote?

Well, since EVERYONE buys things then we all pay tax.

But what about the sole crofter who manages to survive using the well on his land and grows his own food, should he have a say?

Is democracy purely about paying to have a say, if so then why don’t companies have a say? What about children that pay tax?

The word democracy comes from “the power to the people” not power to the taxpayer.

In fact, the only thing you got right in your post was Labour’s shocking share of the available vote:
35.3 of the votes cast * 61% turnout =
21.533% of all eligible votes went to Labour in 2005.

@Paul,

It’s even worse than that, given the tendancy for negative voting in this country, the people who voted positivly for labour could be as low as 10-15%.

I have no evidence for this whatsoever but it is FACT.

Simply capitalising the word “FACT” doesn’t actually make it any more a fact. It’s your opinion, and a pretty pointless one at that. Are we judging the quality of votes parties receive now, rather than the quantity? Labour received 36 per cent of all votes cast in 2005. By calculating our share as a percentage of all votes – those both cast and not cast – you’re placing the same value on the vote of an actual voter as that of someone who couldn’t be bothered.

“I have no evidence for this whatsoever” is a bit of a give away tom, that this is just a little tounge in cheek, dont you think?

Although I do think that the nature and not quality of the votes does matter. that both parties openly play to activate negative voting says a lot about the state of politics in the UK, both main parties do this “We cant go on like this” and “George Osborne’s £34 billion credibility gap” indicate that neither party are really trying to sell us a better way. they are relying on (1) scaring us into voting for them, and (2) there is no way in hell that voting for another party will have any meaningfull effect on the outcome of the next general election in more than a couple of hundred seats.

A lot of people vote negativly because there is little point in doing otherwise.

I used to encourage people to vote, I can honestly see why they dont bother now. and anyway saying FACT at the end of a sentence worked for Tony Blair, why shouldn’t it work for me.

Tom,
you’re placing the same value on the vote of an actual voter as that of someone who couldn’t be bothered
not everyone who didn’t vote couldn’t bother to vote.

Some of us were actually so turned off by ALL candidates in our constituency (or perhaps the parties more than the candidate) that we could not bring ourselves to vote.

Some of us made the practical decision that there was no point voting as our constituency has always been (insert party here) and will always be (insert party here).

Some of us made the economic argument that our constituency was so unlikely to come down to one vote, and the Parliament was also so unlikely to be hung (based on my constituency) that the net present value of the difference of the best and worst parties coming to power was lower than the cost of crossing a box on a ballot paper.

Sorry to denigrate voting to such a level, but if the politicians don’t inspire us then what are we to do?

You’d get more people voting if there was a ‘None of the above’ box to cross. Otherwise voting for the ‘least bad’ option gives that party a feeling that they have a moral mandate to enact their policies, that most people didn’t actually want.

Does anyone out there feel safer since the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 or perhaps the Coroners and Justice Act 2009? Don’t know what’s in them, of course not yet they have made all sorts of things illegal even though no living thing is harmed in any way shape or form.

Even though I am no fan of the Libs, how about this:
Labour: 35.3% votes 55.2% seats
Tories: 32.3% votes 30.7% seats
Libs: 22.1% votes 9.6% seats

No wonder the Libs want a change in the FPTP system!

Paul, I have thought abut the ‘None of the above’ option before, it would be useful from the point of view that a lack of supporting votes could not be deliberately misconstrued as silent approval. But what happens if ‘ none of the above’ actually wins!

I quite like the STV system where you rank the candidates, it would allow the voters to apply pressure on candidates by implicitly and quantifiably threatening candidates to act in a particular way if elected. If you were elected by getting 90% of Green and 40% UKIP candidate 2nd choices, you may think carefully about voting certain ways on say landfill policy, or EU integration.

Where as this probably would not be any more proportionate than FPTP it would allow a larger group of electors to be considered than the current system.

@jonathan campbell
“But what happens if ‘ none of the above’ actually wins!”

The best of all worlds happens – we geta government formed out of the best of the rest and they have no power to enact any legislation as ‘none of the above’ means leave things bloody well alone. The government gets to run things but all legislation would have to go to a referendum.

Joyous to those of us that think we have laws aplenty. Obviously there’d be some issues but can’t be any worse than what we have at present.

Many of the comments above confirm what I believe, there are a lot of intelligent and disillusioned people out there whose creativity and drive we ignore at our peril. I’ve changed my name by deed poll to None of the Above and intend standing as an independent in Chingford and Woodford Green, a Conservative safe seat (Iain Duncan Smith is our MP), the main thrust of my message being that, if I get elected, it is my duty to find out what my constituents want and act accordingly. I’ve talked to a lot of people and am learning a lot from them, as I have from you (see my next comment). If anyone fancies doing the same then changing your name by deed poll is easy and cheap and can be done on line. I’ve spent a few hundred on having literature printed but my total expenditure to date is still under £1,000. I know this may be a lot of money, but hopefully not beyond the pocket of a group of family and friends. If anyone wants more details, contact me on none@noneabove.com.

I think our politicians should listen to what we have to say. Since I hope to be one of them I would like to thank many of the above contributors for sharing their ideas.
Taxed to death (and beyond) particularly caught my attention on the first reading, but second time through, amongst others, Alan Douglas, yes, if I get in I will have to be careful to try to represent the majority, not just the vocal majority, although I don’t yet know how, Boudicca, I like your analysis, but I think I’ve got a better solution, ADJB, I think I am also guilty of being a bit non-committal, I’ll work on it, Old Slaughter, contact me, I could use your experience, Johnny Norfolk, yes, A different Matt, that’s why I’m independent, so I don’t have to toe the party line and I can admit if I’m wrong and finally Michael, I’ll read your blog, I need to really think about what you’re saying.

@None of the above.

Good for you, and I wish you luck, on a practical level though, how go you ensure that you are at the bottom of the ballot, as they run alphabetically by party I understand, just put ZzzzZzzz in the party box of the form?

Jonathan. Thanks for your good wishes. I’m quite lucky because there is only likely to be one independent and independents go at the bottom, in any case it’s a figurative Above, and doesn’t, I think, have to be a literal one. It is surprising that there are only six independent MPs in parliament, although the odds are stacked against us.

[...] Scott, meanwhile, provides an eloquent yet exasperated summary of the present landscape, while Tom Harris seems less than sympathetic with those who are bored of the whole thing already. Mind you, if this [...]