Politics isn’t broken, far from it
“Politics is broken”. Thus goes the phrase currently used to explain the fall in support for the traditional parties, the rise in minority parties and why no-one can confidently predict the outcome of the next election.
But is it really broken? And if so, what is broken? The traditional two-party system is certainly under threat – we currently have a coalition and are probably looking at another after May. Plus the two parties are polling around 65% of the vote collectively. Contrast these numbers with their 98% dominance in the 1951 election.
The dominance of the Conservatives and Labour in Parliament since 1945 isn’t likely to be ended at this election – one of these two parties’ leaders will be the next Prime Minister. But the rise to prominence of other voices, or other parties, about how we are governed and what our priorities should be does mean that the traditional parties now no longer only have one, maybe two parties, to outflank but three or four.
But politics, in its original form, wasn’t about parties, never mind the two-party system. According to Aristotle, it involved ensuring laws, customs, and institutions endured for the citizens and amending them as and when necessary, to take account of new developments. The discussions and debates over whether they need changing is therefore the essence of politics. And there doesn’t have to be only two sides or just two views to whether such change needs to be made.
What has changed is how information on politics is gained and consumed. 40 years ago, there was the BBC, for maybe an hour or two at most during the day, and newspapers. Now we have a proliferation of 24-hour news channels, plus the internet and social media sites as well. This election will see Twitter, Buzzfeed and other such social media sites being used for political discussion and dissemination more than any other election, offering greater opportunities for smaller parties than before.
The rise of UKIP, the Green Party and the nationalist parties, even Russell Brand’s intervention, shows that there is a widespread interest in how our communities are organised and how power is distributed. That interest has always been there, but now there are more outlets and methods for communicating views.
Far from being broken, politics is therefore not just alive and well but extremely healthy. It’s the two-party system that might be dead, due to the capability of other voices to be heard.