Society Matters

Recent scandals have had a damaging impact on our participatory democracy, argues Dick Skellington

The rise of UKIP and the decline in ratings for the other main political parties in England and Wales are worrying for our participatory democracy. The turnout in the May local elections suggests the trend of declining political participation in recent years looks set to continue with turnouts as low as 15 per cent in some wards.

Even the participation of UKIP could not disguise the apathy and disaffection with our political parties. Although the Electoral Commission report on the outcome is still awaited the projected turn out looks likely to fall below the turnout in May 2012.

The historic trend in voter participation during the last 100 years shows a gradual decline. It seems we vote in television reality programmes with greater enthusiasm than we do in political elections. In 2010, for example, 15,466,019 votes were cast for The X Factor but when it comes to choosing our political representatives we vote with our feet. In the recent elections for Police Commissioners the turn-out was as low as 18 per cent.

A report from The Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU), published in March, casts further disturbing light on just how low our opinion of our institutions has sunk.

According to the EIU faith and trust in British institutions has reached an ‘all time low’. Britain now possesses one of the lowest political participation rates in the developed world. We are, in the words of the EIU, in the midst of ‘a deep institutional crisis’, and in a study of 167 countries we sit behind Iraq and Palestine in political participation rates. Even in recent by-elections turn-out has fallen to below 50 per cent.

Britain, according to the EIU, is not only below all the major European powers, but also lags behind some nations that were not considered political democracies until very recently. These include the Lebanon, Tunisia, and Namibia. The EIU did score us highly on having a system of free and open elections, but we scored only six out of 10 when it came to participation. The ERIU democracy index looked at several other factors in producing their latest index, but even then Britain was ranked 16th out of 167 countries, placing it in the lower rungs of the top 25 major democracies in the world.

The EIU report concluded that in Britain: ‘Problems are reflected across many elements – voter turn-out, political party membership, the willingness of citizens to engage in politics and their attitudes towards it. Trust in government, parliament and politicians is at an all-time low’ (my emphasis).

The crisis in trust in our key institutions has been exacerbated by recent scandals involving the police, the church, our financial systems, the BBC, and the media (phone hacking).

The EIU report specifically signalled out the Libor rate rigging scandal as a key factor in recent low political participation, while disillusionment with our political systems has been further damaged by the MPs' expenses scandal and ‘cash for questions’ controversies.

The EIU argue that the British public remain disaffected with politicians who they believe have not sufficiently cleaned up their own act, and have failed to call the bankers to account for triggering the financial crash that precipitated the severe austerity measures now being imposed on the British people. It even suggests that the 2011 riots were a response to a loss of confidence in our political and ruling elite.

It ends with a chilling warning to the Coalition in its final two years in office: ‘There is a clear risk of escalating resentment among affected groups, particularly if further state support is offered to the deeply unpopular financial services sector.’ It's worrying too for Labour, as they look unlikely to be able to offer anything more radical than a similar raft of cuts and welfare squeezes that will make it difficult for them to charm new voters.

These are disturbing times for our democracy, and the more our elite institutions are exposed, the greater the risk to our democratic future. Greater accountability may do something to alleviate the fall from grace.

Find out more:

• Full EIU data
  

Dick Skellington 17 June 2013

The views expressed in this post, as in all posts on Society Matters, are the views of the author, not The Open University.

Cartoon by Gary Edwards

 

Nearer his end than his beginning, Dick Skellington reveals just how he might end up. 

Around the time of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral (the Iron Lady was indeed cremated) I was taken aback by a tabloid newspaper headline which ran: MY GRAN'S BECOME A LAMP POST.
 
It seems that metal body parts from the dead are being turned into road furniture across the kingdom. Steel hips, plates (I have one in my skull following a road accident), screws and even teeth fillings, are collected after cremation and sent for recycling, stimulating a new private business enterprise.
 
Increasingly, our former body parts are being melted down for road signs, lamp posts, and even to provide valuable titanium and cobalt which are used in teeth implants. What started in a starburst might end up in an aeroplane or a motor vehicle.
 
Over one half of the nation’s 260 crematoria have so far signed up to the scheme.  Estimates put the total potential amount collected each year at over 75 tons.
 
What does seem clear is that my relatives may choose my body to be donated to the nascent recycling industry, or if they wish, they can keep the metal parts for themselves as mementoes.  
 
I rather think my metal plate would be best converted into a footpath sign, since I so love the countryside.  I am not sure if I can be that specific, but I am thinking of changing my will to make sure.
 
