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davywavyI mean, as exercises in futilty go, writing to a political party to express my opinion is like that time I tried to squat lift 330kg. All I'm going to do is hurt myself and the weight isn't going to move. But still: to be or not to be, eh?
Something which has caused to blood to boil, steam to come out of my ears and my head to spin around like a top lately has been the suggestion that political parties should receive taxpayer funding. Pretty much all the parties have hopped onto this idea and naturally I felt that I had to object because the vast majority of people are either too ignorant or uncaring to do so - the very attitudes which allow underhand political strategies like this one to thrive and the right and powers of the electorate to be steadily reduced and abolished.
I dropped them a line and registered my objections, and got a mail back this morning full of platitudes about how the Parliamentary report had returned a result which, co-incidentally, was the one the various parties had hoped for. Quel Surprise.
So here's the reply I sent:
Dear...
Many thanks for your reply. Whilst the proposals you reference are interesting, and indeed reference some genuine problems, I think they actually miss the underlying problem. It is noted that the electorate have lost faith with the parliamentary system: voter numbers are at a historically low level. However, I think that the conclusions drawn from this are inaccurate - I suspect that the compilers of the proposals talked to a lot of focus groups and opinion polling agencies, but not many actual people.
The fact that the electorate are losing faith with parliamentary democracy is not the fault of parliamentary democracy - it is the fault of the people within it, and political parties voting themselves the power to sequester more public funds for the furtherance of party objectives will not solve that. The policy of all parties in recent years has been to bring market forces to bear in most sectors of the economy, and it is telling that the one area that no party is prepared to let this happen is themselves.
If the electorate (your customers) have lost faith in the service you provide and aren't turning out in the numbers they used to, it is incumbent upon you to improve that service before starting to charge us more for it. If the public view the funding of political parties as possibly corrupt, proposing to dip into the public purse is most certainly not an effective way of changing this view, but instead will simply make the public even more jaundiced as to your motives.
There's a reason that Boris Johnson consistently tops polls of popular parliamentarians; the public know that he's human, but they also believe that he'll say what's on his mind. It's often funny and he's seen as someone who says what he thinks. This is a marked difference to most politicians of all parties, whom the public sees as dishonest, image obsessed, and required to toe the party line.
If you as a party want to re-engage the public with politics and democracy, you would be better served rejecting the Blairite presidential style of PR over content, creating a clear differentiation between political parties so the electorate can vote on ideology and ideas and not simply who has the nicest tie this week, and moving back to a point where the voter feels it is worthwhile getting out of the house on election day because they feel their vote actually makes a difference to the policies which will be implemented.
If you talk to people rather than consultants, you'll find that most people want to vote if they feel there's any point in doing so - and the lack of difference between the major political parties is the major reason they don't feel there to be any point.
Why else are single issue and extremist pressure groups growing in popularity? Because people don't feel that the things which concern them are being dealt with in mainstream politics - and that is the fault of the parties, not the voters.
In other words - and to use the terminology of market forces - until you improve the service you provide to your market (i.e. us), you have no justification in putting your prices up.
Oh, except that you can just vote for it to happen and we, the taxpayer, don’t really get a say in the matter. And that, obviously, is the very attitude from politicians which is driving us away from the polling booth on election day.
Regards,
Something which has caused to blood to boil, steam to come out of my ears and my head to spin around like a top lately has been the suggestion that political parties should receive taxpayer funding. Pretty much all the parties have hopped onto this idea and naturally I felt that I had to object because the vast majority of people are either too ignorant or uncaring to do so - the very attitudes which allow underhand political strategies like this one to thrive and the right and powers of the electorate to be steadily reduced and abolished.
I dropped them a line and registered my objections, and got a mail back this morning full of platitudes about how the Parliamentary report had returned a result which, co-incidentally, was the one the various parties had hoped for. Quel Surprise.
So here's the reply I sent:
Dear...
Many thanks for your reply. Whilst the proposals you reference are interesting, and indeed reference some genuine problems, I think they actually miss the underlying problem. It is noted that the electorate have lost faith with the parliamentary system: voter numbers are at a historically low level. However, I think that the conclusions drawn from this are inaccurate - I suspect that the compilers of the proposals talked to a lot of focus groups and opinion polling agencies, but not many actual people.
The fact that the electorate are losing faith with parliamentary democracy is not the fault of parliamentary democracy - it is the fault of the people within it, and political parties voting themselves the power to sequester more public funds for the furtherance of party objectives will not solve that. The policy of all parties in recent years has been to bring market forces to bear in most sectors of the economy, and it is telling that the one area that no party is prepared to let this happen is themselves.
If the electorate (your customers) have lost faith in the service you provide and aren't turning out in the numbers they used to, it is incumbent upon you to improve that service before starting to charge us more for it. If the public view the funding of political parties as possibly corrupt, proposing to dip into the public purse is most certainly not an effective way of changing this view, but instead will simply make the public even more jaundiced as to your motives.
There's a reason that Boris Johnson consistently tops polls of popular parliamentarians; the public know that he's human, but they also believe that he'll say what's on his mind. It's often funny and he's seen as someone who says what he thinks. This is a marked difference to most politicians of all parties, whom the public sees as dishonest, image obsessed, and required to toe the party line.
If you as a party want to re-engage the public with politics and democracy, you would be better served rejecting the Blairite presidential style of PR over content, creating a clear differentiation between political parties so the electorate can vote on ideology and ideas and not simply who has the nicest tie this week, and moving back to a point where the voter feels it is worthwhile getting out of the house on election day because they feel their vote actually makes a difference to the policies which will be implemented.
If you talk to people rather than consultants, you'll find that most people want to vote if they feel there's any point in doing so - and the lack of difference between the major political parties is the major reason they don't feel there to be any point.
Why else are single issue and extremist pressure groups growing in popularity? Because people don't feel that the things which concern them are being dealt with in mainstream politics - and that is the fault of the parties, not the voters.
In other words - and to use the terminology of market forces - until you improve the service you provide to your market (i.e. us), you have no justification in putting your prices up.
Oh, except that you can just vote for it to happen and we, the taxpayer, don’t really get a say in the matter. And that, obviously, is the very attitude from politicians which is driving us away from the polling booth on election day.
Regards,
Re: Hmm
Date: 2006-10-30 11:15 am (UTC)For all his wealth, in a democracy, a donor still only has one vote. Meanwhile, the rest of us can vote the scoundrels out.
As far as I can see, people are drawn to politics out of (a) a genuine wish to enter public service, or (b) a desire for power & women which would otherwise remain patently unfulfilled (e.g. John Prescott). If politicians were entitled to help themselves to theoretically unlimited wages out of my, the taxpayer's, money, this would add (c) venery to the list, making 2/3 of bad reasons to enter politics, rather than the current 1/2.
H
Re: Hmm
Date: 2006-10-30 01:12 pm (UTC)So I believe that each voter should be limited to a maximum donation of £10 per year (which can be split across parties if they feel it appropriate). This still gives a potential funding pool of c. £300m p.a., and would force parties to truly engage with the masses to persuade them each individually to donate to them. It would also significantly reduce the power of the rich (whether individuals or through corporations) to unduly influence the democratic process.
Re: Hmm
Date: 2006-10-30 01:16 pm (UTC)There were noises made a few months ago about how donations to political parties should be tax-deductable and seen in the same light as donations to charities, which I thought a very positive idea for boosting contributions. Unfortunately this idea was dropped when the various parties realised that it would involve actual work. Shame, really.