Commentators have expressed shock and disappointment at the low turnout of each of the two London Mayor elections so far staged. Assembly candidate for the One London Party Damian Hockney has told them before that they shouldn’t be surprised and says they’re in for another surprise. Here he explains why.
They are at it again. When I stood as a candidate for London Mayor in the first contest in 2000, commentators became ever more detached from the real world. In the Evening Standard, Simon Jenkins claimed that turnout would equal, and possibly exceed the most recent General Election. Just to remind you, in those pre turnout-collapse days, this was over 70%. Everywhere in media and politics land they were talking of jostling and swaying crowds all desperate to be part of this brave new world of local democracy.
But it was not what I was hearing or seeing out there in the real world. At the time I was a magazine publisher and my staff without fail were underwhelmed by the elections, as were all my business associates and my friends..actually I could not find one single person who was galvanised by the election.
It was a total disconnect from the breathless Evening Standard leader columns and endless spreads of coverage, the terminally dull but hyped “main candidate” debates on tv and radio, the contrived hustings. Real people were not interested. Or at least they were not interested in huge numbers. And when I put out a press release saying that turnout would be 30%, possible lower (in the event it was 33.6%, almost exactly one in three), I was told by all journalists I knew that this was rubbish, everyone was interested, it was exciting and new…and it’s happening again this time.
In his eulogy to the concept of city mayors in the Sunday Times (April 20), even Simon Jenkins’ heading gives the game away – ‘Every city needs a Ken v Boris show – it brings city politics back to life‘. Talking about the elections in 160 councils in England and Wales, he says that these “will do well to to get a third of their electors to show the slightest interest”, and then goes on to say that London is “different”. Er, how? The London Mayor and Assembly election turnouts in 2000 and 2004 were as dire as those local elections! The only way London was any different was in the vast excitable but dull hype around the ‘main party’ candidates in the London media. Every Mayor election they tell us everyone’s galavanised, excited, busting to get to the polling stations…and every time it’s a flat damp squib with almost two out of three declining to buy the hype. It really is like Groundhog Day with forests of newspaper coverage in a carpet instead of the Punxsutawney snow. But even the good Pennsylvania citizens were able to get out of Groundhog Day.
Mr Jenkins is falling into the trap that much of the media and political class have. He (and yes, I admit, me too) may be fascinated with these elections but the public is not. It’s like my stamp collection – when I see a halfpenny Machin head decimal with the phosphor band just down one particular side, I may go into a trance of joy and have to be helped upstairs for a lie down…but I am hard pressed to get anyone else to experience that excitement. I’ll guarantee I lost most of you when I got to the word ‘Machin’ (or even perhaps the word ‘halfpenny’).
In 2000, I stood as a candidate for London Mayor and was immediately struck that confusion over voting systems, cynical marginalisation of alternative voices and poor choice of “main party” candidates were switching off the voters. And the media coverage curiously was making it more not less confusing. At the time I was sending out that press release, Simon Jenkins predicted a turnout that would rival and possible exceed that of the 1997 General Election.
And there is another myth which he fosters. That somehow these elections are reviving the public meeting. Well, the public meeting for important issues has never died but is strongly discouraged by modern methods of “consultation”. And if you look at these Mayoral public meetings in 2008, they are all entirely media driven and very stagey. Campaign staffs are told the media will be there so they make sure the usual suspects turn up. Far from the election galvanising the electorate, the so-called packed hustings are in fact full of the staffs and supporters of the candidates simply moving from one event to another, and most are staged for the media. If the media indicate they are not attending a hustings, which suddenly happened with one two weeks ago because the Mayor said in advance he would not be there, the attendance of the usual suspects suddenly collapses. It’s a bit like Songs of Praise and church attendance. On the telly, when the media is there, all happy smiling people singing well, knowing all the words to those new hymns and packing out the building. Next Sunday it’s back to the usual gang in the front pews.
I often agree with many points that Simon Jenkins makes, even when we have different views on something (he must have a rare ability to strike at the heart of issues). And yes he makes some very interesting points which need airing – the concept that the Mayor is more right wing than the main contender is something which many of us have silently pondered but not really been prepared to say. The warnings about cronyism and lack of oversight in the system have been the core of our own campaigning at City Hall. However, the conclusion that Londoners are delighted with tasting the “forbidden fruit of participation” and that others should do the same are simply not borne out by the facts. We are headed for a similar turnout on May 1st.
The Chair of two recent hustings made clear that the policy free muddled consensus at hustings between these “main” candidates scarcely bears out any contention that the people of London are being “treated” to a real debate on policies that Londoners can choose from! And that is really the heart of this problem. The candidates, even the ‘main’ ones, don’t actually really promise very much. They can posture about things (Boris recently on smoking or cheaper tickets to the Olympics for the kiddies, aaaah), the LibDem on using his experience to solve crime (‘go back to policing then’ is my advice), and Ken trying to clean up the city (‘try swarfega, not £25 congestion charges’ would be my advice there). And they have fallen for the idea that selling real policies and real visions are too complex for the poor old electorate. So we get the vague, the patronising, the general. And that might be fine for those who have decided ‘Anyone but Ken’ or ‘Can’t bear that blond Eton toff’. But it isn’t for the rest of us.
