AS I WAS SAYING
If we're going to have constant referenda, it's best if they're run by the government, not the media
PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE
When general elections were the only occasions for ordinary people to have a say — apart, that is, from riots and revolutions — it would have been surprising if they did not make the most of that rare opportunity which might not come again for another five or even seven years. But now that ordi- nary people are invited by somebody or other to express an opinion on every sub- ject under the sun pretty well every day of the week — and all around the clock if they participate in phone-in programmes their relative lack of interest in general elections is not in the least surprising. Truth to tell, for a public opinion which has grown accustomed to being listened to all the time between elections, polling day itself is no longer such a big deal.
This doesn't mean that public opinion has lost its appetite for influencing affairs; only that its appetite for influence is being sated in so many other ways. After all, it did not need a general election to rock the monarchy. That was done by a few adverse public opinion polls and undone again by a favourable opinion poll after a so-called `grand debate' on television. Public opinion polls, which politicians take very seriously, go on appearing whether there is an elec- tion or not. More and more audiences are encouraged to express their opinions on television talk shows all the year round. In short, there are more ways today for ordi- nary people to skin a cat than putting their crosses on a general election ballot paper; ways that get quicker results and are more fun into the bargain. No need to wait for a general election to get rid of an unpopular MP. All that needs to be done is to sell some tittle-tattle about him to the News of the World.
What the public is getting bored with is not democracy but representative democra- cy. For representative democracy most cer- tainly does not treat public opinion with the respect it has come to expect. Being a sys- tem of government expressly designed not to put public opinion in charge, how could it be expected to? Let us be honest about this. On 1 May the public is being invited to choose 650 or so individuals who, once elected, are supposed to use their own judgment or, even worse, the whips' judg- ment, rather than follow the dictates of public opinion, the clear implication being that the judgment of the elected is superior to that of their electors. Only when raw public opinion has passed through the puri- fying process of parliamentary debate and scrutiny, like so much sewage, can it be declared fit for consumption. That is the message. No wonder general elections are a bit of a turn-off. The task representative democracy assigns to the public is more of an insult than an honour. Naturally it seemed different 100 years ago, when ordi- nary people had to be thankful for the smallest crumb from the table of the ruling class. But since then — except at election times — they have become accustomed to their opinions counting for much more. Being a non-democrat myself, I would certainly love to think that the public's apa- thy in this election campaign suggests wan- ing of interest in democracy. But being a realist, I know better. They want more rather than less. Rather in the manner of the drug addict who, having grown blasé about the soft stuff, wants to move on to the hard, the voter, blasé about indirect democracy, wants the more hnmediate turn-on stuff of direct-democracy which can be pumped straight into his veins. Why can't this happen? Why can't public opinion rule as well as reign? At the moment its role has much more in common with that of a constitutional monarch than that of a lord and master. Like the Queen, public opinion is consulted most obse- quiously on pretty well everything, and every effort made to fit in with its wishes particularly, of course, during election times — but in the last resort MPs do not have to pay attention and very often, as on capital punishment, don't. All sorts of excuses are given for downsizing public opinion in this way. Direct democracy, as practised in Athens, would be impractica- ble, they say, in a nation of 55 million. Not so. It is no more difficult for a contempo- rary prime minister to put a question to the whole nation, and get their reply immedi- ately afterwards, than it was for Pericles to do so. Nor is the old excuse that the public `Seamus is still stuck at Gatwick' is too ignorant any more substantive. Once upon a time, the party leaders did tower above the man in the street, who could not possibly compete. But that is very far from the case today, judging at any rate from what we see and hear on television.
The old unstated reason for distrusting public opinion, of course, was that the propertied minority was not prepared to trust the unpropertied majority to respect the rights of property. That was indeed a good enough reason in the old days, but hardly relevant today when the haves vastly outnumber the have-nots.
So why not more referenda? My Tory friends, if I have any left, will find the very idea horrific. Frequent referenda or plebiscites were what Continental tyrants like Napoleon III put to such ill uses. But to a dangerous degree, it seems to me, we are going down that path already, the only difference being that at the moment it is the unelected media, not the elected gov- ernment, which largely choose the issues to put to the people. In effect, for example, the gun issue was settled by a referendum, a media-manipulated referendum, long before it ever reached the House of Com- mons.
The pressing danger today, surely, is that in between elections the media have the whip-hand in manipulating public opinion. That media debate on the monarchy was only the beginning of a new extension of this sinister development. Tens of millions of people participated. No apathy there. Since it was organised entirely for its enter- tainment value, the quality of the argu- ments was abysmal. Such a beer-garden on the subject of the monarchy was a national scandal which should never have been allowed. But my point is that it wouldn't have been allowed in an official referen- dum campaign on that or any other subject. In a referendum campaign, the government would have a right to set the ground rules. At the moment the opportunities made available by modern technology to involve the public directly in decision-making are largely in the hands of the media. More fre- quent state-sponsored referenda would break that monopoly.
Yes, they would strengthen the power of the executive at the expense of the House of Commons, but they would also strengthen the power of the executive at the expense of the media. I think I could be persuaded to back the idea on that ground alone.
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