Cynicism is the enemy of democracy

Frank the tank

A quote from the late Michael Foot.

How right he was. In thes times when the vast majority of politicians are looked upon as being in it for what they can get out of it, rather than for being a public servant. It turns people away from voting.

Often people make statements and it's not until later that it becomes appearant how incisive their observations are.

bompington

Michael Foot, of course, didn't turn people away from voting - in '83 they turned out in droves to vote for the Tories

finchy

bompington wrote:

Michael Foot, of course, didn't turn people away from voting - in '83 they turned out in droves to vote for the Tories

Just after the Falklands, of course.

Frank the tank

Unfortunately that was the case.

deptfordmarmoset

bompington wrote:

Michael Foot, of course, didn't turn people away from voting - in '83 they turned out in droves to vote for the Tories

Probably true, but he was also a man of principle. A person you might have to disagree with much of the time, but also someone very worthy of respect. In terms of political expediency, he would look very wrong-headed now. But definitely not wrong minded.

And Labour didn't have a winning hand anyway back then. ''Longest suicide note'' or the person who kept a party together when it was going to lose anyway? People will most likely judge the heritage according to their own political colours.

bompington

All true enough, apologies for my cynicism!
I heard Tony Benn on the radio this evening, he was gracious enough to admit that they lost in 1983 because that was what people wanted - a long way from the traditional left wing "the people are wrong" attitude that the likes of Benn and Foot might be associated with.
And further still from the "the people are sheep, we just need to manipulate them cleverly enough and they might vote for us" attitude that seems to pass for political thinking on all sides these days.

shouldbeinbed

he was one in a chain of derided but very clear thinking principled and decent politicians who had a desire and determination to do the job as a public servant not as a lucrative career.

RIP to a much better man than he was given credit for.

and 96 years old, good innings.

Eau Rouge

I don't really have a problem with people not voting, it is usually a sign of a healthy democracy.
People vote when they care about the result of the election, which means they really want one side to win over the other. Either they see one side as being hugely better or they see the alternative as being hugely worse.
It's rarely the "better" option. Political parties are far too well aware of public opinion to let one of their rivals go about promising everything the public say they want and let them walk away with the election. It's far more likely that people vote out of a fear of a particular party winning. It's not at all good for democracy to have elections decided by "anybody but them"

We have three main parties who couldn't squeeze a White Paper between themselves on most issues, and their policies are, broadly, the policies the majority of the country want to see. If that isn't the whole point of democracy, I don't know what is.
That leads to claims "they are all the same" (because they are) and that means people don't vote, but even that's a good thing. There is nothing more dangerous in a democracy than a politician who thinks he has a mandate from the people. When the government of the day had less than 1/3 of the population vote for them, they can't take measures too far.
Thats why politicians care about getting more voters, it gives them a bigger mandate to do more far reaching stuff because all of them compromise what they really want in order to have polices that can get them elected, again, that's the whole point of a democracy. Give them too many voters, too big a mandate, and they quickly revert back to their more extreme ideas, and take us away from the public consensus, and that's usually a bad thing.

fatandwheezing

Whenever I watch Question time - which has been known to happen - it is always the old school politicians who come across best, I guess mainly due to experience, and also through not longer being worried about a cerrer so they don't try and tread the party line so much.

I remember a documentary following Tony Benn in his last days as an MP when he dispaired at all his press releases getting faxed to him ready scripted from party HQ

spen666

Frank the tank wrote:

A quote from the late Michael Foot.

How right he was. In thes times when the vast majority of politicians are looked upon as being in it for what they can get out of it, rather than for being a public servant. It turns people away from voting.

Often people make statements and it's not until later that it becomes appearant how incisive their observations are.

Its not cynicism that turns people away from voting,

its
a) the realisation that politiciians cycnically break their pre election promisies
b) have their noses in ther cash trough and try everyway to retain their noses in the trough even when caught
c) have no understanding of how the majority live- eg the MP bleating re having to travel 2nd class- how awful- the rest of us do it

passout

spen666 wrote:

Frank the tank wrote:

A quote from the late Michael Foot.

