The Dormant Democracy

Considering the substandard quality of the majority of our MPs, constant discontent in the electorate and a high quality of political observers, why on earth are we not making the most of our democracy, by putting decent politicians in charge?  As we do not have the benefit of open primaries to aid party candidate selection, why do we not see more independent candidates on UK ballot papers?

At the last general election I received the usual assorted leaflets from the usual candidates, but not once had a chance to meet with them. There was no campaigning in my constituency, bar the cardboard banners strapped to lampposts.  How difficult is it to really beat these amateurs and why isn't anybody trying to take them on?  What restraints are preventing our democracy from living up to its full potential and what can we do about it?

1 - Funding and Time Constrains

This is probably the best starting place, money.  Running a campaign is an expensive business, even before you get yourself on the street.  £500 just to get your name on the ballot and a further £150 if you care to register a party.  Then you'll want printed flyer's, badges, basically anything to get your name and ideas out there, perhaps a little TV air time, the costs just mount up.  Then there's the time required to visit local people, kiss the babies and maybe even debate your opponents if they feel up for it, not something particularly practical with a 9-5 job.

However all is not lost, for a start elections are only held every 4 years, so you could easily spend 3 years earning and saving, in order to spend the election year campaigning full time.  This is a pretty heavy sacrifice to make, but is certainly possible.  Charity will also play a big part in fund raising, friends and sympathisers to your cause can be corralled in to providing financial support, move back in with your parents to save money on rent, see if local businesses are interested, especially if you are campaigning for lower taxes.

2 - Actually Securing Votes
This is really the hard part, even once you have the money to campaign how do you actually get people to vote for an independent candidate?  It is probably quite easy to convince people you are better than the opposition, most people never see their local candidate before voting and many don't know who their MP is post election.  By getting out there and talking to people you can probably convince them to your point of view, but inside the voting booth most people will be looking at the big issues from the main party leaders.  I have found myself in the voting booth wanting to vote for one party but voted tactically for another.  This is a shame, but is non the less the reality of British politics.

So how is it possible to overcome this voting gap?  The first point to address is 'wasted vote syndrome', people need convincing that by voting for you they will not be allowing a worse candidate to win.  An easy way to do this would be a survey, count up the number of people who want to vote for you and make the data available for others to see, a website poll is a simple solution.  Getting voters together is another good idea, look at the Tea-Party rallies and speeches in the USA, the security of a collective helps secure the ideology.

The second point to address is how to draw the focus away from the party leaders and bring the spotlight towards the candidates in your constituency.  A big, loud, embellished campaign is a start, the public need to hear more about you than they do about the Labour or Tory leaders.  Furthermore people need to understand that if you win that they will be better represented than they would be by voting for anybody else.  It needs to be clear that you are not a compromise, but a real voice for your voters, this can only be accomplished by a unique campaign strategy.

The power of the individual local candidate is a source not yet tapped in British politics, but it may just be the key to opening up our democracy.  Perhaps I will attempt to outline a decent independent candidate campaign strategy a little later.