Jeremy Paxman's interview with Russell Brand on Newsnight continues to make waves and has been watched by well over half a million on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLYcn3PuTTk)—maybe a lot more if viewing figures for the alternative versions on YouTube can be aggregated. It would be all too easy to dismiss Brand as a self-publicising showbiz personality with the gift of the gab and no more reason for being on the lighter-weight Newsnight than anyone else, if it were not for the fact that he has clearly struck a chord with many people, especially among the young.
As someone who has never missed a chance to vote—and would vote more often if given the chance by those who limit the extent to which we, the electorate, get to judge them—I am unlikely to condone his stance that he has never voted and never will. Not to vote is tacit complicity with the status quo. It can be dismissed as the inaction of someone who can't be bothered.
The true action of an objector to the status quo is to make the effort and go to the polling station and spoil ones ballot paper. If enough people who want change were to do this it might start to have an impact.
There are usually at least 30 per cent of the electorate that abstains with its feet in parliamentary elections, double or treble that in other elections. Imagine what would happen if we followed Australia's example, had compulsory voting and all the erstwhile abstainers chose 'none of the above'. Probably the end of the world as we know it.
Meanwhile, disillusionment with the way democracy works in practice under the dead hand of party politics will continue to spread. The electorate will engage with 'single issues' rather than endorsing a wholesale package of party policies. In the absence of referendums, petitions launched through social media become potent. This may not be a better model of democracy but it is more immediate, more responsive and more engaging. Nonetheless, it will have a hard and long struggle displacing the regime that Russell Brand and so many others despise.
Historical context
Incidentally, back in 1911 that great Sussex man Hilaire Belloc and his friend and fellow distributist Cecil Chesterton (GK's brother) wrote a book called The Party System. This expressed, a century ago, the same disgust at the parliamentary set-up that motivated Brand but in a more sustained and informed way. The Grumpy Old Voter is currently reading the book and will quite possibly return to the subject.
TTFN
Showing posts with label election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label election. Show all posts
Monday, 4 November 2013
Thursday, 26 April 2007
Into the last week
Days to election: 7
One week from now the polls will be closed and David Dimbleby will be presenting the television results programme that will largely aggregate the whole of the United Kingdom, effectively diminishing the significance of the local nature of the election. For the next seven days, however, the elections will be fought at local level.
Or will they? So far this household has received two Conservative leaflets. And that's it. Nothing from any of the other four parties contesting the ward. No door-step canvassers, no telephone calls, no e-mails, no personal letters from candidates or even from Tony Blair or David Cameron.
There is still time for parties and candidates to try to influence my vote. But I don't think I am being peevish for believing that as far as politicians go, I really don't matter, any more than voters in all but marginal wards and constituencies have mattered for some elections past. Funny then that the only ones to make the effort at communication around here are the incumbents. If they are afraid of losing, the evidence so far is that have little to fear. Unfortunately.
Friends in different wards of the city have told me during the past few days that they have had visits from Conservative, Green, Lib Dem and Labour canvassers (each in a different ward, it should be said). One received a Labour leaflet. Maybe the parties are regarding the outcome in this ward as a foregone conclusion. They shouldn't take so much for granted. Even if they have limited resources for electioneering, they should be making an effort.
Perhaps by not canvassing they are actually hoping to avoid disturbing the air of apathy that they have worked so hard to engender. Then they can be elected by a percentage of the electorate that could sink to single figures. Work it out: one out of five candidates can be elected with 21 per cent of votes in a typical turnout of 30 per cent. That's 6.3 per cent in favour of the winner. Even in the unlikely even of a candidate getting half the votes in a five-way contest barely amounts to 15 per cent support. That is shameful and outrageous.
So here's my dilemma: if candidates can't be bothered to tell me that they exist, still less what their policies might be, should I even consider voting for them? Vote I certainly shall, as I always have. But the degree of resentment I feel towards politicians will go up yet another notch, my trust in politicians and the efficacy of 'democracy' will be eroded still further. Just as, I suspect, it has been for the vast majority of the electorate who probably won't go out and vote next Thursday. We shall have only ourselves to blame. We get the politicians we deserve and as of now I don't think we deserve any of them. We'll still get them.
One week from now the polls will be closed and David Dimbleby will be presenting the television results programme that will largely aggregate the whole of the United Kingdom, effectively diminishing the significance of the local nature of the election. For the next seven days, however, the elections will be fought at local level.
Or will they? So far this household has received two Conservative leaflets. And that's it. Nothing from any of the other four parties contesting the ward. No door-step canvassers, no telephone calls, no e-mails, no personal letters from candidates or even from Tony Blair or David Cameron.
There is still time for parties and candidates to try to influence my vote. But I don't think I am being peevish for believing that as far as politicians go, I really don't matter, any more than voters in all but marginal wards and constituencies have mattered for some elections past. Funny then that the only ones to make the effort at communication around here are the incumbents. If they are afraid of losing, the evidence so far is that have little to fear. Unfortunately.
Friends in different wards of the city have told me during the past few days that they have had visits from Conservative, Green, Lib Dem and Labour canvassers (each in a different ward, it should be said). One received a Labour leaflet. Maybe the parties are regarding the outcome in this ward as a foregone conclusion. They shouldn't take so much for granted. Even if they have limited resources for electioneering, they should be making an effort.
Perhaps by not canvassing they are actually hoping to avoid disturbing the air of apathy that they have worked so hard to engender. Then they can be elected by a percentage of the electorate that could sink to single figures. Work it out: one out of five candidates can be elected with 21 per cent of votes in a typical turnout of 30 per cent. That's 6.3 per cent in favour of the winner. Even in the unlikely even of a candidate getting half the votes in a five-way contest barely amounts to 15 per cent support. That is shameful and outrageous.
