- Latest Blog Post: The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist. by Tabman
- Latest Comment: animal sex tube on Is the BBC hurting British politics?
Subscribe to our RSS feed here
Death of the Grassroots
According to the national press, both Labour and Tory memberships are in decline.
The Telegraph gives most attention to Labour's precipitous decline: from more than four hundred thousand in 1997 to fewer than two hundred thousand in 2005. But they also find space to run the Tory story:
Conservative membership has stalled during most of 2006 and may even have fallen over the last nine months, party insiders said yesterday.
Although David Cameron saw 15,000 new members in the first weeks of his leadership, the momentum has not been maintained.
While he has attracted new members, particularly younger people and women, by projecting a softer, "caring" image, some traditional Tories have left, with prominent defections to the UK Independence Party (Ukip). Party sources said it was possible that overall membership had dropped below the 290,000 level calculated last January.
I doubt that we can afford the luxury of schadenfruede on this issue. Declining membership is probably a universal phenomenen. In part, I suspect, this is because people are relatively content, and because two big wedge issues (state control of the economy and the Cold war) have disappeared.
I like the Telegraph diagnosis:
In the end, voter disenchantment and falling party rolls are aspects of the same crisis. One of the best analyses of the situation comes, surprisingly, from Charter 88, a Left-wing pressure group whose prescriptions (such as its demand for a written constitution) are mostly wrong-headed, but which understands clearly that representative democracy in Britain is being destroyed by bureaucracy. It writes: "Governments have become locked in a vicious circle of centralising power in an effort to improve public services, only to find this leads to increased dissatisfaction. The quango state – unaccountable bodies which have a direct impact on people's lives – has become a common feature of our political life."
But if we are to revive the participative institutions that used to play such an important role in local life, I doubt that the political parties will be able to form the dominant source of recruitment for them.
Is it still possible in these days to build a political project that inspires people? Localism, fewer regulations and simpler taxation, are surely part of the answer.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Google
Yes, I think you're pretty close to the truth. Both this Government and its predecessor Conservative administration were democratic centralisers and both the politicisation of the Council funding allocation process by Prescott and the abolition of the GLC by Thatcher were equally odious.
Under Prescott, southern, presumably, Conservative voters in places like Surrey are "punished" by having to provide more of the funding for Council services than those in the north and inner London.
Cameron talks the language of localism but every time I have asked a Tory to come up with a single pledge to repatriate powers from Westminster to County, District and Borough Councils there is no response. I think Cameron also wants to circumvent local democracy by using the voluntary or charitable secotors. This is no substitute for proper accountability and will do nothing to revive the democratic process.
Who reveals party membership figures? From what I can tell it's the parties themselves and thus should be taken with a pinch of salt. As an anecdotal example, I left a main party this year but still receive e-mail updates, raffle tickets and even a Christmas card from one of their MPs. Do the parties even have a reliable way of measuring their membership?
Julian, I am sure the party know you have left but quite reasonably think you may still be a strong supporter who just hasn't renewed. Particularly with e-mail updates, where's the cost in keeping the tap flowing?
It is very hard to offer members "exclusive benefits" of some description any more. In terms of access to MPs and others, most MPs of all parties are now more desperate to get access to community groups than people are to get access to them and in any event any suggestion of "privileged access" is quite rightly frowned upon.
In terms of news/communication, emails are free and this sort of site gives more info and connection than any newsletter and is entirely free to users.
To the extent that parties have private facilities like clubs (which is increasingly rare) there are more attractive choices out there now and 25p off beer is not such an incentive in a richer society.
There was also a time when political societies were important for networking - I would have considered joining my local Conservative club (and keeping my voting intention quiet) as a lawyer 25 years ago but it would be a total waste of time today for various reasons (self-fulfilling declining membership is one but increased professionalism in the way services are procured is perhaps more important).
I actually think that party membership has declined for very different reasons to voter turnout, and I worry a good deal less about the former issue.
I think there's something in that James. 30 years ago, many peoples' social lives revolved around political parties in a way that's unimaginable now.
That said, the decline in political activity can't wholly be disassociated from the growing unwillingness of people to participate in public life - such as the difficulty finding council candidates, people willing to run scout troops, act as school governors and so forth. I think it has a lot to do with the bureaucratisation of any form of public activity - which just makes it very unattractive to people who are amateurs in the best sense.
"I think it has a lot to do with the bureaucratisation of any form of public activity - which just makes it very unattractive to people who are amateurs in the best sense."
I agree with this entirely, Sean.
Peter
I also agree, Sean, although I think a lot of factors contribute to the issue you identify as well as the entirely valid bureaucratisation point.
People are rather less willing to take on long term committments (such as a council seat) because they know they may not be with the same employer in the same place in a few years. Disposable income is also higher so people may be inclined to spend free time on expensive "leisure" rather than cheap (but quite possibly rewarding) "service" - and social attitudes have maybe contributed to this. It may also be that many employers expect more - not just hours but also constant availability and flexibility which doesn't fit in well with attending meetings or running a youth club. All these developments may have been felt particularly strongly by exactly the sort of people who are probably top of the list of people you want to get involved.
Specifically on council seats, I suppose you also have to remember that as you make progress many of the best people actually get elected and you are more likely to be looking for reluctant (albeit often very capable) candidates. We have a problem in many parts of the country and I suspect it is even more so with you as a Conservative (I don't know but assume that many of those of your councillors who were culled in the early to mid 1990s called it a day at that time, and that you have had increasing issues with finding candidates as you have rebuilt the base with generally new people).
That said, a plum Lib Dem ward here in Bristol came up the other day and the selection was hotly contested - but then it is such a strong ward in a prime part of the city.
Both Sean and James are correct, although James more fully so.
Work pressure / flexibility must play a big part in this. It is striking that in most political organisations you will tend to find either students / early twenties types or "empty-nesters" / retirees. Both groups tend to have much lighter work and/or family commitments. Clearly this pattern is repeated across all the types of voluntary activity.
I saw a programme on this theme a few years ago. James' analysis is pretty good and mirrors that of the programme. 40 years ago and more, people had very stable lives in terms of their employer, place or work, place of dwelling, family structure, extended family and working hours. Furthermore, social status was not linked as directly to income, but to a person's place within the local community. As such, there was an incentive beyond the purely altruistic to "join up".
Greater workplace flexibility coupled with social change also means greater fragmentation of the extended family. For those with children, there are the pressures outlined by james above. Furthermore, the extended suupport networks of grandparents etc are less likely to be close at hand, making simple things like baby-sitting harder to come by. And there is greater social pressure, even if the amount of time spent at work hasn't actually increased, for especially fathers to spend more time with their children. All of this mitigates against heading off out each evening for voluntary activities once the working day is done.
An additional factor, especially with councils, is the derisory amount of power actually available. I attended a councillor recruitment Q&A session recently where our potential candidates were quizzing sitting councillors about what the council did and was quite shocked to find that it was pretty much limited to planning (over which Prezza has a veto in anycase), bins, and parks. Given, again, that many of the people you would want to be councillors will have far greater budgetary and decision making powers in their professional lives its difficult to see what the attraction might be.
________________________________________________
"Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures."
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.