How right he was. In thes times when the vast majority of politicians are looked upon as being in it for what they can get out of it, rather than for being a public servant. It turns people away from voting.

Often people make statements and it's not until later that it becomes appearant how incisive their observations are.

Its not cynicism that turns people away from voting,

its
a) the realisation that politiciians cycnically break their pre election promisies
b) have their noses in ther cash trough and try everyway to retain their noses in the trough even when caught
c) have no understanding of how the majority live- eg the MP bleating re having to travel 2nd class- how awful- the rest of us do it

How cynical....you are any ememy of democracy (that's how it works isn' t it? )

spen666

passout wrote:

How cynical....you are they ememy of everyone

I think that's what you meant to say

simonaspinall

The British are naturally cycnical due to their puritan nature - It's a hangover form a secular nation with hundreds of years of devout Christian governance - Puritanism didn't die with religion.

Cynicsm does protect you against Right-Wing Christian Evangelists conducting a tea party movement to try and get into government.

The problem is though that MPs just increase spend on media training and non-answers to when anybody ask them a question as they know they are going to get aggressive (justified) criticism in the media.

The Mechanic

I hate it when politicians don't answer perfectly simple questions. But I hate it more when interviewers let them get away with it.

iainment

bompington wrote:

Michael Foot, of course, didn't turn people away from voting - in '83 they turned out in droves to vote for the Tories

The tory vote went down 1.5% in 83, percentage wise the gainers were the SDP/Lib Alliance who went up 11.6%. Labour went down 9.3%.

So all in all Michael Foot didn't do too bad given the hand he was dealt at the time.

dennisn

If cynicism is the enemy of democracy then, according to my wife, and probably a few others, I'm public enemy number 1.

RonB

Wasn't it P J O'Rourke who said that "Democracy isn't people getting what they deserve, it's much worse than that, it's people getting what they want"?

Now that is scary.

dennisn

RonB wrote:

Wasn't it P J O'Rourke who said that "Democracy isn't people getting what they deserve, it's much worse than that, it's people getting what they want"?

Now that is scary.

Frank the tank

Eau Rouge wrote:

I don't really have a problem with people not voting, it is usually a sign of a healthy democracy.
People vote when they care about the result of the election, which means they really want one side to win over the other. Either they see one side as being hugely better or they see the alternative as being hugely worse.
It's rarely the "better" option. Political parties are far too well aware of public opinion to let one of their rivals go about promising everything the public say they want and let them walk away with the election. It's far more likely that people vote out of a fear of a particular party winning. It's not at all good for democracy to have elections decided by "anybody but them"

We have three main parties who couldn't squeeze a White Paper between themselves on most issues, and their policies are, broadly, the policies the majority of the country want to see. If that isn't the whole point of democracy, I don't know what is.
That leads to claims "they are all the same" (because they are) and that means people don't vote, but even that's a good thing. There is nothing more dangerous in a democracy than a politician who thinks he has a mandate from the people. When the government of the day had less than 1/3 of the population vote for them, they can't take measures too far.
Thats why politicians care about getting more voters, it gives them a bigger mandate to do more far reaching stuff because all of them compromise what they really want in order to have polices that can get them elected, again, that's the whole point of a democracy. Give them too many voters, too big a mandate, and they quickly revert back to their more extreme ideas, and take us away from the public consensus, and that's usually a bad thing.

I'm ashamed to say I'm considering not voting because there is no party that really comes anywhere near my views of what a political party should be doing to put things right.

Porgy

bompington wrote:

Michael Foot, of course, didn't turn people away from voting - in '83 they turned out in droves to vote for the Tories

More people didn't vote Tory in 1983 than did.

EDIT - I see someone's already made that point.


Read Robin Ramsey's book on how the SDP was funded by money from the CIA - with US advisors involved and the pro-American (and right wing) faction of the Labour party who formed the SDP - specifically, from Washington's point of view to ensure that the left vote was split to prevent Labour from getting to power. Thatcher was enormously unpopular by 1983, even with the Falklands War, but with the opposition split she managed to cling to power. - it was in fact the beginnings of the New Labour project and look what that got us.

Oh - and I'm related to Michael Foot, distantly - met him once about 25 years ago.