Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Warning bells

It's interesting watching the big three political parties of the UK disintegrating and losing members left, right and centre. It's also pretty much a given that sooner or later they'll opt for state funding of their parties, no doubt using the excuse that it will prevent corruption by outside donors demanding favours. Though what it will do is entrench the corruption that is the politicians in place funded by the taxpayer who may very well not want the corrupt bastards to have any money at all from them.
Labour have their union 'problem' but now the Tories have a new problem in that their grass root members no longer believe in the party...
Mail.
One in five Tory members is thinking of voting for the UK Independence Party at the next election, a poll has revealed.
More than half feel they are not respected by David Cameron, despite years of service to their local Conservative associations.
And many feel alienated by some of the Prime Minister’s flagship policies, with 59 per cent saying they oppose gay marriage and 67 per cent opposed to increases in the budget for foreign aid.
The rare insight into feeling among the Tory activists will make for worrying reading for party strategists.
It reveals a growing disconnect between Mr Cameron and his members, with almost half saying they now spend no time campaigning for his re-election as Prime Minister.
Many of them are actively considering switching to back UKIP, in a major boost for Nigel Farage’s party.
The damning verdict comes just two months after party relations were shattered by claims a senior Tory figure had dismissed activists as 'swivel-eyed loons'.
Cameron's problem is that a lot of party activists do not like where he's taking the party, they do not like his stance on the EU, his views on gay marriage or giving taxpayers cash to overseas kleptocracies. The Tories are worried about Ukip, but what's not being said is that Labour are also starting to get worried too as many people who in the past have voted Labour, now appear to be prepared to vote Ukip too. The Lib Dems as ever are discovering that being in power means being unpopular and wish to go back to being the party of permanent opposition, though interestingly enough they look as if they may go bankrupt first.
Now I have no idea how Ukip will do in the next general election, they may very well pick up the anyone but the big two vote that the Lib Dems used to get. I do suspect that Ukip will walk the next EU elections in first place by a long way. After that it will get interesting as Labour and the Tories will probably try to show off their EUskeptic roots and try to woo back voters. Though i suspect a lot of MP's hearts might not be fully in it.
We may truly be living in interesting (political) times.

2 annotations:

DerekP said...

Regarding party funding - I'd be happy if political parties' only funding was a £5 for each vote they receive at an MP's election.

No large funding from unions or big business, make political parties value every vote they get even if they don't win the seat, and keep a lid on their spending, especially campaign/election spending (this might make them value the party voluntary supporters rather than thinking of them as sheep or loons).

Even better from what I hear might be a Swiss type of system which is more responsive to voters issues, which in our system seem to take 10 to 20 years to make it from affecting the hard-pressed voter in the street to just about being noticed by the political class, who then lie to us about what we're experiencing.

Choke the political parties first, then the quangos, civil service and local government according to how much they spend on things the public don't want. Might make them change their behaviour slightly.

Anonymous said...

DerekP

You are indeed spot on. If you search for the Harrogate Agenda, you might be surprised to learn that their are those who are working towards 'Direct Democracy'.

We are a long way off. But I, and people like yourself, and perhaps our kind host, may see this as a solution to our nations problems.