Times survey shows party politics waning

Today's Times has a report about a survey of most parliamentary candidates by the left-wing think tank, the New Local Government Network (NLGN). The thrust of it is that three out of four parliamentary candidates for the next general election come from political backgrounds, are mostly male and have got little experience of the world outside their party machines. The NLGN says this shows the age of the career politician is set to continue. NLGN director, former Labour MP Chris Leslie, argues that politics needs people from a wider range of backgrounds that the man in the street can identify with if there is to be "a renaissance in civic involvement".

But the report and the survey miss a more important issue. They both fail to question why this is happening and what it tells us about the state of politics in this country. The age of the career politician is being cemented by the slow death of political parties. Parties are being forced to fish ever sparser ponds for their candidates because more people are turning their back on party politics. A note in the House of Commons Library about Membership of UK Political Parties shows the decline with brutal clarity.

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Instead of casting around their membership for people from different backgrounds to contest parliamentary elections, the parties have been increasingly forced to look inwards and adopt candidates from their back office team. Young ambitious people who want to enter Parliament have in turn been forced to join the party machine and work to get noticed and earn the favour of the all-powerful who can influence their selection. Others have sought election as councillors, treating their terms as elected members as no more than an apprenticeship on the path to a seat in the Commons.

That's a big part of why the parties are becoming more remote and irrelevant to people. In 1983 the percentage of the UK population who were members of one of the main three political parties stood at 3.8%. By 2005 that figure had dropped by nearly two thirds to just 1.3%. As the disengagement continues the figure will continue to fall. It isn't helped by the party leaders all trying to camp on the same narrow piece of political ground so people can't see any difference between the parties and say they're all the same.

Over the years parties have taken more and more decision making power away from ordinary members. Party conferences used to be interesting forums for debate and policy development. Now they're just glitzy presentations where party leaders and parliamentarians talk at members, who are supposed to fawn over their wisdom and applaud on cue. The grassroots members of parties have been cut out of the loop and the decisions are now taken by the leader and his small band of trustees. All too frequently the principles for which the parties stood have been torn up and members told to accept it because it's necessary to win power.

If politics is to become relevant again the parties need to rediscover principle and start to oppose their rivals on ideological grounds instead of tribal ones. If people see real political opposition and a battle of differing ideas on issues that really matter, then the political parties have a chance. But this won't happen all the while parties rely on focus groups, spin and media manipulation. Unless there is real change in the political process the next NLGN survey will see even more candidates coming from the ranks of the political careerists. If David Cameron is serious about political reform he should use this as a starting point.