the state of local politics

As many of you will probably know (or guessed) party politics doesn’t have the same sway as it once might have.  There has been a bit of research which paints a pretty sober picture of just where we are:

• 3% of Constituency Labour Parties, 20% of Conservative Associations and 40% of Lib Dem Local Parties have fewer than 100 members per constituency. Conservative Associations in the North of England typically have fewer than 50 members per constituency.
• 34% of Conservative Associations, 50% of Constituency Labour Parties and 73% of Liberal Democrat Local Parties received less than £5,000 in income in 2005 meaning they had less than 7 pence to spend per elector in that year. By contrast, Conservative Associations in Conservative-held constituencies typically received more than £50,000 in 2005.
• 32% of Conservative Associations, 44% of Liberal Democrat Local Parties and 50% of Constituency Labour Parties distributed less than 1 leaflet per household in the 2005 General Election.
• At least 67% of the population received no personal contact from any of the three main parties in the 2005 General Election. In solid Labour seats, this figure increased to 82%.

And if you think that its just the mainstream parties that are having a hard time of it then get across to Dave’s blog to take a look at the George Galloway fan club’s diminishing returns.I’m not too bothered about funding issues; its nice when you’ve got enough cash to pay for the things you know you ought to do but its clearly damaging when campaigns cost too much.  So having to run a tight ship isn’t necessarily a bad thing (whether the £50,000 that safe Tory seats have is tight I’ll leave up to you).

But the Unlock Democracy report points out:

Political parties perform important roles without which representative democracy could not exist. They offer alternative policies from which voters choose at elections, organise campaigns to mobilise voters and perhaps most importantly they field candidates for public office. Political parties may be unpopular but there is simply no better alternative model for organising democracy.

Without activists and members nothing happens.

The question is what to do?  I’m sure that Peter has the right idea and that just asking will be enough for some people to join, but perhaps not for others.

I came from a family who talked a lot of politics and the extension of talking about it to trying to do something about it wasn’t that far a step.  I joined my party because I wanted to change the world and recognised that doing that on my own was going to be difficult.  I joined because I hated many of the things that the Conservative Government were doing.   I became active because I didn’t consider that there was an alternative, and I stayed active because of the relationships that developed and the experiences I had.  I put myself forward for election because someone asked me to.

Perhaps you can tell me why you joined your party (if you’re a member) or what might make you consider joining (if you’re not)?