Events | 2009.03.15
Polly Toynbee: Nose pegs aren't enough. We will need smelling salts, too
As voter despair deepens, Labour needs to ditch its tribalism and accept that the centre-left\'s survival relies on electoral reform
The choice between Labour and Conservatives just got starker. Yesterday George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, laid out an economic policy that looks to any Keynesian like the perfect recipe for turning recession into deepest depression. It\'s Margaret Thatcher in 1980 all over again - cutting, sacking and reducing debt just when the state should expand.
Here\'s his programme: cut corporation tax and stamp duty on shares; abolish tax on savings; "come off Labour\'s unrealistic spending plans" and "bring national debt under control"; no investment in "public works projects" but instead "confront uncomfortable truths" - which means "government can\'t just spend money on every worthy cause that comes knocking on the door". Never mind what nice Mr Cameron says about "capitalism with a conscience", it\'s the numbers in nasty Mr Osborne\'s calculator that count.
So Labour can rest assured that anyone slightly leftish will put their X in the Labour box, right? Faced by a repeat of 1980s mass unemployment, keeping the Tories out is the priority. Dig out the nose pegs and smelling salts, take a glug of brandy and head off to the polls to do your duty and vote, vote, vote for Labour. No doubt many more people will do so than are willing to tell pollsters right now. No doubt I will be among those urging people on: the fate of the unemployed, the pensioners and the poor comes first.
I know that a hurricane of outrage will greet any such plea. What about Iraq, the 10p tax rate, Heathrow, the untaxed mega-rich, Royal Mail. But that will be the choice and none other (unless you live in a Lib Dem winnable). That\'s what our outrageous voting system does. No use complaining unless you join campaigns such as Make Votes Count, the Electoral Reform Society or Compass and join up right now. Unless you make a noise, the existing duopoly will conspire against you ever expressing anything but a least-worse option. Unless you help to force Labour into including proportional representation in its manifesto, that\'s the way it will always be.
In his Political Quarterly lecture, one of the wisest heads in Westminster gave a powerful warning this week about the decrepitude of democracy. The Labour MP Tony Wright, who chairs the public administration committee, leaves parliament at the next election after many years - no serial rebel but too independent to bend to ministerial office. Not that he disdains power: someone has to take responsibility, and politicians are denigrated at our peril, he warns.
But his scorching analysis took no prisoners. He laid about the "adversarial pantomime" in the chamber that grows more shrill the less difference there is between parties. Synthetic arguments mean conflict wherever possible and agreement only where unavoidable, with government held impossibly responsible for everything, legislating compulsively and careless about liberty. A pernicious media prevents new thinking when all debate is a "split" and any new direction a "U-turn".
With disconnected voters, this is now a civic crisis. What\'s to be done? There is no magic bullet, he warned. Institutional fixes alone wouldn\'t do it. It needs a change of culture in political parties, in the media, among sneering intellectuals, among ranting bloggers, and in civic engagement. It was a bleak ending.
But into the void step the optimists on the centre-left who see a chance to shape the future. If not now, when? Thirty years of governments tying their fortunes to the chariot wheels of deregulated markets have led us to the worst crash in living memory. Surely people have had enough? Each report on the climate shows the time getting shorter and the remedies harder. Blind pursuit of growth no longer looks economically, ecologically or politically sustainable.
Compass is the sharpest political movement because it is trying to be not a party, but a framework taking in disparate groups. Neal Lawson, writing with our own John Harris in this week\'s New Statesman, offers a 10-point manifesto for change to bring together an umbrella of vigorous movements from Plane Stupid to most Labour and Lib Dem members (though not their leaders), third world activists, some of the loopier emanations of green and libertarian extremes, the localists and even, they suggest, the so called Red Tories - though I have my doubts if they exist. In the formidable London Citizens movement, in the thinktanks, at growing attendances at meetings organised by myriad groups, people are turning up to talk. There isn\'t apathy but anger about the state of politics, a frustrated desire to vote for something they believe in - whatever that might be.
I have been attending local Labour gatherings and literary festivals with a new edition of a book on inequality. People turn up to have their say. With fury and near despair they see the next election coming and are outraged at the choice. And they should be. What should we do, they ask. Labour will take their subs but never listen to a word they say.
The moribund party structure now serves mainly to put down political enthusiasm. Fifty years ago one in 11 people joined parties: now it is only one in 88. These are roadblocks to democratic engagement. If you don\'t start a political career as a party researcher straight out of university, forget becoming an MP. If you want to start a new movement, don\'t expect to elect any MPs: the system is stitched up.
That is why Compass puts PR top of its manifesto. Without it, every spark of new political life is extinguished. You can march or throw green custard or sit down on airfields - but it\'s wasted effort if your votes have no chance of winning representation. Yes, PR may mean the BNP wins a few seats. Yes, it means coalitions. No, don\'t point to Italy or Israel\'s absurd, extreme systems. People deserve a choice closer to their views - a left-of-Labour group, maybe this mythical Red Tory party or a pro-Euro Tory group, an unwasted Lib Dem vote, a Green voice, a David Davis English yeoman vote. But listen to no politicians feigning concern about shrinking turnout unless they support PR. Old tribalist Gordon Brown will need to be pushed hard to put it in Labour\'s manifesto, but if the party comes to its senses, it might see PR as its only salvation.
• Polly Toynbee is co-author with David Walker of Unjust Rewards
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]07/proportional-representation
