Disillusionment; why I despise British politics currently.
Miss Doozy
Jun 27, 202312 min read
Having not written anything of note recently, I feared I’d lost my touch for this - poetry began to become an easier forum for me to pen my thoughts. I suppose it’s because there’s no fixed narrative in poetry - it is a format entirely decided by the author, and so, it becomes easier to focus entirely on the self, the feelings in the moment, and unfortunately, to spiral into intellectualising your emotions, instead of simply letting them pass through you. Whilst I will always have a deep love and appreciation for poetry, it is a medium which I do not, and will never willingly turn to when articulating my own thoughts - I do realise this sounds slightly contradictory, and perhaps a little defeatist to budding poets, but I’ll explain. Poetry isn’t something that I sit down, consciously think about, and write; rather, it is the opposite. I write poetry often in complete and utter emotional haste, usually completing a piece in a matter of minutes. I’ll then leave it for a few weeks, and return make minor edits. It is not something that I spend time poring over, like the research I do for these articles - often reading books, articles, or essays, listening to relevant podcast episodes, watching lectures, videos, and speeches. The best way to put it, is that poetry is a storm, and these articles are like a small boat navigating the stormy seas; bobbing up and down with, or against, the waves, rocking violently at times, but always remaining afloat. The storm is always unpredictable; it can shrink, grow, or do whatever it pleases. But the boat will always continue to navigate through it. After spending so long giving in to this storm; writing prose feels slightly foreign to me - this is ironic, because that is the way poetry used to feel. There is a certain hilarity in the way your work becomes more authentic to you when your emotions are attached to it; I’ve realised. You infuse a part of yourself within it; you attach yourself to it, and the element of hilarity actually is self-imposed, because if you didn’t or don’t find a little humour in the way you’ve come to appreciate your own work, and your obsessiveness, then it would only serve to make you all the more critical of it. It’s paradoxical, and probably one of the reasons why, only to a certain extent, can the artist be separated from the art.
Divulgence aside; I rather think this preface requires further elaboration. I am writing today about my disillusionment with politics entirely. As a former student of it, I must convey that I am in no way claiming to know the entirety of the ideological and structural nuances of political issues, or any such parties; this is simply my interpretation of them. I must confess that I am no longer as obsessive about following political headlines as ardently as I previously was - though I do enjoy the approach I take now, following the ones which pique my interest most, instead of a blind haze of collecting all and any information pertaining to polity, governance, and current affairs and placing it so tightly into my “mind palace”, of sorts (yes, that was a Sherlock reference). At first, I was a little disappointed with the extent of my relief at letting go of the tight grip on analysing political events, figures, and the constant barrage of international misdemeanours, but it was only at this point that I realised how pessimistic it had made me. Ingesting information at that rate, and constantly forcing myself to engage with it, was not only tiring, but attempting to simultaneously remain completely stoic had failed - I had only become a massive pessimist, with my ultimate conclusion and reaction to these political affairs being, “There is no use, for this is the way the world is, and this is the way the world will always be. There are no solutions. And even if there is one, it’d take so much unnecessary effort to bring it about to see tangible results; is there truly any point?”. With regard to this, I recently read “What Young India Wants”, and there were a few instances when Bhagat referred to the attitudes of the pessimistic uncles of India and the damage that their remarks of “India will never change”, were capable of. It made me giggle; realising how my previous thoughts of “the world will not budge” matched up. But, criticising the system is completely useless until and unless you also propose change; they go hand in hand, otherwise, we are only contributing to the broken system, and whilst I began to realise this before, Bhagat’s book served to consolidate it.
So, contrary to the title of this article, I do not seek to solely criticise, but also to provide solutions, which at least, I think, will produce tangible, and fruitful results vis-a-vis the flailing state of British political parties and the participation crisis; simply as a keen observer of politics.
The first glaring issue begins with the education system - it may not seem as obvious at first. There is no attempt to inculcate values on how to think - we are taught what to think because of what aspects of history and politics we are not taught at all. We do not have any level of compulsory basic political or legal education at any stage of primary or secondary school which is present within the national curriculum - none at all. A measly one hour PSHCE lesson is seriously a sorry excuse for the blatant lack of awareness of masses of student bodies on the political parties of the UK, their history, and indeed, how to decide whom to vote for (if at all, with the current state of things). The issue we are trying to solve is one of a lack of participation and engagement with politics on a domestic level amongst the electorate. With a large majority of our generation getting their everyday news from social media; headlines are often sensationalised, taken from out of context snippets, and are shared rapidly, reposted, liked. The content of an article does not actually matter if the post itself does not generate a presence on social media. The problem is not the shift away from traditional print news, but rather, the ability of social media to decontextualise (sometimes unverified) information, and in a targeted manner, feed it to young minds according to the algorithmic process. Regulating social media companies’ algorithms and the information they collect, use, and sell from our interactions, is an obvious solution; because the political information it feeds us, is often emotionally charged - it evokes an instant reaction, without cross-referencing, without researching, without taking a minute to read an article. If adults are unable to resist this, how can children? Another solution, which should go hand in hand with the above, is updating the national curriculum to introduce habitual interaction with important political headlines, what they mean, and an introduction to the UK political system, how it is structured (our bicameral legislature), how it functions, and what our basic human rights are. This is baseline knowledge for any informed member of the electorate, and if we wish direct democracy to function properly, if at all, it is vital for this to be implemented.
