This winning exploration of democracy gets my vote
‘Hello! Is this the end of the world as we know it?” That was Amol Rajan’s chirpy introduction to Start the Week (Radio 4) on Monday. The subject under discussion was The Death of Democracy, and – despite Rajan’s jovial chairmanship – it made grim listening.
Western democracy probably has another 50 years left, said Cambridge professor David Runciman. Fifty years! That means there may be some sort of violent revolution in my children’s lifetime. What can be done to prevent this cataclysm?
Not much, suggested Runciman. Liberal democracy, with its central value of freedom of expression, is being gradually “hollowed out” by a combination of forces – among them populism, demographic change and the disinformation spread by social media. History is no help, he said: indeed, fixating on historic parallels, such as the rise of fascism in the Thirties, stops us looking clearly at our unique circumstances. “When democracy ends, which it will at some point, it will be in ways that are new and unfamiliar.”
In much of the world, of course, true democracy has yet to be born. Professor Nic Cheeseman, who has written a book on ballot-rigging, provided some eye-popping examples. In areas of the Ukraine where voters were expected to back the opposition, they were given pens filled with disappearing ink: the crosses they put on their ballot papers had vanished by the time the vote was counted.
Rajan let out a peal of guilty laughter. “It is quite funny at times,” he said of Cheeseman’s book, but its author did not concur. Instead, he pointed out sombrely that some of the cleverest methods of vote-rigging, such as gerrymandering, were invented in the Anglosphere; and that in the past three years, all of Britain’s major political parties have been fined for breaching campaign expenditure rules. The rot has already set in.
One thing that might yet save us (or so I console myself) is the fact that our national broadcaster does a good job of inspecting Britain’s political entrails. Just four days after Amber Rudd resigned over the Windrush scandal, The Briefing Room’s David Aaronovitch asked the question: Is the Home Office a Problem Department? (Radio 4, Thursday).
The answer – YES – was supplied straight away by the political broadcaster Michael Cockerell. The corridors of the Home Office, he said, “are paved with dynamite”. It has an absurdly wide remit, ranging from the police to nudist beaches. Behind the scenes, it has always been run by permanent secretaries who last much longer in the department than any minister (hence the job title), and who tend towards an obstructive contempt for their elected masters.
On top of all that, noted the political scientist Erica Conserdine, the Home Office is responsible for all the “wicked issues” – meaning immigration, drugs and crime – about which the public demands that something must be done. The result is a culture that is always on the defensive. Procedures – particularly for immigration and asylum cases – are laid out in minute bureaucratic detail, in order to prevent human error; but this only succeeds in eliminating human discretion.
All the experts marshalled by Aaronovitch described a fiendishly complex department. Yet in 28 minutes, this programme provided an illuminating guided tour. It left me with a better grasp of how government works (or doesn’t work), and considerable sympathy for those who tread its perilous corridors.
Nick Clegg’s new podcast, Anger Management, has a similar effect on me. Not because it is especially well done; rather the reverse, in fact. One gets the feeling that Clegg’s producer has gone Awol, leaving the former Lib Dem leader to bluff his way unaided through this new medium.
Every fortnight, he invites a different guest into the studio to discuss why we live in such angry times, and how to restore rational debate. Clegg stutters, chases his thoughts around in circles and interrupts himself constantly. His guests thus far – Nigel Farage and George Osborne – were almost certainly plucked in desperation from his own address book. At the end of each episode he makes a plea for the guest he really wants – Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail – to get in touch. So far (and no doubt forever), no dice.
It could be excruciating, but I adore it. It’s so rare to hear anyone, in politics or the media, making more of an effort to be reasonable than to be right. Clegg’s scrupulous fairness allows his guests to unfurl a little, revealing their softer parts. Instead of mere politicians (that doomed species), there are humans on display.