Pol Pot had a vision of the good society, and was genuinely idealistic enough to want to bring the vision about.

And Lenin.

And Mao.

Golly, anyone whose interested in politics must be a despot then.

And Margaret Thatcher. Enoch Powell.

Corporatist careerism trumping principle, again?
I can’t help but think that most of our current crop of politicos under 50, and all of the much-touted younger crew are strangely bloodless, amoral creatures. Even when they profess enthusiasm for something relatively uncontentious (though I am bloody sick of them all professing love for their ‘local’ football team: by rights q. a few ought to not much like the game, but that’s verboten it seems) it doesn’t ring true. All too calculated, with an eye to personal advancement, no genuine passion, idealism.

Though I agree with the sentiment, Dave, I am hoping to make it on a duck island. I don’t want to own one mind you…

There is a list as long as the M1 to become a MP.

It is a cushy number if you can get a safe seat.

Pol Pot had a vision of the good society, and was genuinely idealistic enough to want to bring the vision about.

And Lenin.

And Mao.

Idiot…

Anyway, I think that your numbers are going to underestimate political involvement. A lot of politics is local, international or beyond the party system.

I was a Labour member for a year (special student discount, it only cost a quid) but I left when it came to renewal time. They just didn’t offer me anything. None of the parties really speak to me, and I doubt I’d get involved in any main party for the moment, bar the Greens (are they main??).

However, I blog, I attend marches, I bully my friends into attending them too. I sign petitions when I get the chance and I’m toying with the idea of trying to unionise my call centre (although that will have about as much chance of success as England winning the Ashes). And I’m on Twitter! haha

The point is a lot of people don’t want to join parties because they all look pretty rubbish. That doesn’t mean they’re not involved in politics.

As I recently wrote on The Third Estate, part of the problem is this . Political culture in this country is – for better or for worse – very much orientated towards parliament and to elections. Currently we have an institutionalised duopoly which is basically insusceptible to shifts in public opinion. Newer parties are effectively institutionally barred from a realistic prospect of gaining office. If the electoral system was changed, a far greater breadth of people would see the potential to play a genuinely creative role in politics.

Dave O: “Now consider this report from BBC journo Michael Crick, who numbers the British political class at 29,000 people on the public payroll.”

Of the number of councillors, how many are parish councillors — non-associated people who care about their local community, compensated with beer money?

But the numbers are still awful.

Great post.

I think on one point you’re possibly over optimistic. I think that ten percent is probably a better estimate of the number of members of parties who are active. That implies that about half of those involved in politics are paid, which seems about right in my experience. Frightening.

Surely the cure for this would be for more people to be politically active? If people don’t become involved in politics, then the pool drawn from will be smaller and so inevitably a larger % will be elected officials, paid special advisers, party staff etc.

Hm. It’s become a cliche in Scottish polictics to say that the SNP is attracting the brightest and best as it is one the rise, hasn’t the baggage of the other parties etc etc.

In fact the nats who get through the selection process tend to be exactly he same as their Lab, Lib or Tory counterparts – rotarians, trade unionists, business people and so on. The people who get through the SSP or SS process range from wide-eyed utopians to people you wouldn’t trust near your goldfish.

‘Twas ever thus: from Nineveh to Nairn. . .

Professionalisation is one of the factors that stops me becoming more involved in politics. I’m a bright, well educated researcher by profession and at one time could see myself being drawn into the world of think-tank working wonks with all the brains and none of the experience. What turned me against it was working on evaluations of government programmes. I’ve seen how the junior ranks of the professional political class and their ‘radical new policies’ have squandered public money on their pet projects that make excellent intuitive sense but founder on a complete lack of understanding about how the public sector/Britain outside the M25/real world works.

Fuckwits the lot of them.

I didn’t get involved in politics because I wanted to impose my worldview on a population of ingrates. I did it because I was disgusted that scumbags were being given free reign.

It doesn’t matter who I thought those scumbags to be at the time because I soon realised that my involvement was helping raise the standards on all sides.

Democracy requires participation to function effectively. If it isn’t working then WE are to blame for not participating enough and not making our criticisms stick.

If Gordon Brown is rubbish it is because nobody has stood up to him when it mattered to challenge him and force him to reappraise his view.

If LC is in serious decline it is because nobody is saying just how intellectually lazy the articles published here are.

If the comments sections are banal and inconsequential it is because of the lead given by the editor-in-chief@3.

If you have to ask why other people get involved in politics then you have failed.

If the answer you give is as Dave Osler describes in this article then you will continue to fail for all eternity.

Interesting. I actually think that the main reason why people get involved in mainstream politics is for power. I know lots of people whose background is in voluntary sector/single issue campaigns and they join a mainstream party because they see that as the only way to make an actual difference.

I can’t say what motivates people to get involved in fringe politics (but come on, there aren’t really 6,000 members of the SWP any more).

I would reckon that as more people become involved in single-issue politics and participation in party politics declines there will be a shift in influence. It has already happened a lot over the last couple of decades. Amnesty UK has got more members than the Labour Party and I am fairly sure its HQ staff is larger as well. A friend of mine who headed up Oxfam’s media operation said she had more press officers working for her than were at Labour’s HQ. Obviously, when you add in all the other resources that the political parties can call on it is nowhere near the same. But, as this article shows, the mainstream parties are dying from the roots up.

Conor says:

‘I would reckon that as more people become involved in single-issue politics and participation in party politics declines there will be a shift in influence. It has already happened a lot over the last couple of decades. Amnesty UK has got more members than the Labour Party and I am fairly sure its HQ staff is larger as well. ‘

True, but a lot of ‘single-issue politics’ is no longer what it was as Conor will remember from recent Cif gabble. I did volunteer work for Amnesty for decades but have more or less given up as the focus has all gone.

As for Oxfam, last year I found a copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for sale in an Oxfam shop in Glasgow – the manager refused to take it down seeing it (amazingly) as an issue of ‘free speech’. I told him he’d have to take it down in days. went home and sent an email to Oxfam head office and an Oxfam heid yin drove to the store and took it down personally.

Impressive action – I doubt if any of the big political parties could move so swiftly, correctly and resolutely.

Conor’s thoughts coincide with the outcome of the Power Inquiry and other research into the disengagement from mainstream party politics. I’m surprised the OP didn’t mention the Power Inquiry.

These are all interesting points, but what about people in our society who feel they have been prevented from expressing themselves democratically?

There is great concern amongst the public that dissent is being marginalised. Carnegie UK Trust and Open Democracy are hosting an event in London to discuss the outcome of a Carnegie Inquiry and to focus on identifying civil society’s role in enabling dissent.

The media, state/international governance, poverty and civil society will be investigated as potential enablers or inhibitors of dissent.

How are civil liberties compromised in Western countries and the detrimental affect this has on civil society in less developed countries

Is dissent being marginalised?

St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square London WC2N 4JJ

Tues 28 July (4:30-6:30pm), London

The Carnegie UK Trust Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society in the UK and Ireland and openDemocracy are hosting an event to explore the role of civil society associations in creating and supporting spaces for dissenting voices.

Panellists at the event, entitled Civil Society: Enabling Dissent, include Anthony Barnett founder of openDemocracy.net, global activist Kumi Naidoo, journalist/ blogger Sunny Hundal and campaigner Malcolm Carroll.

To book a place please e-mail Catherine at info@carnegieuk.org by 22 July 2009.
http://www.futuresforcivilsociety.org