01 October 2020
Life in an Uncertain Environment
Political Parties (2)
by Vic Leader
I hadn’t intended to extend the subject of Political Parties, yet I said too little last time.
Where do Manifestos come from? Being, until fairly recently, totally apolitical (in the party sense), little of my life has been spent pondering this question. In theory party conferences set the tone and, in some cases, select by vote the items to be included. But my experience of any group of people, regardless of subject, is that they will soon come up with ideas that outnumber themselves by factors of several.
The conference itself will constitute party members, officers drawn in turn form local parties or groups.
The way to manage this potentially chaotic situation is to come up with an Agenda which defines the matters to be discussed, and if the conference/ meeting/ etc is to be productive to prepare “proposals” that can become resolutions once they are agreed. “Agreed” here may mean by as little as 50.1% or may require a much higher figure of, say, 75%. In rare cases unanimity might be required.
So now the important question becomes “who manages the Agenda?” Here we get into steering groups, cabinets, committees, and whatever other bodies the party has set up. These may be influenced by the outcomes of focus groups, polls, questionnaires, or the likes. Of course, those processes themselves will have been managed in terms of the topics to be tested, questions to be asked, and so on.
All of this gives a veneer of respectability, seeking the views of the ordinary person, giving voice to as many interests as possible, finding common ground. The party’s chosen chairperson and political leader will have a significant influence.
But wait, another group who may or may not be part of the above process will be the donors, backers of the party. Small donors will be less important existentially than larger ones. They will have their own agenda.
When all of this and no doubt more has been boiled down one party’s manifesto cannot be seen to be too like another one. Otherwise how will the poor bemused voter be able to distinguish? And how many do? How many actually vote for the party of their forebears, peers, other influencers?
Another group of influencers include the various minority groups, particularly the ones that make most noise.
The goal is to produce the brightest, most colourful, sexiest, exciting, least offensive, PC package to entice the voter, the buyer, to back it at the polls.
All of this is skewed one way and another away from a largely silent group, which I shall simply refer to as the majority. Furthermore, while this majority is probably not averse to the improvement of conditions for those who have been adversely affected by life, there is a limit. So, when the cumulative effect is that the majority itself has been largely disregarded we reach a situation where they either switch off or rebel. So where do we think we are in this cycle at present?
I said up front last week that I don’t know what the answer is and our great hero of yesteryear already explained it in terms that “democracy is the worst of all possible [systems], except for all the rest”. Maybe that is the point; we seek perfection and find all around only imperfection. Welcome to the real world.
Nevertheless, we should all be striving for better. So, here’s a thought, can we drop the mantra that ‘big is beautiful’ and try to find some beauty in small things, which generally are much closer to real people. Yes, I’m suggesting a bigger role for local institutions and a reduced role for big daddy, who should be at most like a Director, setting principles and broad policies and not the detailed regulations that lead to micro-managing as if the world were a uniform place. This would of course require a root and branch review and revision of our current ways but isn’t that exactly what ‘devolution’ is? But a long way to go still.
I really don’t want to spend more time writing about party politics, perhaps not really much at all about politics. I leave that to those who are more interested and know more about it!
