Democracies where success depends upon political parties' careful subservience to measured public opinion.
Although major constitutional issues are decided by referenda, MPs decide how we are governed between General Elections. Should MPs make their decisions on the basis of what the population appears to want – or should their decisions be rooted in their own belief systems? Edmund Burke always believed that MPs owed constituents independent judgment:
”Your Representative Owes You, Not His Industry Only, But His Judgment; And He Betrays Instead Of Serving You If He Sacrifices It To Your Opinion.”
- Edmund Burke
But what determines that independent judgment? Ideology seems less and less decisive. Labour are increasingly embracing capitalism whilst Tories defend free-at-the-point-of-use health, education and welfare services.
If ideology is less potent what is left to determine representatives voting behaviour?
YouGov pollster Stephan Shakespeare believes that MPs – and more particularly the parties to which they belong – are being led away from Burke’s ‘judgment’ and towards an industrious enslavement to public opinion. In an article for The Observer Mr Shakespeare discussed the “reverse engineering” by which political parties devise policies. Here are three extracts from his piece:
“Polling tells you what you need to do to win an election, and you work backwards from there. The reverse engineering applies not only to the message and the manifesto, but includes redesigning your MPs.”
“Forget the idea that your election platform reflects the collective wisdom of your party. Personal conviction and mature consideration of the best interests of our country are expunged as the immediate needs of the campaigning strategy becomes the prime generator of our politics.”
“It's no different from a commercial campaign to be the best-selling soft drink… and who says the political class knows better than the population as a whole?”
It is certainly true that political parties spend huge amounts of money on trying to understand public opinion. Some politicians protest that this money is used to understand how to best sell an existing conviction – or to decide which existing convictions should be highlighted during a campaign. Many suspect, however, that focus groups are also reshaping politicians’ ‘convictions’.
The problems with consumer democracy
A number of problems would face a start-up political party that decided to become the ‘Voters’ Party’ and base its whole appeal on the electorate’s opinions:
Opinion polling is not an exact science. Opinions change and sometimes appear contradictory. Voters might simultaneously say that they want higher public spending and lower taxes and less borrowing. In the right economic circumstances such desires can be reconcilable but how does our consumerist ‘Voters’ Party’ produce those circumstances?
Prioritising policies Voters want many different things. They want action against drugs, fewer road humps and protection of the environment. But what should the ‘Voters’ Party’ act on first if it gets elected? And will it delay those actions if new polling shows that voters now want action against paedophiles before anything else?
The authenticity problem. A politician – like first term Tony Blair - can be very popular if he is in tune with public opinion but voters have growing respect for politicians like Tony Benn and Ann Widdecombe whose USP is their “independent judgment”. If consumer democracy begins to result in contradictory or shallow politics the most authentic politicians might sweep away poll-driven politics.
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