“To Love Politics is To Love Thyself”
This notion is at the heart of modern and ancient democracy. Politics is the point of our democratic system. When the public become apolitical, when interest in the ordinary citizen’s only tool to alter their lives wanes, then we open the gates to the terrible specter of tyranny. The public perception, especially amongst younger people, that the notion of democracy, rather than the parties themselves, are to blame, is incredibly unhealthy, and increasingly worrying. I was in conversation with a young voter from the UK a few days ago, and she stated that ‘I wouldn’t know which one to vote for if I was even registered.’ That, unfortunate as it may seem, is a healthy response. To even elicit a political discussion with many young people is an uphill struggle. Politics has been written off as the stuff of old men and bespectacled nerds in this country. A country hat used to thrive on its reputation for a gold standard electoral system is now an epicentre of a lack of political knowledge, and a scarceness of interest in important matters that is unfitting of a former cornerstone of world democracy. To love politics is indeed to love thyself, as only through the explicit pursuit of political ends can the ordinary citizen advance himself in a society modelled on the ancient constructions of great Greeks such as Plato. The problems poltiically in the United Kingdom are varied and of different means and ends. Firstly, the young electorate are unsure of which party stands for what principles, and sets of values. The tradition political culture of the twentieth century has died out in an age where the centre ground, and political correctness have become the order of the day, leaving old-fashioned political separation and rivalry on the curb,looking dangerously outdated and extreme. The death of the working mens’ clubs in industrial cities was partially responsible for this. A child, upon noticing to which club, whether Liberal, Tory, or Labour, would immediately become aware of the political sympathies of their father/mother, and this would line to a line of enquiry, in which the child would be told of age old ties to the relevant party, and how the ‘other side(s)’ would plunge the country into ruin if they were elected. Take my family for instance. My mother, a teacher and author, voted Labour because of her parents in her student years, but as she has aged, her views have become increasingly right-wing, and she is now a rather staunch liberal conservative from whom many of my own views originate. My father on the other hand, was raised by staunch Tory, Catholic, and incredible socially conservative parents, but has voted at one point for every party in existence. As a welfare-supporting progressive, he voted SDP in the eighties, Tony Blair and New Labour in the nineties, and now exudes sympathies for Cameron, as the reckless policy decisions of Brown & co. sent his employment sector into complete turmoil earlier this year, and make this country a fiscal liability, which in his line of work – international finance, is certainly not desired. So, people no longer comply to age-old political stereotypes. But this doesn’t explain alone why in this country, the youth are so politicophobic. Another reason is that they have no idea what the parties stand for. All in fact, many see, apparently, or so I have been told, is well-spoken old men using big words they don’t understand talking about rubbish. In no way am I unfairly generalising, either. For every politically aware person in my social circles, there are three politically brainless individuals who can actually get physically aprehensive at the very mention of ‘Gordon Brown’, or ‘European elections’.
Cicero at work in the Ancient Republican Roman Senate - When the people of Rome became dissatisfied with their elected representitives; the road to the tyranny of the emperors began.
The sad thing, however, is that many young people today feel impassioned about issues such as mass unemployment, third world poverty and debt, the welfare system, the pointless genocidal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (couldn’t resist), and the recession. Foxhunting and animal rights are big issues to many young people. But what appears to be the problem, is that young people do not engage with the issues politically, they engage with them individually, and do not make the connection between their own creeds, and beliefs, and what happens in Westminster. Parliament, to these people, is the boring complex of toffs, erected to self-serve, which nobody cares about or is bothered about. This view, which is obviously ludicrous, is held by a large proportion of the population under twenty-one. Voter turnout i this country already sucks, if such a malaise continues, how will it look in twenty-years? The issue here is communication, I believe.
We British have always played second fiddle to the Americans in the media spectrum. Our TV shows have never set trends, been as glossy, or featured as many stars. Neither, in an odd parallel, have our politics. In fact, I admit to anybody who’ll listen that our political system as it currently exists bores me. How can this be, you will now think? The policy, is what interests me, this country, is what interests me – the politics, as I get older, bores me more and more. Our system is too rigid to engage the public. The formality of Prime Minister’s Questions cannot be the only outlet for vocal opposition to the Prime Minister and his cronies. A lack of political programming at the heart of television is also a huge issue. Off hand, I can only think of Question Time, The Politics Show, and that irritating little programme with Andrew Marr on a Sunday morning as examples of mainstream political broadcasting. That is not good enough. The British obsession with the ‘impartiaality’ of the BBC, and a ‘fairness’ aspect to the way news is presented appears to have stifled intelligent thought and discourse, with any genuine political commentary, in the proper sense of the word, confined to Jeff Randall on Sky News and….ermmmm….nobody else. The Americans, on the other hand, understand perfectly well that politics lies at the heart of civic life in a democracy. They are fiercely proud of their constitution, and their status as a Republic. Nothing is relished more by a Texan, a New Yorker, or a Virginian than a political discussion. American Tv is bursting at the rim with opinion shows. I have spoken at length on this blog in the past about my views on Bill O’Reilly, Michael Savage, and Keith Olberman. I do not wish to reiterate that in this article. But I must state that I feel that to communicate with younger people, open debates must be held between political leaders, and a greater respect for, and interest in politics must be displayed by mainstream media. People do not wish to see a calm, collected David Cameron quietly disagree on seriously important matters of state with a prime Minister who looks as if he has stepped out of the shower. neither do we wish to see the pathetic pantomime that ensues when the two men clash in the Commons with ridiculous pomposity and irritating turn-of-phrase. We wish to see a passionate, fervent debate between political leaders, including minority parties such as the British National Party, the Socialist Workers and Greens, that allows the general public to aggregate which side of the coin their personal opinion falls upon.
Another failure is the parties themselves. In my view, they are simply too large to be conducive. A smaller party system, similar to the Swedish model, in which a number of smaller parties of varying opinions and creeds must band together t to form governments, is a much better exercise in democracy than the UK system which leads to fractious, dividing parties with mixed ideas confusing and irritating both themselves and the electorate. The views of Anne Widdecome, that fat bitch of homophobic, racist and religiously outrageous Tory MP Anne Widdecome, and the Libertarian, homosexual free-marketeer Alan Duncan are poles apart. But They are still members of parliament for the same party. As are Gordon Brown, with his highly unsocialistic view of economics, and Jon Cruddas,the veteran left-winger, within the Labour Party. If these parties were to split into a series of smaller factions, more focused on particular schools of thought, then coalition governments could be formed that would be much more effective in governance, as they would better represent the views of the electorate. Presently, the variety of scope of differing views within the parties are such that government is an awkward experiement in political balancing by virtue of threatening, and what is a system based of force but a disgraceful autocracy?
There is much more that can be expressed on this issue, but these are the main principles. As for a cohesive solution, I believe that is impossible given the extreme gravity of the issues at play.
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