One of the benefits of the new scheme is that polluting metal substances are not buried underground. Nice to know when I go I might be environmentally sustainable.
 
However, I think, once the metal has been removed and recycled, my ashes should be buried at sea. Did you know there are three designated marine graveyards, one off the Northumbrian coast, one near Newhaven, and another near the Isle of Wight?
But since 2001, only 140 people have been laid to rest in watery graves. It was something to which former sailors seemed particularly inclined. In 2002 there were 21 sea burials, last year only 4. Perhaps all the old sailors from Second World War convoys have been laid to rest.
 
Back in Nelson’s time, around the turn of the 19th century, dead sailors were simply trussed up in their hammocks, a final stitch inserted in the deceased’s nose (to ensure that the dead was not in fact merely unconscious!), and a lead weight tied to the feet. 

I do not think I will go that far. Just send my metal to the recycling plant and scatter my ashes over the waters beneath The Needles.
Dick Skellington 13 June 2013

The views expressed in this post, as in all posts on Society Matters, are the views of the author, not The Open University.

Cartoon by Gary Edwards

Dick Skellington reflects on our disunited kingdom in his holiday postcard from Sardinia.

Alghero, Sardinia, 11 June 2013
What disturbing times we face. We seem to be living in a climate of suspicion and division where the weakest and most vulnerable members of society are being demonised, reviled and marginalised by politicians and media alike.

I was born just after the Second World War which cost the lives of millions combating tyranny and racial hatred. A friend who was born a decade earlier expressed his concern about what he sees as disturbing parallels between the present and the thirties – the longest downturn in modern times, the persecution of minorities, mounting stigma against the unemployed, and antipathy towards those living on benefits and immigrants. All this in a gathering storm of Islamaphobia. 

We do seem to becoming more mean-spirited and
selfish, and more antagonistic towards outsiders. Of course, as someone famously put it, we must beware of generalisations, even that one, but I am sure I am not the only one who has been struck by some of the dispiriting political rhetoric and media hysteria of late, especially after the brutal killing of a soldier in Woolwich. 

I left for my holiday in Sardinia with UKIP's popularity running at nearly 30 per cent in some opinion polls. The streets of the country are witnessing far more frequent demonstrations from fringe Far Right organisations such as the English Defence League. It is as if UKIP's resurgence has pushed the country further to the right, making intolerance of difference a badge of honour for some. Its gathering support is a symptom of disempowerment among the white working class. UKIP supporters are more likely to earn below the national average wage, be white, male, and over 60.
 
As I left for my holiday the spectre of further corruption allegations against Ministers and Members of the House of Lords dominated the quality and tabloid newspapers, adding fuel to the fire of political disrepute.

Meanwhile, the festering boil of banker corruption remains to be lanced at a time when banks are still reluctant to lend, while little progress has been made on tackling the twin problems of tax evasion and tax avoidance. The focus has always been on the soft target of benefit scroungers. 

The Government struggles to resolve some of the most critical problems of the day. The lack of adequately paid jobs, falling or at best stagnant wages for many, a shortfall in affordable housing, the absence of growth especially in regions beyond the Greater London area where major cities and urban conurbations face further local government cuts in spending in the next two years, youth unemployment at record levels, underemployment rising too, a stalled deficit and increased borrowing. The Labour opposition meanwhile seems incapable of promising anything too different from the current spate of austerity. Across mainstream politics membership is plunging. UKIP and others will reap the harvest of this disaffection.
 
All these failings are making it easier for more extreme fringe parties to secure greater political respectability.  We are at greater risk of becoming hostages to an unrepresentative band of right wingers. I am in Italy where, of course, they know much more than we do about the perils of ignoring the threat of intolerance; and where austerity is struggling to tackle deficits with similar outcomes, if not worse, for young people and the vulnerable. And yes, I hear you shout, you could have holidayed in Portugal or Spain, more riddled with economic stagnation than the UK, then you might get some context. Just look at what is happening on the streets of Turkey's big cities this month. The UK is by comparison perhaps not so bad. But from here, where the sun shines, our problems seem the more acute to me. We seem to be harking back to an alleged golden age, back to the little Englander mentality of the 19th century.

Our country remains in extensive care. It is living through a lost and traumatic decade, especially for the young. It is nice to be away from it all, if only for a few weeks. Britannia does not look so cool from here.  Wish you were here.
Dick Skellington

The views expressed in this post, as in all posts on Society Matters, are the views of the author, not The Open University.

Cartoon by Catherine Pain