Comment: Politicians and stupid voters just don’t get each other
"Us politicians don't feel truly elected," Gbola, a Tory councillor, tells me sadly. "Deep down you wished you were there by the complete wishes of the people."
Gbola has been a councillor for nearly 13 years and has built up a decent majority, by "persuasion rather than imposing". He admits there is a problem with the way Britain does its politics, however, and it bothers him. "People in the third world want the vote," he adds, despite the fact they face wars and famine and corruption. "Not here!" Here, where the roads and street lighting are OK, no one seems to care.
There is something flaccid about local politics in this country. Something so thoroughly limp that the real veterans can see the biggest cliché of all coming a mile off. John, who's been doing this sort of thing for more decades than he cares to remember, spots it impeccably. Here is a scruffy looking house, with a white van parked outside. "He'll say it," John says, confidently predicting this was the sort of person who wouldn't bother voting. Moments later, after the door opens and a home counties version of Rab C. Nesbitt appears, John gets it right. "You're all the same," Southern Rab tells the Tories. He wouldn't be voting for anyone, either.
John had got it spot on. "You're all the same" is the plague of British politics. But it is being dismissed by politicians who have based the fundamentals of their existence around disagreeing with the other team. The two are incompatible, but they are both true.
"Any decent democracy requires a viable opposition," says Darren Hughes, the director of campaigns and research at the Electoral Reform Society (ERS). "But in the One Party States of England and Wales nearly 20 million people don't enjoy that luxury."
He's fed up that 104 local authorities in England and Wales now have a single party holding over three-quarters of council seats. This means their councillors become complacent; in Slough and Tunbridge Wells, Hughes says, a pay rise was pushed through because those giving themselves a bit more cash "knew they were untouchable".
In Hemel Hempstead, Gbola and his colleagues are pushing deep into what should really be firm Labour territory. They're doing so because in their county that is the frontline, the marginal kind of ward worth fighting over. In 2009 the Tories took 55 seats on Hertfordshire county council. The Liberal Democrats had 17, and Labour just three.
That means the Tories have 71% of the seats, falling short of the 'one-party state' the ERS are complaining about. Still, the opposition is negligible. In St Albans, local Lib Dem Chris White is leafleting in an overwhelmingly liberal part of town. His seat, which he's held for 20-odd years, seems rock-solid. But he says he's not interested in opposition for opposition's sake. There's more to be achieved by working with the other parties than against them, he says. That might be what is best for his constituents, but it does not boost his credentials as a strong opposition politician.
Every so often Westminster engages in a bout of hand-wringing about the issue, but policy wonks have consistently failed to come up with a really convincing answer. Last autumn's turnout of 15% for the police and crime commissioner elections certainly makes the agonising justified. Last spring's local election turnout, of 33%, is not really that much better, either.
If only there were some answers to these disappointing figures. Instead earlier this week we were treated to a bright idea from IPPR to introduce compulsory voting for first-time voters. This has its merits, but doesn't get anywhere near the heart of the problem. The suggestion from Labour's Angela Eagle that voters might be incentivised if doing so entered them in a lottery, or even making election day a bank holiday, are even further from the point.
Politicians are so engrained in the mindset that makes them who they are they can't even start understanding how 'normal' people engage with them. When removed from the daily merrygoround of parliament, the policies of the three main parties are broadly similar. The coalition has done nothing to change that impression. It takes something distinctive to catch their attention, which is why Ukip's willingness to pander to their prejudices has been the big story of this year's elections. I've seen it happen this week, and it isn't pretty. But it is, at least, engaging.
The hand-wringing will continue, but nothing will actually change the malaise that continues to cling to our politics. The same underlying suspicion which led to Gordon Brown's bigot-gate scandal has not gone away. Voters rejected Labour after that moment of calamity because he inadvertently showed his hand. All effective operators know that actually saying what you think about the views of the ignorant, disengaged voter is political suicide.
So the issue becomes a question of managing the hordes, keeping their more unacceptable views away from mainstream politics. Prejudice is often borne of ignorance, so politicians are right to steer clear of those who simply can't be reached. Deciding to keep the disenchanted at arm's length is a subconscious decision that has its consequences, though. When politicians lament the miserable turnout figures in today's elections, they will be guilty of some severe doublethinking.
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