Compromise Politics

Well, the official election campaign is finally underway, as opposed to the unofficial one that we've had for the past year or so. Hopefully in 6 weeks time we'll have a little more policy and a little less posturing and soundbites.

Ha! Forgive my cynicism. At the moment we're looking at (According to polls) a potential hung parliament or a Tory Government with a small majority. This should be exciting, it should mean that politics will move away from the big majority, ram legislation through regardless mentality that has plagued our politics for more than 30 years. Sadly I fear this won't happen.

I suppose it all started with Thatcher, as most things inevitably do. Although brighter sparks than myself may be able to trace this back further. Thatcher took out the "Wets" those who didn't subscribe entirely to her ideals. It meant that her party would stand united behind any legislation, and with the majority get anything through parliament. This basic idea of working politics has prevailed since that time. Combined with the rise of the "Career Politician" this has made politic more like a debating society, where debates are won or lost rather than an agreement reached where legislation is honed and perfected through the means of open discussion.

Its a myth that is seemingly widespread that compromise is bad, a myth not helped by the media describing the smallest change of tack or compromise as a U-Turn, defeat or flip-flopping. Politicians should be free to say "I'd not seen it that way before, my mind has been changed by facts and good arguments" instead government and opposition alike are trapped in a bizarre Colonel Cathcart like existence where they weigh up "Feathers in Caps" and "Black Eyes" and hope the former outweighs the latter. Since the major players appear to care more about looking good than passing decent legislation it generates an MP that values the approval of party over the approval of constituents, particularly those in the 60% off Safe or Ultra safe seats. You'd have to be pretty confidant in your MP skills not to be de-selected for one of those, clearly most aren't. Barak Obama said recently that perhaps it should be a politicians job to make good policy rather than seek re-election. Judging by the behaviour of MPs Re-election is their goal.

This has a bad knock on effect on politics. Since avoiding "Black Eyes" is prioritized above good policy parties will go towards making the opposition (or government) look bad rather than contributing positive changes to policy.

This is very apparent in Scotland, where the SNP chose to form a Minority government, this initially had me interested, in a minority they would have to use argument, persuasion and compromise to get things done. This should have been very interesting indeed. Sadly Labour and The Lib-Dems aren't playing. Labour through badness and the Lib-Dems seemingly through a childish fit of pique after being snubbed to form a coalition as they expected. To this end they have adopted a stance of obstructing and blocking as much SNP policy as possible, seemingly with the singular view of saying at the next election "What have they done eh? Nothing"

Look at that closely, two major parties have actively decided to say "No" pretty much all the time, stalling and slowing any policy change in the hope of using it to gain power next time, that's 4 years of childish huff.

This is my fear with a hung parliament, rather than shake up the "big Majority" style of politics instead we'll see the big 3 vie for position until one thinks they have enough leverage to call another election and get the big majority they all crave.