Politicians: It’s time to embrace the chaos
The people have voted for change in the UK general elections, says Pat Thomas. Which political leader will be courageous enough to respond?
Stability. Ever since the votes were counted in the UK’s general election and the reality of a hung parliament was made clear, ‘stability’ has been the message of our potential leaders.
The juxtaposition of concepts is pure PR gold. These are ‘changing times’, ‘challenging times’ and we need ‘stability’. The strongest leader will be the one that can supply that quality in the greatest measure. At the moment voters are assured that behind the scenes, and with no party having an overall majority, Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and a handful of independents are bargaining for the benefit of the country, for the stability that we all want – and need.
But is stability really what we want – or need? And as goals go is it really the best thing for the country in the short-term?
Certainly, in pursuit of a good story, in desperation to make the election sexy and dramatic, the media are guilty of devoting far too many column inches to the disaster scenarios of a possible hung parliament. Encouragingly voters didn’t buy into these. Some actively hankered after them.
Even before the polls opened, voters from across London gathered in Parliament Square to express their support for a hung parliament and displeasure with the scare tactics of the (largely) right-wing tabloid press. The organisers of the ‘flashmob’ protest called it the “biggest rolled-up newspaper sword fight ever” – an off the cuff demonstration organised by word of mouth, through facebook, the email lists of online civil society groups Avaaz and 38 Degrees and on individual blogs and Twitter pages.
There was a petition calling for Rupert Murdoch and the British tabloid press to, “…stop spreading fear and trying to manipulate how people vote”. Over 30,000 people signed it.
In particular our newspapers and TV news programmes love to play follow the leader and the prospect of a hung parliament deeply challenges their political affiliations and indeed their corporate identities. What’s the point of being a Tory or a Labour rag if neither party has the leadership? In some ways a coalition government could be the remaking of the media since it hands back to journalists the opportunity to think their own independent thoughts again. If you don’t think that this is vital to democracy, think again.
In reality an outcome where no party has an overall majority is not unusual nor insurmountable, though it can be a nightmare for those whose sole aim is to put their personal stamp on a country or create a personal power base. So it is worthwhile speculating whom all this hand-wringing actually serves. And why in a time of tremendous change we keep grasping for ‘stability’ when embracing the disruption and chaos might ultimately be more productive?
A different reading of events suggests that while our political leaders think they are facing-off some potential disaster, the public are actually relishing the prospect of this moment of change and negotiation.
We think of politics and the political process as a done deal – as systems of governance that were worked out a long time ago and which will always function in the same way. In fact politics is little more than an evolving experiment in collective living. Thinking of it as a fixed entity is what leads to bribery and corruption, expenses scandals, cuts in education and health, big subsidies for polluting industries and ever widening gaps between the haves and have-nots.
Because of this belief there is an overriding notion that this hung parliament is somehow dysfunctional and needs to be fixed as soon as possible. The other way of looking at it is that the way the British public has voted is a recognition, on a very deep level, that the political system in its current state is dysfunctional and needs to be re-envisaged.
On the Saturday after the election another flash protest broke out in central London The 1500 or so protesters – a coalition of democracy campaigners, political activists and ordinary voters – were calling for a fairer electoral system and for support for their Take Back Parliament petition. Within a few days over 35,000 people (out of a hoped for 50,000 or more) had signed the online petition calling for a Citizens Convention to decide on a new voting system to be put to the people in a referendum.
Unfairness has long been a flaw in our system of government. The voting public knows this, has experienced it in its daily life, and has expressed its anger with both politics and politicians. The pre-election surge in support for the Liberal Democrats, unmasked the unfairness of the electoral systemand the need to reconsider the long-standing first past the post system and adopt proportional representation instead. While all this is working itself out a hung (or maybe we should be thinking of it as ‘balanced’?) parliament could better represent what the voters want, give us some breathing space to work out a better system, and possibly encourage MPs to be more aware of and responsive to public opinion.
We can’t remove this election from its national or international context. Under pressure from a number of social and environmental challenges including climate change, peak oil/energy descent, economic instability, rising population and loss of biodiversity, the world is reinventing itself everyday. There are ‘hung parliament’ scenarios – that is to say shifting paradigms of power and priorities, changes in heart and mind – running through everything that we do now.
