Won’t vote, don’t care.

Another round of local elections in England have finished - this time coinciding with elections for the European Parliament. As usual, only a third of the electorate voted. This is less than in national elections, where turnout in 2010 was 65%. But this still means that after intense publicity in television, radio and the press, the distribution of leaflets and polling cards to every household, and meetings by candidates with hundreds of thousands of potential voters, a third of the adult population chose not to perform the minimal tasks of switching off their television, leaving their settee, and walking a short distance to cast their vote. 

There are a few people (mainly Jehovah’s Witnesses) who do not vote for strongly-held religious reasons. But most non-voters seem to explain their inactivity with a limited range of rationalisations, including the (manifestly untrue) statement that the political parties “are all the same”, or that politicians “are all in it for themselves”. Political commentators have more sophisticated explanations for non-voting: that the political parties are failing in some way to communicate with voters, that the voters are disgusted by the expenses scandal involving some Members of Parliament, and that voters dislike politicians.

All of these explanations for non-voting have one thing in common: they assume that the public are passive consumers of politics. They are no longer to be viewed as citizens, sharing responsibility for the governance of their society, able to stand for elections or organise and campaign on issues that concern them: instead, they are seen as purchasing political parties with their votes, as if the parties are products on the shelves of a supermarket. If none of the products appeals, they will leave the supermarket without voting. This all resembles much of the debate about education: failures of students to learn are attributed to the incompetence of their teachers - never to the lack of desire for learning among the students themselves or the unwillingness of their parents to encourage them to study.

The replacement of the active citizen by the passive consumer can also be seen in the behaviour of national and local governments. Some years ago, my son and I were on a road trip through Yorkshire. We stopped in Ripon, an ancient city with a cathedral and a fine market square. But although it has a population of over 16,000, Ripon no longer governs its own local affairs: it is instead part of the ‘borough’ of Harrogate - in reality a conglomeration of many towns and villages. The borough’s noticeboard referred to the local inhabitants as ‘customers’, as if they were purchasing their libraries, cleansing, planning and so on from a commercial enterprise.

This coincidence of political consumerism and the loss of local autonomy may not be a coincidence. The act of voting has generally been not just a choice, but also a statement of allegiance, to a religion, a social class, a set of ideas, or a local community. The ties that have bound people to each other through religion, social class and even marriage have greatly weakened in recent years. The local government ‘reforms’ of the 1970s and onwards added to this social disintegration by depriving many communities of their local leadership and the chance to select it. Instead, their councillors have become petitioners of distant and very large authorities, run by professional managers. This has weakened people’s allegiance to their local authority and their sense of community. No-one feels passionate about what happens to such arbitrary geographical conglomerations as ‘Malvern Hills District’, ‘Mole Valley District’ or even, I suspect, the ‘Borough of Harrogate’.

See also:
The rise of X-Factor politics

Overheard in the Turk’s Head in Penzance last week

A waitress approaches elderly American couple and asks them what they would like to drink. The American woman asks what beers they have. The waitress describes the various real ales available (including one brewed on the premises). A long pause follows. Eventually, the American woman replies “I’ll have a glass of water”. After bringing the drink, the waitress asks the couple what they would like to eat. The American woman asks what fish dishes they have (even though the menu and the daily specials blackboard lists these in detail. The waitress goes through the various options. This takes some time because the Turk’s Head has an excellent cook and the meals use a diverse range of fish and ways of cooking them. Another long pause follows. The American woman then orders: “I’ll have fish and chips”. 

This American woman, needless to say, is not typical of other Americans my wife and I met during our brief holiday in Penzance this month. As a group, these (mainly elderly) Americans were well-travelled and adventurous. The woman in the Turk’s Head is more a representative of the phenomenon of choice-exhaustion. This is when, presented with a bewildering range of unfamiliar and complex options, we resort to the simple and familiar. Choice-exhaustion occurs when we go to very large supermarkets, and see 20 different brands of mayonnaise, or 30 types of vinegar. We are daily presented through the mass media with an endless range of food, sofas, cars, holidays, bank accounts, clothes, and products which reverse the signs of ageing, and make us slimmer and more attractive. To help us make appropriate choices, there is another and increasing range of websites and publications which compare and rate financial products, consumer goods, motor cars and so on.

Rather than revel in this wonderland of choice, many people experience a sense of inadequacy and threat. How much easier if someone could make the choices for you. This, in fact, is the strategy used by some wealthy people - they employ ‘lifestyle advisors’ and ‘personal shoppers’ to make choices on their behalf. These will usually choose whatever is fashionable at the moment, and, more especially, whatever can be recognised as expensive and fashionable. By these means, the wealthy become a kind of walking assemblage of brands, ever sensitive to how their personal appearance and possessions compare with those of other wealthy people. Spouses and partners can also come to be regarded as a kind of brand, to be traded in when they age or cease to be fashionable.

In the absence of paid choicemakers, the rest of us struggle along as best we can, relying on our own personalities, being loyal to familiar people and places, living the way we have always done, occasionally venturing to try something new.