Well..from a Tory shadow cabinet point of view it really *is* about what it means for the General Election, isn’t it? It’s for the councillors to celebrate their victory about localism, and in fairness if they hadn’t already got their argument across about what they can achieve if in power locally then they wouldn’t be winning locally.

Unless of course people are voting locally based on their national intentions, in which case Spellman is perfectly right in her posturing.

To castigate a hunger for power as “old” politics, and hoping for a “new” politics (presumably free of such desires), seems a rather strange take on human nature. Is there any indication that the humans of 2100AD will desire power less than the humans of 100AD?

Because no Labour pundit would ever, when asked about local election results in the context of a general election, express happiness at winning areas that indicated they may gain MP’s. I have certainly never seen MP’s and Parliamentary candidates from all parties at election counts clusturing with people from all their wards and trying to work out if they were winning the constituency.

Oh wait, thats a perfectly normal thing for all parties to do. If you were contesting parliamentary elections why on Earth wouldn’t you do that? Stop presenting a false dichotomy- all parties can campaign for council control beliving it is best for local interests and also take a look at what it means for GE’s in the future.

Local councillors from all parties, even the ones think I do an awful *job* managing the council, often put in a huge amount of time and effort to try and represent their constituents. But MP’s (and going by the results, the public) deal with national results first, so why wouldn’t they comment on that? Its not like its either untrue or unimportant.

“more parent focussed schools with greater discipline, recycling incentives and zero waste strategies, real time transport information and reduced congestion, all things that local councils can change and that the Tories are ‘committed’ to.”

Not really, not while central government holds the purse strings so tightly and can control the financial incentives given to local councils.

No, come on, that won’t do.

The piece was introduced by John Humphreys with the words “If you compare how they [the Conservatives] did with how they were *expected* to do, perhaps it’s not quite so impressive”. Almost every question he then asked was about what the Tory share of the vote meant for a General Election.

It was an interview about whether or not the Conservative share of the vote was as good as everyone had expected, and what it would mean if transplanted to a General Election. What else do you expect Spelman to talk about?

@2: To castigate a hunger for power as “old” politics, and hoping for a “new” politics (presumably free of such desires), seems a rather strange take on human nature. Is there any indication that the humans of 2100AD will desire power less than the humans of 100AD?

It’s unlikely (assuming that humans exist in 2100, something that can’t be taken as given).

Human nature stays the same (roughly). But societies can still get people to behave differently, by using mechanisms that incentivise different behaviours.

At the moment most politicians (including concillors) belong to one of the big parties and identify with that party. If we change the voting system from FPTP to one of AV, AV+, or STV, people will be incentivised to be more loyal to the electorate and less loyal to the party.

If we give local councils more power, we’ll get voters voting more on local issues, not on how they see the parties nationally.

If we allow local referendums on local issues, voters will take more of an interest in local issues.

@4: Not really, not while central government holds the purse strings so tightly and can control the financial incentives given to local councils.

And because local councils have very little leeway in how they can act, voters will vote on national issues. Or not vote at all.

The main parties, when they are in opposition, talk about giving more power to local councils. And when they’re in power, they do the opposite.

Frederic Jameson argued that dismissing class-based politics as ‘hunger’ for old style politics is ridiculous as dismissing starvation as ‘hunger for food’. There are needs which have to be met.

Hi all,
Thank you all for taking the time to comment. I’ll try to address them each individually, but first a general point: this is not intended to be an attack on Caroline, or the specific answer she gave, rather it is thoughts prompted by her answer; consider her to be the muse, rather than the target. The selected quote is indicative of a broader cross party political perception that power is more important than what you can do with it.
Lee: I agree with you, I just wish the national parties were competing over who can better “get their argument across about what they can achieve if in power” rather than who is most likely to get the power.
Kentron: I admit, it might be a vain hope, I’m not suggesting a desire for power is of itself a bad thing, rather that it should be the means not the ends of the desire. One may desire power because as nick implies, it gives you greater ability to make change, but the change should be the goal, not the power.
Tinter: I am very aware this is a cross party phenomenon, and I don’t pretend for one minute that Labour or the Lib Dems for that matter didn’t don’t or wouldn’t do exactly the same. I think you are right, and as I stated, the analysis of council to national is a valid one to make, but see the point made above about means and ends.
Nick: Councils have abilities to affect all of these areas to a greater and lesser extent. I chose those examples because they are areas where councils can make a difference, albeit constrained by national policies. There are of course many issues that councils cannot change.
Mr Eugenides: Thank you for the broader context, I couldn’t find the transcript online, see the general comment for explanation.

It is time to use Mr Brown’s own website to tell him to go:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go/

how power hungry and goal driven politicians have become.

If politician X really does have an altruistic desire to make the world a better place, then clearly she must have the goal of gaining enough power to carry out her intentions.

It is inevitable.

(9): Actually, meant ‘nostalgia’ not ‘hunger’.

Hey, ho.

Elle: You haven’t really made a case for them seeking power for the sake of it. I mean, I have no doubt some (many) do. But talking about results is hardly evidence of that.

Even the most ideologically driven must pay attention to electoral realities. To be frank, anyone who either gets into parliament or is aiming to do so has spent an inordinate amount of time attempting to get votes- its ridiculous to expect them not to pay attention to the results. And the type of person who will do that is likely to be wonkishly interested anyway.

Want to talk about how politics should be more ideologically or policy driven? Fine. Paying attention to election results doesn’t provide any evidence of it, however. Its just a sign of not being stupid. The SDP paid little attention to the situation on the ground and look where that got them- a rather paltry 6 MP’s.

And theres a reason why your post, which you apparently intended not to be partisan, got castigated for being so- because 2/3rds of it consists of saying how evil tories are for, um, contesting elections? Note: I’m not a tory sympathiser. Its just your point is not well articulated.

There are times when politicians put ideals above pragmatism. Look at the Labour Party under Michael Foot in the 1983 general election.

. . . and where it got them.

Foot was mocked at the time (not by me, I voted for him) but has been completely vindicated by events, especially the credit crunch which proves that Thatcherism is a failure and libertarian fucking shite cannot deliver real, worthwhile employment of the kind we had before 1979, when welfare dependency was unknown because people could easily secure proper jobs.

This is why I for one voted NO2EU, because they are the only party which recognises that right-wing shite is now discredited and the claim that we could all get rich by selling each other houses is revealed to be a total lie.

This goernment is dying because it has not accepted that the world changed in the second half of 2008. Well, not so much changed as it became impossible to deny the true nature of reality, which is that we need to end Blatcherism. Cameron will fail because he is just as fucking clueless, and wedded to the old ways.

@17: It is highly debatable whether the 1983 suicide note has been proven ‘correct’ by any events. Would leaving the EEC/EU (for example) have helped the UK, as the 1983 manifesto desired? I doubt it.

However, even if we temporarily accept your premise, it is rather fatally flawed. When you write a manifesto, you are trying to design the best policies to govern a country for the next five years. If your manifesto only finds its value when dealing with a recession twenty five years in the future, it is hardly a “vindication”. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

@17: As I understand matters, the US economy is doing better than that of the UK, continental Europe, or Japan. Do you regard that as proof that we should have followed Ronald Reagens policies?