The sand-shoveller's vote-
POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUSERON WAUGH
Nye Bevan once remarked that opinion polls 'tad taken the poetry out of politics. What he probably meant was that they had removed the surprise element in election results, although even this is disputable, since few people are pre- pared to accept opinion-poll findings which differ in any significant way from their own con- clusions. The scientific analysis of voting has certainly undermined a number of illusions, some very dear to politicians' hearts, but it has added a new dimension to the bald figures of preference which are all that opinion polls, or election results, can record. Any attempt to analyse the reasons people give for their pre- ference immediately lands the analyst in an extraordinary world—half make-believe, half ill-digested fact, swayed by deep unbudgeable prejudices or by an occasional reckless spirit of the moment—which is surely as near to poetry as science can aspire.
• now, for instance, can any scientific mind -reconcile itself to the fact' that a significant number of electori wittingly or unwittingly vote contrary to their policy preferences? In Green- wich, a poll revealed that over one in five Labour voters were more in agreement with Conservative policies than with those of their own party. Very few voters have any knowledge of their party's policies, and the 25 per cent of potentially unaligned or floating voters do not represent the more intelligent, and politically conscious element of the electorate, as liberal mythology would have us believe. In fact the vote-switchers and the abstainers are drawn from the least politically conscious and least in- telligent section of the community. Since they settle the issue in each general election our fate is decided at every stage where democracy infringes upon the administrative process by the simpletons amongst us.
This information is produced with commend- able solemnity by Dr Peter Pulzer whose new book, Political Representation and Elections in Britain (Allen and Unwin 30s), is particularly concerned to refute a remark made by Jean- Jacques Rousseau: 'The English people think they are free but in this belief they are profoundly wrong. They are free only when they are electing members of parliament. Once the election has been corn._ pleted, they revert to the conditions of slavery. They are nothing.'
The fact that Dr Pulzer manages to cut this Frenchman down to size is of much smaller in- terest than the incidental scraps which fall from his table in the process. He argues that although we have never obtained that sovereignty of the majority which Aristotle urged, our government is at least subject to the consent of the majority; and as modern government is in a permanent state of electioneering, the majority is rather more sovereign than might at first glance be supposed. Well done, Dr Pulzer. It is nice to find one of these university egg-heads sticking up for the ol' country. But is this really what we want? By far the most intriguing part of the book analyses what is meant by 'the will of the people' and 'majority rule.' If the majority of voters in any election represent no more than the faithful followers of the winning party plus the simpleton fringe of floating voters, why should the majority's sovereignty be particularly welcome?
Indeed, the new science of psephology seems to have .destroyed all the classical theoretical arguments for universal suffrage except pos- sibly the rare and obscurantist one that votes were given to man:by God. as his birthright :.
'Since elections are a device for expressing choice, we must assume that the participants are capable of making meaningful decisions. Before they can do this, they must have access to the necessary information: they must be willing to absorb it, they must be able to draw conclusions about it. On these counts all the evidence so far discovered is discouraging. Few people are sufficiently interested in politics to follow or discuss current affairs , regularly. Fewer still are accurately informed, or re-think their position in the light of this information from one election to the next. Those who do change their minds, and therefore decide altera- tions of power are, if anything, even 'less in- volve& and worse informed than the regular "ballot fodder" of the main partici.'
Dr Pulzer is far too good an egg to follow his discoveries to their logical conclusion and decide that the whole idea of universal suffrage has been a ghastly mistake. He quotes John Stuart Mill's warning that the tendency of any majority rule will be to dispossess the minority, but goes on to say that only an 'ultra-conserva- tive' would be tempted to argue that surtax does just this. Although he admits that the argument for universal suffrage which derives from 'enlightened self-interest' cannot be sus- tained in the light of people's voting habits, he claims that there is something called individual entitlement: 'It is by no means certain that the better off or the better educated are more rational or more disinterested in their political behaviour than those who left school at fifteen and earn their living by shovelling sand.'
Observe the note of compassion. Un- doubtedly, we have a very nice young psephologist here. But so far as proof is needed, he supplies more than enough himself to show that broad segments of the electorate are incapable of choosing what is either in their own best interests or in the best interests of anyone else. As a matter of fact, he also shows that the better off and better educated are more rational in their cioice; and disin- terestedness is not what is required in demo- cratic elections so much as an ability to discern self-interest. The problem with the sand-
shovellers is that their lack of concern, or'lack of intelligence, is so acute that they cannot be relied upon, to govern themselves in their own best interests.
In fact, British democracy has many stops and stays which prevent the majority from getting its way, in so far as it can be said to -have a way. The most cunning of all our anti- democratic institutions is the House of Lords. dismissed by Dr Pulzer as 'irrelevant to this discussion.' In a sense, of course, it is irrelevant to any discussion about anything. If, like other second channberi, it stands or falls by its ability and willingness to intervene against the worst excesses of mob rule, then it plainly falls. Its usefulness is far more subtle. By posing ag a threat to democracy, while plainly constituting no threat whatsoever, it distracts attention from those real curbs on democracy which are essen- tial to sane government. These are summarised by Dr Pulzer as a tradition of parliamentary independenbe Whereby members do not relit.- sent their constituents so much as themselveS; a strong element of elitism in political leader- ship; and the fact that political choice must be exercised as a package deal.
• Professional elitism is a comparatively new development, especially in the Labour party. The new deference vote goes to doctors, management consultants and, of course, teachers. But the real oligarchy which controls entry to Parliament is not one based on beauty, birth or wealth or wit so much as on en- thusiasm. The constituency associations choOse
the MPS and the tars choose their leader. .
The rest of the electorate might seem to be apathetic, Dr Pulzer says, but in reality it •is just that they are happy. 'Class is the basis-of British politics; all else is embellishment and detail.' This, as we all know, is a thoroughly acceptable and amiable sentiment. Women tend to vote conservative. While half the conserva- tive vote comes from the working classes, this is due in large part to their incurable obsequious- ness. Only a small (though increasing) propor- tion actually rejects socialism. By and large—he has many ingenious charts to illustrate this—the lower classes tend to vote Labour, the upper classes Conservative.
The value of psephology as a science may be disputable, although the knowledge that elec- tions are determined by those least aware of the issues involved might prove salutary in a few quarters. I would like to suggest that the justifi- cation of universal suffrage, which puts us all at the mercy of the apolitical simpleton fringe, is two-fold : first, recent history shows that politi- cians' election promises are so unreliable that knowledge of them is of very little assistance in making an electoral choice; by voting simply on the issue of living standards, the floating voter is using a more rational criterion than those who worry their poor heads with rival ad- vantages of corporation versus added value tax. Second, the historical reason for extending the franchise was pragmatic—to avoid a revolu- tion or its alternative of forcible repression—and pragmatic it remains. Political theorists, alas, must take a back seat whether they approve of it all or whether they don't. More than anything else the purpose of psephology, as Dr Pulzer's excellent book illustrates, is to provide a little entertainment. Take away the sand-shoveller's vote, and the world would be a duller place..
Previous page
