Voices blog

According to our small poll, over sixty percent of people are put off voting by the adversarial nature of party politics.

The results so far:

“When politicians capitalise on the ’scandals’ and failures of other parties, how are you most likely to react?”

• It makes me more likely to vote for the complainant: 3.23% (2 votes);
• It makes me more likely to vote for the accused: 17.74% (11 votes);
• It makes me less likely to vote at all: 62.9% (39 votes);
• It doesn’t bother me: 16.13% (10 votes).

Total Votes: 62

Ok, so it is a very small poll with only a tiny handful of respondents since March this year, and there was no scientific method applied to it; but it is interesting that a large majority – nearly two thirds – said they were ‘less likely to vote at all’.

I wonder if the picture would be similar from a much larger sample?

The poll

I was struck by the clear distinction between these two terms in the article by Zygmunt Bauman in the new Demos / V publication ‘An Anatomy of Youth’.

In his article ‘Belonging in the age of networks’ he differentiates the essence of these two terms. In short, he suggests that a community is more normally a group that you have membership of regardless of personal choice, and that you can’t easily drop out of… e.g. the locality that you grew up in, or your extended family etc. Such communities are often crucial in your identity-formation - often because you didn’t get the chance to avoid them: you were formed in the crucible of their personal and cultural forces whether you liked it or not. By contrast ‘networks’ are nearly always opted into for personal benefit of some sort. Their subject or identity appeals to you, and your choice to affiliate will more likely relate to your ‘chosen’ identity than the one that you developed like it or not.

So ‘social networks’ and ‘communities’ are not then synonymous. The former can be lightly entered into, tested, adopted to various degrees as suits you, and opted out of again. The choices remain your own, and by inference, their ability to ‘form’ you is slight as you can resist their force and take your avatar and mouse elsewhere if you don’t like the way it’s going.

By contrast ‘communities’ can’t be avoided. You have to stay with them, learn to negotiate and manage your way through them. Communities have politics where networks have cultures. I use those phrases carefully. Of course, communities have cultures as well as politics, but the words I want to stress here are ‘negotiate’ and ‘manage’. These two words are at the heart of politics. Politics is the activity of negotiating and managing the social order into the preferred version of members of an organised community (my definition). We need politics precisely because we can’t opt out. But we can opt out of networks.

What’s critical here is that we recognise the role of social networks in politics. They are not communities of the same order and they are not the place to learn politics through simply being a member. By contrast, school is. You can’t avoid school, and it is indeed a crucible of personal and social formation, not just a place of education.

Social networks can be a place for amplifying preferred choices into a consolidated force for action in the way that members choose. In this way they can be a great force for political intervention. But we shouldn’t revere then as an equivalent of ‘real’ communities. Young people in social networks are not learning politics by virtue of being members. Perhaps it’s time to be uncool and mention that…

Gordon Brown has just given a speech on electoral reform. In it he declared that after citizenship education has improved, Labour would give Parliament a free vote on reducing the voting age to 16.

On 5th April the thinktank Demos argued that the voting age should be dropped to 16. Richard Reeves Demos director said that at 16 young people were old enough to work and pay tax, and as the nation prepares to face decisions with ‘profound’ consequences for young people, they too should be given the right to vote (read the full BBC report).

Summary of Gordon Brown’s speech

Speaking on People’s PMQs just now, the Prime Minister asked the British people for a mandate to undertake the most comprehensive programme of constitutional reform in this country for a century to secure the recovery, protect and reform frontline services and rebuild faith in public life.

He said a Labour government would create a new system of politics that ensures people who hold positions of authority are more accountable and truly representative.

He committed to the following:

• That MPs will be banned from working for lobbying companies;
• MPs who want to take up paid outside appointments will have to seek prior approval from an independent body to avoid jobs which conflict with their responsibilities to the public;
• Ensuring that MPs are permanently accountable to the people.

But, he stated, a new politics does not simply mean constraining the behaviour of individual MPs - it also means strengthening the power of Parliament to hold the executive to account. The British people will be given a new right to petition the House of Commons to trigger debates on issues of significant public concern. They have also supported changes to give a stronger voice to backbenchers, so in the next Parliament, select committees and their chairs will be elected by a secret ballot of MPs.

Labour’s manifesto will include a commitment to charting a course to a written constitution and fixed term Parliaments.

‘After citizenship education has improved, we will give Parliament a free vote on reducing the voting age to 16′, the Prime Minister said.

If elected he proposed a referendum next autumn to enable British people to make choices on the central questions of constitutional future by:

• Reforming the electoral system so that no MP is elected without the majority support of those who vote in their constituency;
• Ensuring British people are served by an elected House of Lords.

An election is just a few weeks away, and each of the two main parties is highlighting the misfortunes of the other. But does it do them any favours?

It’s by no means a scientific survey, but this quick poll aims to get a little taste of how people respond to the clashing of political parties:

Yesterday Tony Breslin and I were called to give evidence to the Speaker’s Conference. We were asked specifically about young people’s engagement in politics and what role if any, that citizenship education could play in getting young people interested in politics and choosing politics as a future career. (more…)