Now the issue goes deeper. We are in a participation crisis because there is a lack of representation - according to the models of representation; trustee, delegate, politico, and so on, there should, theoretically be some kind of representation for everyone. However, this is clearly not the case. In an age of political populism (ironic, I know), every politician seems to be a nameless, faceless copy of the last - simply with more ridiculous views. They’ll do anything to remain in power; all claiming to have new ideas at first, a fresh perspective, bright and promising reforms (like Labour’s proposal to abolish the Lords), but as soon as they win office, or gain a lead in the polls, these fleeting promises to the electorate who believed these “leaders”, vanish (only a week ago was it revealed that Labour actually plans to expand the Lords by appointing more peers). And to give an example for the Tories too - pedalling lies of a “a clean Brexit”, which ultimately embroiled us in something akin to a constitutional crisis - going through Prime Ministers like disposable napkins. This all creates a culture of mistrust, and obvious disillusionment. Nobody wants a system that is broken, and we all wish for tangible change; the methods for bringing about positive change may, and should be different depending upon political ideology, but if all parties continue to make the same empty promises, and refuse to listen to the demands of the electorate - then it simply proves we are not a democracy at all. Politicians should be standing for we, the people. We should not have to be begging them to listen.
We aren’t a two party system, but with Labour and the Tories dominating the Commons, there isn’t much room for anyone else. Currently, with 352 MPs, the Tories dominate, with Labour far behind at 192, followed not by a third English party, but by the Scottish National Party (SNP) with 45 MPs, 15 Independents, 14 Lib Dems, 8 DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) MPs, 7 Sinn Fein members, 3 for Plaid Cymru, 2 for the Alba Party, and only 1 from the Green Party. It is truly an embarrassing state of affairs, and to an extent, a complacent electorate is not to blame - the system which allows us to elect people into power, is. The legislature does have shortcomings, like the existence of the unelected Lords, and within it, the continued existence of the Lords Temporal; but there is a fundamental issue which impacts our votes, and is largely the result of this two-party system - our voting system itself.
Put simply, First Past the Post is not a representative system. Representatives are able to win power and seats with the smallest amounts of public support - the size of the winning margin is irrelevant, as all that matters is they surpass other candidates in terms of votes. There is also the issue of wasted votes - losing candidates’ votes do not technically count for anything, and neither do those which go to the winning candidate to get them above that winning threshold. FPTP promotes parties as homogenous; and this is the point at which the glaring lack of representation is seen - a voter chooses a party, and if the candidate representing it in their constituency differs ideologically (though belongs to the same party) to another candidate they prefer, standing in another constituency (though for the same party) there is no way of expressing this. The lack of representation is also enhanced by the discouragement FPTP gives to smaller third parties; resulting in their meagre seat numbers. So, what’s the solution here? It certainly seems apt to shift to a Proportional Representation voting system - the 2011 referendum completely failed to shift us to the Alternative Vote system (despite being a formality of the coalition govt); due to a lack of turnout, and interest in the issue itself, most likely. However, in the current climate (of a drowning country), I genuinely believe a lot of us would be more open to the idea - which would be fortified by basic political education. Within the AV system, which is a form of PR; each party would firstly compile a list of candidates for different districts - the number of those elected from each list, is representative of the vote. Within AV specifically, the electorate would rank candidates in order of their preference, and if a candidate wins over 50% they would automatically win the seat. If there is no victory by majority, the candidate with the fewest first preferences is removed, and their second preference votes are distributed to the other candidates; the process continues until one candidate has the support of over 50% of the votes. To contextualise FPTP and AV; within our current system, a candidate could theoretically only need 15% of the vote to win a seat, so long as they surpassed any level of votes from all other candidates (and these votes to the losing candidate(s) would again, contribute to nothing, and would be wasted, in essence). Comparatively, the votes for the losing candidates are not wasted within AV, and it also ensures that the successful candidate has a firm majority; a vital, and foundational tenet of democracy.