A text I received received from a magazine publisher said it all. “Don’t know who 2 vote 4 Mayor – have bn Ken supporter but gon off him & Boris seems 2 b idiot!” When I read this to a group of associates, they all laughed and said it struck a chord.
No amount of hype can sell a product that people don’t really want or feel they need. When you sell, you have to offer a choice. There is no real choice. There is no substitute either for real vision, beliefs and passion, of which there is none from the consensus ‘main’ candidates. The commentators need to have a lie down, the election system needs complete reform, as do the state radio and tv guidelines on coverage, and people need to be told how the voting system works. They don’t know. They really don’t. It’s like that stamp collection again. If I want to get someone interested in stamps, there’s no point babbling on to them about Machin halfpennies with phosphor bands if they don’t know what a stamp album is.
If something is not done, a future historian will pose the question to examinees: “Explain why the rise in hysteria and hype about the London Mayor election rose every four years in direct proportion to the drop in turnout”.
Sheila says
I was gonig to comment on this and then I thought what the hell, it makes no difference at all. Either way they’ll find a quicker way to spend the money then we can earn it.
Steve Grant says
It’s as I thought. Magazines really are published by the semi-literate! It wasn’t Machins that got in the way of digesting your points, which on second reading I found engaging and entirely valid, but your English. Total disconnect? Direct proportion? Please!
Campaign for literate politics.
Patron Saint: Jude.
m.kenny says
People no longer feel the point to vote. It doesnt matter anymore what our views are.. The goverment do what the goverment want.
When was the last time anyone was asked what they though about a change to say a certain law ???….
Didnt think so….
Truth is, no one gives a damn who runs the country anymore, its gone to pot as my mum would say…
Would the last one out pl
ease turn off the light
Clive says
The truth of the matter is that, when there was a referendum in London with the question about having a mayor and a GLA, many people voted “yes” without thinking about the implications.
For some reason, the Evening Standard was strongly in favour at the time, but I suspect very few, except perhaps the fans of Ken Livingstone, had any real enthusiasm for the idea. If the Standard had told its readership to vote “No” and argued that case cogently, I suspect that we would not have a mayor or GLA to vote for now.
I do not think that the Standard has ever been a friend of Ken’s, but they do keep hyping the election (“Only X days to go” on their posters). They do this only to try to keep the turnout up to justify their position back in 1998 (IIRC).
Anyway, in summary, no one cares about the GLA, no one really wants it, so as with EU elections, low turnout.
Damian Hockney AM says
Steve, “I could punish myself, really I could” as Charles Hawtrey said in one of the Carry Ons…I’ve ‘gotten too Americanized’…my ‘total disconnect’ with the language clearly strikes (to paraphrase PG Wodehouse) the note of a Fair Isle sweater in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot…and yes, to other posters, a point I didn’t really mention was the suspicion that much of the hype for the election is actually designed to boost turnout. The words Horse Flogging and Dead come to mind. But of course imho turnout will not rise, for all the reasons mentioned by the others who have commented. It’s what I hear from all my friends and associates…”why on earth do you bother, what do you get out of it?” etc. Well that’s where I differ and I think at heart so do most of those who believe in the democratic process. Whatever we want for for London, most of us surely want to see a situation in which candidates will present policies and options, there will be a real discussion about them, the rules of engagement will not be loaded against anyone… and above all where voters believe there will be a real opportunity for them to change things and to ‘have a say’. Instead last night on tv we get yet another debate about Routemasters and Bendy Buses between the ‘main’ parties.
David Thornton says
My question is “Has it been a success to give one man/woman so much power with so little accountability – except for a four-yearly election?” Here in Auckland NZ we are contemplating something similar.
Low turnout in local elections is a common problem – and postal voting has not changed that.
A popular view is that, the the more remote that ‘local’ government becomes, the fewer the people who bother to vote.
They do not believe thay have any power to change things. Is it time for London to cut the power it gives to one man {or woman of course)?
JoeV says
Don’t do it Auckland. Here they are trying to say this system works and everyone loves it – it’s only the media that does. i used to work at City Hall and no-one could ever understand how little interest there is in what we do outsdie. The Assembly is a toothless joke and the Mayor has taken power from government at local level through government acts. The media is trying to make it all seem so wonderful and incredible but it is DIRE. If you watched the debate between the three candidates on the BBC the other night it was just a dull slanging match. London’s evening paper the Standard is slagging off the Mayor big time and making up all sorts of bizarre stories in a partisan part of the election campaign. Don’t do it mate. It feels like a banana republic. I can’t believe I voted to have a Mayor 10 years ago.