| The great British-liberties by-election was something of a flop. Staunchly Conservative Haltemprice and Howden was always going to re-elect David Davis, even though it did so on a turnout of just over one third. In the absence of Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates, it was inevitable that there would be little serious debate on the issue of 42 days’ detention without charge.
Although the by-election did not realise Mr Davis’s aim of stimulating a national debate on civil liberties, it did cast a harsh light on the immaturity of political discourse and understanding in this country.
Single issues rarely make for good politics. The political philosopher, John Rawls, went to the heart of the tensions inherent in democratic rule when he wrote: “It is the duty of governments to adjudicate where interests collide.” The single-issue campaign may appeal to specific interest groups, but, isolated from the complex relationships between differing interests, it diminishes understanding of the common good.
Adjudication always denies someone his or her full wish list. The individualist and consumerist route of encouraging voters to think they are always entitled to cost-free personal advantages, which will have no adverse effect on others, is destructive of healthy democracy.
It is equally damaging for individual MPs to turn their personal concerns into mini-referendums, instead of arguing the case in the Commons chamber. Governments are elected on a collective manifesto, and must justify themselves on that programme at a General Election. Progress is forged in the heat of debate.
In short-circuiting normal democratic usage, the Shadow Home Secretary made an unlikely champion of civil liberties. A supporter of the death penalty and an opponent of the Human Rights Act, Mr Davis carries a whiff of the 18th-century Tory, standing defiantly for the roast beef of Old England. The stout-yeoman act may come to serve him well as popular contempt for politicians grows.
Reflecting that contempt, and following Mr Davis’s single-issue lead, the list of candidates reinforced the idea that this was an anti-politics poll. Among the record 26 names on the ballot paper were candidates for the Church of Militant Elvis Party, Make Politicians History, and Freedom 4 Choice (the choice in question being the “right” to smoke in pubs). David Icke, having once described himself as the Son of God, did not find it necessary to tell voters what interest he represented.
Many of these candidates represented nothing but their own personal fixations. This disgruntled fringe — who, to the shame of grown-up politics, garnered almost 20 per cent of the votes cast — played to popular discontents, and had their moment in the Sun.
They knew little of politics, and, as in the case of Gemma Garrett (Miss Great Britain Party), saw no need to inform themselves. Ms Garrett, campaigning for an increase in military pay, was asked which Minister she would lobby in support of her cause: “I don’t know,” she replied. “I’m not interested in politics.”
The Green Party deserves more respect, as does Eamonn Fitzpatrick, a market trader from Northampton, who seemed to be the only candidate willing to oppose Mr Davis directly on the issue of 42 days.
Most of the remaining hopefuls ran as Independents. Unsupported by party structures and spurning coherent manifestos for hobby horses (reform school tests, pay MPs less, an abacus for every child), they were unlikely to have proved efficient or accountable MPs.
Supporting a crank or an ignoramus is not the answer to discontents. I would not choose to have my teeth drilled by an unskilled malcontent, simply because either he or I were fed up with dentists. Democratic politics is complex, requiring knowledge and the ability to work responsibly in pursuit of a shared purpose.
It is unfortunate that the concept of the party line is nearly always used to imply undiscerning sycophancy. Intelligent respect for the whip serves as a guarantor of consistency and clarity. Where that is lacking, the electorate cannot reach a reasonable understanding of what to expect from those competing for their votes. If every issue produces a random response, unrelated to ideology, there can be neither coherence in policy nor informed engagement from voters.
MPs usually learn their demanding and multifaceted trade in local council chambers. But, occasionally, a well-informed outsider emerges as an effective MP. The former BBC journalist Martin Bell was such a man. Winning Tatton from the disgraced Neil Hamilton in 1997, he appealed to voters sickened by sleaze.
Part gadfly and part safety-valve, an Independent of integrity, who is elected in response to widespread feeling on a serious issue, will “not threaten the system, but reinforce it by adding legitimacy to the members of the established parties”, in Mr Bell’s words.
Let us hope that reflection on last week’s ludicrous by-election will encourage both the candidates and the electorate to value universal suffrage more highly, inform themselves better on policy matters, and acknowledge the complexities of democratic government.
Where there are justifiable discontents with politicians, we may write to them, engage with them in their surgeries, and serve notice on them every four or five years. Democracy demands responsibility from politicians and voters alike. The party system, despite its faults, should not be devalued by inchoate peevishness, or the pursuit of individual obsessions.
Jill Segger is a freelance writer and a former Labour Party candidate in local elections.
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