There is little scope to argue that it’s a good thing we have a strong opposition then; when there’s little to no difference between the two parties dominating the Commons. Historically, the Conservative Party have dominated British politics for centuries; they emerged as an organised political faction (the Tories), and later became a formal political party in the 1830s. The party, noted for being traditionalistic, was often labelled the party of the “Throne, Altar, and Cottage”; royalists, devout Anglicans, landords, and their tenants. Currently, it is being dominated by dangerously close to alt-right-wing ideologues, with a PM who doesn’t seem to know entirely how to control his cabinet; or be completely open about his true views on the important issues, and the solutions we so desperately need. Labour is relatively new, originally emerging as the party of the people, the party of the urban working classes in 1900, with their most noteworthy government (in my humble opinion) being in 1945, immediately post-WW2 with a completely shocking, nation-rocking loss for Churchill. This is the point at which British society began to transform into what we know it today; with the establishment of the NHS, and implementation of largely the liberal policies of Beveridge, which contributed to developing this “New Jerusalem”. After studying “modern Britain” from 1945-2007, from its politics (very much so in depth), to its evolving economy, “decolonisation”, societal reforms, altering customs, the culture, and even popular music of each era - the pre-Thatcherite times always appear to be an epoch we can only aspire to replicate with regard to consensus politics (perhaps it can only be achieved post-near world ending conflict?). Consensus politics seems to be the solution to our problems; evidenced by the incredibly successful period of post-war consensus - characterised by the Keynesian model (I am not proposing a return to this; I do not claim to know enough about economics to write in-depth about the various models/theories or solutions - this is merely an observation as a history enthusiast, and former history student), the welfare state, Butskellism - the “never had it so good years”. But it seems we must create the environment for consensus - usually, it is natural by way of an awful state of affairs, however, it seems shamelessness is disappointingly abound in politics, and the interests of those in power remain to ensure their prolonged tenure in office, as opposed to providing solutions to the issues we face.
Haphazard and violent revolution is not the answer, and global history has proven time, and time again, that it is never a long-term solution. It may provide us with fleeting satisfaction and results in the short term, but in the long-term, we shall lack stability entirely. Consensus politics is the answer, because largely post-colonial British history (this is a gross oversimplification which I seek to address in another article) proves that bar the nationalisation approach, attitudes towards nuclear weapons, and slight surface-level ideological differences, both “main” parties do not differ greatly. The similarity in ideology, and even presentation itself, is summarised perfectly by the Iron Lady herself, Margaret Thatcher; when she was asked what her greatest achievement was, she responded, “Tony Blair”. She succeeded in merging not only political, but economic ideologies of once distinct strands of socialism, liberalism, traditional and neo-liberal conservatism, nationalism, into one faceless, shapeless creature we see dominating British politics today. I don’t blame her for the state of affairs today; for I quite admire her in many ways - but she certainly unknowingly contributed to it - whatever it is. She cannot be blamed, quite correctly, for the lack of common sense, and just sheer decency embodied by politicians today.
The solutions themselves are quite simple - but achieving them isn’t a straightforward path. Democracy, from the eyes of the electorate, has always been characterised by pushing limits - convincing leaders that we need change; that we are willing to punish them lest they do not give it to us. But punishing one side, now only benefits the other - a cookie cutter copy; swapping out chocolate chips for raisins, or even switching from normal flour to self-raising. How we bring about the change is by bringing more young people into this conversation. Educating our electorate-to be, ensuring they, and we all understand how much of an impact the lack of consistent leadership, a lacking economic and social policy, is having on us all. Today, not one political “leader” seems to want to openly admit that we are drowning; our failing NHS and abysmal policing system, not to mention the slowly drowning currency, and economic stability; even if they have the gall to somehow admit this, (easy, since they probably are not in the political office which holds the majority), they’ll just pose straw man arguments to make the “other side” look worse, without actually providing any solutions. It becomes a game to them; a funny debacle, a little debate - an entire circus, in which they are the clowns, and the media is the ringmaster. We are the spectators. The past tells a different story - for example, Bevan didn’t shy away from resigning when the NHS didn’t match up to the model he helped design (since prescription charges were introduced in 1948 to provide for funds being sent to aid the Americans in the Korean War); today, I doubt any politician, on either side of the aisle (if there even is one), would have the integrity to fight for what is right - unmarred by the realm of political correctness, ideological debate, old Etonian interests, corruption, and just greed. We need the right people in power; we have to want change badly enough to put ourselves forward, people who we can genuinely see representing our interests. Not career politicians; which is perhaps a phenomena to explore. For now, I believe we must drive the change. And the media is a tool; just as politicians wield it as such, we must also; bringing attention to the importance of this change, and the dire consequences of not implementing it.
Sources:
Chetan Bhagat, “What Young India Wants” (2012)
Eric Magee, Richard Kelly, Neil McNaughton “Political Ideas for A-level - Liberalism, Conservatism, Socialism, Nationalism, Multiculturalism, Ecologism” (Hodder Education)
Simon Lemieux, “AQA A-level Politics: Government and Politics of the UK, Government and Politics of the USA and Comparative Politics”
Andrew Marr, “The Making of Modern Britain”
Peter Clements, “AQA AS/A-level History: The Making of Modern Britain 1951-2007”
Arthur Burns, Joanna Innes, “Rethinking the Age of Reform: Britain 1780-1850”
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