Voting By Numbers

There is a great deal around the media about the Bradford by-election and the return of the Scottish-London East Ender George Galloway to the House of Commons.  A number have commented that looking down the years it is not so exceptional a result.  There have been by-elections of the past that have had a “shock” effect.

Apparently, George won just over half the votes cast.  Tellingly this was said to be a “good” turnout of just over half the electors.  So George is essentially elected by a minority of the electorate and it is not the “massive” victory that is claimed.

A rag bag of reasons have been given for this, TV comments have mentioned that he is “charismatic” and “knows what people want”.  One wonders how many dictators, also elected essentially on a minority vote owed their rise to exactly these qualities.

My view is that these by-election and “surprise” results very often occur when a local electorate does reflect a wider view of the state of affairs.  Also, what is critical is when an electorate is baffled, uncertain as to who stands for what at the centre and has begun to dislike what has been happening to it.

My memory of one by-election which fits this bill is that of Orpington on 15 March 1962 when Eric Lubbock, a local Liberal councillor and last minute choice turned over a large Conservative majority and shut out the Labour party. 

This was before the 1963 Profumo Scandal broke and the campaign was essentially about economic policy and the way we were being governed.  Harold Macmillan had managed to revive the Conservative Party to win the General Election in 1959 but did so by ramping up public spending.

By late 1961 the vultures were coming home to roost and picking over what was left of the Conservative economic policy.  A wage freeze on public sector workers had just been announced in 1962 and it was the effect on nurses; then paid poor wages, that commanded the media attention along with teachers.

Also, during the period 1960 to May 1963 National Service in the military was being wound down.  This impacted on employment in many ways.  There were large numbers of officers whose careers were seriously affected and left to look for anything in “management” that would take them.  With the difficulties in what was left of an Empire in rapid contraction there were the many returning personnel at all levels, also seeking comparable employment. 

Whilst many still held on to visions of British greatness and all that, my feeling is that amongst the former rankers there were very many who felt that the sooner we were out of it all the better and wanted just work, housing and a decent education for the kids, thank you very much.

Whilst Conservative support during 1961 declined the Labour Party had its own problems.  Gaitskell had been defeated in 1959 because he and his supporters had failed to convince enough voters and supporters and he was still struggling into 1963 to move the Party forward. 

Between unions with a strong distaste for change but a huge appetite for State support of major declining industries, increasing and substantial foreign competition, no clear way forward for a changing and more aware population and clear disarray in the government  neither party could control either the course of events or the direction of policy. 

The electorate were faced with choices that simply seemed unworkable and irrational.  Also, the attempt to go into Europe had been blocked and other avenues for progress or success did not seem to be available.

Had the Liberal Party in 1962 had the organisation and structure to mount a serious national assault on the traditional parties with policies more adapted to the future than the past, the Lubbock result might have triggered a revival. 

They did manage some successes under Jo Grimond who did have a vision for the future but not one that the electorate as a whole felt comfortable with. 

In any case the changes of leadership bringing Wilson to Labour on the death of Gaitskell and firstly Home and then Heath to put some backbone into the Conservatives meant that the Liberals continued to struggle for the critical share of the vote that might have meant access to power.

There is a familiar ring to all this.  For the present what happens next will be what happens next.  At least in 1966 we did win the World Cup.

Election 2010 - Hanging The Politicians

The prospect of a “hung parliament” is alleged to be spooking the markets as well as creating serious uncertainty about who will rule, how, and with what intent. Given the state of the economy and the international situation politically it could be equivalent of the London Smog of 1952. This occurred at another time of finely balanced politics in an uncertain world where we were fighting in faraway wars.

One of the conventional fictions of UK political theory is the idea of the Two Party System where power might be exercised by one of two major groups who lend powers of decision and political direction to the business of government. The story of our Parliament since the Civil War is far from this. It is a long story of political division and often chaos presided over by office holders from a House of Lords that is by definition unrepresentative and a House of Commons that has never yet been representative of the people as a whole.

Women under 30 did not vote until 1919, or at all until 1918. Until 1885 only a minority of adult males could vote, from 1867 a substantial minority, from 1832 to then a small minority, and before then even smaller numbers very unevenly distributed around the Shires and the Boroughs.

The political parties then and since have been based substantially on a constituency basis that in the 20th Century became single member with a simple majority of votes.
It is my view that this constituency system, which sometimes did allow a party a “working majority”, has in fact put power into the hands of two parties whose parliamentary representation in no way reflects either the electorate or many of those who vote for them.

I would like to go on at length at the way the geographical spread and basis of the Labour held seats have lead to gross imbalances which the national party has not been able to address. Similarly, the Conservative Party often has been ruled by narrow groups not only unrepresentative of their base, but dismissive of their needs.

There are three other problems. One is the concentration of political, financial, media, and economic power in London that has captured so many politicians and governments in the past, think of Ramsay MacDonald and the Duchesses. Another is that the parties have not been coherent within themselves, either in doctrine or policy, and the third the baneful effect of the “marginal constituency” factor in how elections might be won or lost.

All these together have meant that for too often in the past and increasingly in the present we are governed by a nasty form of dictatorial Cronygarchy which has both secrecy and falsity at the centre of the way it operates. The choice we have is between one type and another in other words voting for the least worst choice. The political debate more often resembles that of the exchanges between Laurel and Hardy as they stagger from one catastrophe to another.

One of the advantages cited about the constituency system was that it handed real choice to the local parties in the selection of candidates. In a time when parties had large local memberships who had effective debates this could have been true in many cases. In some, however, factionalism and deference might count for more and in others the need for compromise. Today, with local memberships having shrunk and with so many of them there for personal advantage we have all the disadvantages of the Party List method without the advantage of creating them.

Looking at the hapless crews of humanity that the party leaderships have with them when they venture out to speak in public it is not encouraging. The lot behind Cameron at Brighton looked as though they had strayed in from a lecture on dog walking or were attending a recruitment campaign for door to door detergent sales. Those with Brown looked as though the head doctors had been at them first with a large syringe full of happy juice.

We do not simply need a new government, we need a new constitution, a new electoral system, effective means of exercising choice, reliable access to sound information, breaking up the London Cronygarchies and the will not to change Hardy for Laurel but to radically reorder our chances to control our own futures.

Now where is the DVD for “Sons of the Desert”? Anything must be better than the BBC News.