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William Wallace: If we want cleaner politics and better politicians, we all must take responsibility
THE last few months have been bitter for all of us engaged in democratic politics. As stories on politicians' expenses dripped out day after day, we've suffered the jokes and jibes of embittered voters: claims that "you're only in it for the money", that "you're feathering your own nests".
In all the democratic parties, discouraged candidates, councillors and MPs have thought of giving up. Maybe, others have argued, we'd be better off without party politics, with people we feel we trust from TV, business or sport. It was a sentiment that underpinned Labour's heavy defeat in the Norwich North by-election – the first poll since the expenses scandal.
People in public life in Britain are now subject to far more critical scrutiny than in previous generations. Churchill himself, who benefited from subsidies from rich supporters in the 1930s, would not have
survived today's style of critical investigation; nor would Harold Macmillan, whose successful prime ministership contrasted with a
fragile marriage.
Today's journalistic assumption that people who take on public roles lose any right to privacy has now extended to early-morning doorstepping and hacking mobile phones. And politicians have become the most popular target; the Telegraph campaign diverted attention from bankers' bonuses and financial fraud.
Winston Churchill famously argued: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried."
Personality politics, built on images from national media without organised parties to keep their leaders in check, risk much worse outcomes than the MPs' expenses scandal.
The collapse of Italy's established parties has enabled Silvio Berlusconi, the country's most powerful media owner, to dominate Italian politics – thus avoiding serious corruption charges about how he built his business empire, and leaving the country with levels of corruption and organised crime higher than in any other European state.
Robert Kilroy-Silk's rapid rise from TV host to leading UKIP MEP five years ago, until his arrogance alienated his new colleagues, gave us an indication of what public support an attractive media personality might gain here.
There is a real crisis in British democracy. Membership of the main political parties has shrunk. UKIP, the English Democrats, the BNP have attracted some of the disillusioned; others have simply stayed at home.
Traditional routes to political leadership, through local government to local MP, have withered as local government has weakened.
Local councillors now struggle to represent 10-15,000 voters in city wards, compared to the smaller wards and multiple councils of 30 years ago.
British politics and government have become highly centralised. A professional political class, heavily London-based, has emerged, in which bright young people move from posts as Westminster researchers or Whitehall advisers to safe seats around the country.
There are almost more Labour MPs in Yorkshire now whose previous political careers have been in London than in our own county.
The media have played an important part in this crisis. Since the Sun claimed that its anti-Labour campaigning had won the 1992 election for the Conservatives, a destructive relationship has developed between politicians and the press, with political leaders setting out to manage the news and journalists dabbling in politics.
The spectacle of Brown and Cameron competing for the favour of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is unhealthy for British democracy. So is the hypocrisy of the owners of the Telegraph, demanding full transparency and accountability from others while living in secretive tax exile in the Channel Islands.
So how do we rebuild trust between a sceptical electorate and a demoralised political class? Radical changes in the culture of Westminster are needed, to get away from the destructive confrontations of Prime Minister's Questions and the control that the government maintains over the Commons.
The election of John Bercow as Speaker raises hope of constructive reform. A more open system of voting would make it more difficult to parachute party nominees into safe seats, on their way to ministerial office.
More radically, we need to get government and administration back out of London to Britain's cities and towns, and back from non-elected boards to elected local authorities, closer to the ordinary voter and accountable to the voter. Politics cannot connect to ordinary people again unless it becomes more local. The man in London does not know best.
But you, the reader, cannot avoid some share in responsibility for what has gone wrong. Political parties tailor their campaigns to what they think will appeal to you; newspapers tailor their stories to what they think you want.
David Cameron's new Conservatives have modelled their approach, explicitly, on Tony Blair's New Labour, because the Blairite style captured popular attention much more than the substance of New Labour policy. Focus groups tell professional politicians that voters are attracted by plausible personalities more than by hard arguments.
If you want cleaner politics and better politicians, you will have to choose more carefully who you vote for, and maybe get involved in helping to choose your local candidate. In the end, you get the politics, and the politicians, you are prepared to vote for and pay for. That's what democracy is about.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Wednesday 08 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -5 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: North
Tomorrow
Light sleet
Temperature: 0 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South