So here's my dilemma: if candidates can't be bothered to tell me that they exist, still less what their policies might be, should I even consider voting for them? Vote I certainly shall, as I always have. But the degree of resentment I feel towards politicians will go up yet another notch, my trust in politicians and the efficacy of 'democracy' will be eroded still further. Just as, I suspect, it has been for the vast majority of the electorate who probably won't go out and vote next Thursday. We shall have only ourselves to blame. We get the politicians we deserve and as of now I don't think we deserve any of them. We'll still get them.
Wednesday, 18 April 2007
Making the voter the v in .gov
Local and regional elections are coming up in much of the UK in just over two weeks' time on 5 May.
This blog has been started initially to track the local elections being held for Brighton & Hove City Council. I hope to make it as positive as possible but, given the subject matter, that might be an uphill struggle. Of course, what is written here, even if it were read by millions, will not make a blind bit of difference to anything. Yet there are tiny flecks of straw in the wind hinting that the attitudes in this blog are not unique, that there is a desire for change, to make politics more accessible and meaningful to us citizens. Let's collect the straws until we have enough for a bonfire.
Brighton & Hove City Council consists of 54 seats: 10 wards with two councillors, 12 wards with three. It is currently run by a minority Labour administration (no overall control, NOC), the seats being held as follows:
Labour 23
Conservative 19
Green 6
Liberal Democrat 3
Independent 2
Vacant 1
This is the line-up as reported on the council's own website (www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=b1000143). In fact, one of the independents is a member of Brighton & Hove Independents, a political party registered with the Electoral Commission.
Net changes since the election in 2003: Labour has lost one seat to Independent and one Conservative resigned. At the previous election in 1999, when there were 78 seats, Labour held 44, Conservative 23, Green 3, Lib Dem 5 and Independent 3.
Of the 21 wards, seven returned only Conservative councillors at the 2003 election, six only Labour and one each only Green and Liberal Democrat. In the remaining six wards votes were split between parties.
Candidates this time round
The four main parties—Conservative, Green, Liberal Democrat, Labour—are each fielding a full complement of candidates in every ward. In seven wards these are the only candidates.
Two local parties are fielding candidates: Brighton & Hove Independents is contesting all the seats in two wards, two of the three in a third ward (where three other independents are also standing) and one of three in a fourth ward. The Protest Vote Party has single candidates in two central Hove wards.
Among other parties, Respect and Socialist Alternative each have two candidates, and there is one each from the Alliance for Green Socialism, English Democrats 'Putting England First!', the Socialist Labour Party and Ukip. Single independent candidates are listed in each of five wards and in one ward are two independents, one of whom is Tracey-Ann Ross, who has been prominent in the campaign against the council's controversial schools admissions policy (see Links). Three independents are associated with the Dump the Dump campaign against the waste sorting facility at Hollingdean.
That makes a total of 236 candidates to choose from.
The Lib Dems hope to win between nine and 12 seats and the Greens are hoping to double their presence to 12 (The Argus, 12 April).
- As someone who has just received his polling card, that makes me a voter.
- As someone who is celebrating 40 years of being able to vote—and who has done so at every opportunity since 1967—that makes me old. Old-ish.
- As someone who is fed up with our electoral system, the cynicism of politicians that infects the electorate (and vice versa), the lack of integrity, forethought and imagination—you name it, I'm fed with it—that makes me grumpy.
This blog has been started initially to track the local elections being held for Brighton & Hove City Council. I hope to make it as positive as possible but, given the subject matter, that might be an uphill struggle. Of course, what is written here, even if it were read by millions, will not make a blind bit of difference to anything. Yet there are tiny flecks of straw in the wind hinting that the attitudes in this blog are not unique, that there is a desire for change, to make politics more accessible and meaningful to us citizens. Let's collect the straws until we have enough for a bonfire.
CURRENT STATE OF PLAY
Brighton & Hove City Council consists of 54 seats: 10 wards with two councillors, 12 wards with three. It is currently run by a minority Labour administration (no overall control, NOC), the seats being held as follows:
Labour 23
Conservative 19
Green 6
Liberal Democrat 3
Independent 2
Vacant 1
This is the line-up as reported on the council's own website (www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=b1000143). In fact, one of the independents is a member of Brighton & Hove Independents, a political party registered with the Electoral Commission.
Net changes since the election in 2003: Labour has lost one seat to Independent and one Conservative resigned. At the previous election in 1999, when there were 78 seats, Labour held 44, Conservative 23, Green 3, Lib Dem 5 and Independent 3.
Of the 21 wards, seven returned only Conservative councillors at the 2003 election, six only Labour and one each only Green and Liberal Democrat. In the remaining six wards votes were split between parties.
Candidates this time round
The four main parties—Conservative, Green, Liberal Democrat, Labour—are each fielding a full complement of candidates in every ward. In seven wards these are the only candidates.
Two local parties are fielding candidates: Brighton & Hove Independents is contesting all the seats in two wards, two of the three in a third ward (where three other independents are also standing) and one of three in a fourth ward. The Protest Vote Party has single candidates in two central Hove wards.
Among other parties, Respect and Socialist Alternative each have two candidates, and there is one each from the Alliance for Green Socialism, English Democrats 'Putting England First!', the Socialist Labour Party and Ukip. Single independent candidates are listed in each of five wards and in one ward are two independents, one of whom is Tracey-Ann Ross, who has been prominent in the campaign against the council's controversial schools admissions policy (see Links). Three independents are associated with the Dump the Dump campaign against the waste sorting facility at Hollingdean.
That makes a total of 236 candidates to choose from.
The Lib Dems hope to win between nine and 12 seats and the Greens are hoping to double their presence to 12 (The Argus, 12 April).
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