As everyone now knows, Churchill, unwitting and doubtless grave-spinning icon of BNP and Ukip, said democracy was the worst kind of government apart from all the other kinds, or words to that effect. Last week’s Euro elections showed the downside of democracy.
Satisfied that the Daily Telegraph and the rabid pack of hacks slavering at their heels must have told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about politicians, the populace voted with its feet. Only just over a third voted, at all. Many people didn’t because they said all politicians were crooks. Many of those who did voted for fringe parties, as though they must be clean and only the three main parties were at the trough. Many voted for Ukip, a party with one former MEP in prison for fraud, one awaiting trial, two sacked, a self-confessed single purpose and no concept of government. Some voted BNP, though for all the money spent, no more than last time.
What all of this illuminated was a great failing in the political classes. We have spent decades navel-gazing while the public became more and more isolated. Tony Blair was undoubtedly the worst at putting out messages yet ignoring the responses but Margaret Thatcher wouldn’t listen to anyone without a very positive bank balance, John Major had the communications skills of a whelk and Gordon Brown seems irritated the public even exists.
Few politicians of any hue recognised the public’s disenchantment in time. Even in Wyre Forest, local politicians claim that the public knows what they know and will act accordingly. But they don’t and the vote showed it.
Barely a week goes by when a letter doesn’t appear in the Shuttle claiming councillors earn fortunes and all politicians are crooks – a statement based on no evidence whatsoever that the writers would be horrified at if applied to rumours about themselves. However hard a councillor might work and however little they are rewarded for their efforts, the public doesn’t believe it.
So what to do? Well, we could start by handing a few of the responsibilities of government back to the public. Let’s stop thinking we need nannying all the time. Let’s refute any demand that “the government should be doing something about this” for every little thing. And let’s start working together once we are elected. Let’s end the offensive practice of denying district councillors access to county information unless they’re Tories – classic soviet practice if even there was. Let’s make the truth about allowances and the details of expenses public, so people can judge for themselves who’s honest and who’s creaming it.
In central government, we could also start removing the powers of whips, PR consultants and advertising agents, while MPs just do what they’re told. The richer parties hide behind these slick message machines and we have no idea whether our local candidates can even speak.
We could use our local press more – insisting that all politicians and candidates report on their activities every week so the public can see who they might be voting, or against, next time round.
And the public? Well let’s get off our butts and find out just who is representing us – and I don’t mean read the Telegraph and believe it verbatim, because they merely serve the agenda of the Barclay Brothers and their banker friends. We live in an information age and it’s easy to do a little research about candidates to get a broader view.
After all, merely not voting or protesting by voting for a fringe party out of spite is to doom us to four or five years of truly awful government… as we will shortly discover.
Neville Farmer
Parliamentary Spokesman,
Wyre Forest Liberal Democrats