But, as author Thomas Homer-Dixon has said, there is an upside to all this down. From an environmental perspective (if I can bang a personal drum for a moment) there is already the recognition of the opportunity to reform governmental attitude and policy. The day after the election seven of the UK’s largest environmental organisations issued a joint statement to remind those politicians haggling for their share of the power base to put action on climate change back on the political agenda.
According to David Norman, head of Campaigns at WWF: “Whoever becomes Prime Minister, one of their most pressing tasks will be to take rapid action to deal with the threat of climate change. They must also take action to protect our under-pressure natural environment.
“This is an historic opportunity. The next Government has the power to establish the UK as a climate leader and to reap the tremendous benefits to the UK’s economy, society and security of doing so.
“Scientists say global greenhouse gases must peak during this Parliament and then decline if we are to prevent serious, irreversible consequences. All parties say they are committed; now what we need is action.”
The coalition’s top priorities for government are:
● A cut in greenhouse gas emissions of at least 42 per cent by 2020.
● Investment in green industries, infrastructure and skills to boost the economy and ensure the UK becomes a world leader in low carbon technology.
● A dramatic shift to renewable sources of energy generation – at least 15 per cent by 2020.
● No new coal-fired power stations unless they are able to fully capture and store their emissions.
● No third runway at Heathrow and a new aviation policy compatible with the Climate Change Act.
● Financial support to developing countries to help them develop cleanly, adapt to climate change and stop deforestation.
● Urgent action to protect and enhance the UK’s natural environment including a White Paper on nature.
Almost any industry, NGO or community group could – and should – come up with a similar wish list. Many are in the process of doing so. Three days after the election the real campaigning is, in many respects, just beginning. The hung parliament is a chance to build effective coalitions, to work together and find solutions rather than bargain for personal glory. Entered into willingly and with a positive attitude it could be a watershed for our politicians. It could signal an end to playground squabbling, a recognition of the need to grow up.
And the result of this recognition could me a more democratic process of governance. Or it could just turn into a political bun fight, egged on by the media. It’s hard to tell which way it will go.
Gordon Brown, who has more to lose than anyone – at least publicly – accepted that the process of negotiation will take time and cooperation. We can only speculate about the temper tantrums behind the scenes Nick Clegg is under intense pressure not to sell his party down the river, especially on the issue of electoral reform. David Cameron’s response has been bullish. Even before the election he indicated that if no party had an overall majority the Conservatives would consider challenging the convention that if Britain votes for a hung parliament, the existing Prime Minister gets the first chance to form a government.
If he doesn’t get what he wants out of the backroom horsetrading, will he drag the country into a messy constitutional wrangle that may ultimately show up the ugly side of his own will to power and damage people’s faith in politicians and politics even more?
Really, it’s time to end the politics of confrontation and bluster, of personal favours and cooking the books, of privileges for the few and stuff the rest.
In a world of change people will want more say in the decisions that affect their daily lives; the personal becomes more and more political with every passing moment. It is perhaps a debate for another day whether centralised government, as opposed to more localised government, is flexible and responsive enough to meet this need.
What is clear is that voters are awakening to the need for an electoral system that better represents them and are continuing to voice their deep distrust of politicians both as keepers of the public trust and as people. Likewise there is growing mistrust of the process of politics, as something little more than a sleight of hand game in which the needs of the wealthiest individuals and the biggest global corporations are held to be more important than the needs of the majority of average individuals and their communities and environments.
Whether the voting public knew it intellectually or intuitively a hung parliament was the outcome everyone wanted because it would be a vote for change. As the world changes, politics must change too. And it is a truism of personal change, that is wholly applicable to social change, that when we fear it the most this can be an indication that change is not only inevitable but necessary. Our strongest leaders will not only acknowledge this but be humbled enough by the election outcome to realise that political office is not something taken by force of personality, but is instead offered in service. To paraphrase Tao the Ching, the strongest leaders are those that follow the people.
© Pat Thomas 2010. No reproduction without author’s permission.
