On November 15th I rose at a somewhat joyless 4:30am, and, after the kettle had coughed itself to life in my cold, strip lit kitchen, I yawningly drained a cup of tea and set off heavy-eyed for a nearby church hall. I then worked for sixteen long, colourless hours as a poll clerk on the police & crime commissioners (PCC) election, an election which has since then had an official review ordered into why it only managed to achieve a national turnout of 15%. The figure has been much publicised, gleefully so in some corners of the press, as a peacetime low in Britain. At my polling station we eventually achieved something a couple of points below the national average.
As the hours laboured by, a sporadic peppering of voters drifted through our chilly church hall in bemused twos and threes: frequently perplexed, occasionally angry. We, the staff, answered their questions (admittedly sometimes with gritted teeth) as best we could: what were they voting for? Why had they not received any mailshots from the candidates? Who were the candidates? This was all unsurprising stuff given the justifiably cynical press coverage (and lack of official information) in the run up to the elections: voters coming to the ballot box echoed many of the concerns which had appeared in opinion pages and blogs over the preceding weeks. In this vein, by far the most recurrent objection throughout the day was not some technical query or mild vexation over misinformation. It was something much deeper and more fundamental, something almost ideological. Namely, it was that the majority of the candidates running for the commissioner position were standing on party-political platforms, when surely everyone agrees that politics should be kept well away from anything to do with the police.
Much has been written about the PCC elections and so I won’t bore you with my two cents any further. The reason I bring it up is that two weeks beforehand, towards the end of October, I traveled down to Frome in Somerset to write an article for a national newspaper about a small democratic revolution which has taken place there. As with police commissioners, there is a strong argument which says the point-scoring nature of party politics should have no place in the affairs of town councils. The group I met one evening in Frome have, over the past 18 months, set about rectifying this in their town. Their story amounts to a triumph of localism which many others around the country would do well to take note of.
To give a brief overview, Independents for Frome (IfF) is a movement that was first started in that spiritual home of British insurrection, the local pub, by a mischievous band of ordinary, disenchanted citizens early in 2011. A diverse bunch with varied backgrounds and skills (not to mention political leanings), they were united by their shared exasperation at the institutional wrangling and party-political self interest which plagued their town council: hampering decisions throughout a string of bungled projects. IfF resolved to re-engage the apathetic local electorate in town affairs; at first the idea was simply to encourage voter registration.
But they ended up going further: after the real desire for change amongst the townspeople was thrown into sharp relief by their enthusiastic attendance to early meetings, the movement decided to go all-out. They fielded seventeen independent candidates, under a common set of values, to contest every ward seat in the town that May. Following an election campaign which involved, amongst other things, a flashmob in a local supermarket, IfF won ten of those seats and took control of Frome town council. The ballot saw a 75% increase in voter turnout and, not surprisingly, caught the established parties totally off guard.
Since then, IfF’s successes have been varied, and although there have been voices of dissent, many in the town attribute a noticeable change in mood to their approach – one that is based on openness, consultation and plain common sense. Most importantly, being independents, IfF are not hindered by the need to toe any party line. Projects currently under way include a re-modelling of the town centre, investment in sports facilities and the planning of new homes.
One of IfF’s most contentious decisions, which attracted some flak in the local press, was immediately after their election victory: they set about dismantling the old counterproductive, overly-bureaucratic council structure which left so many important issues in deadlock. A bold, red tape-cutting exercise, it left the established parties aghast, but allowed IfF to instead focus on a philosophy of empowerment: consulting with community members who have relevant expertise and then actually entrusting them with responsibilities. Dave Anderson, a local builder and councillor for the Keyford ward told me: “The attitude we have, that the established parties never did, is that just because we’re elected it doesn’t mean we know everything… top-down governance doesn’t work at the local level; it’s the people who live in Frome that know what’s best for the area”.
Anyway, my motivation for bringing up this story is simply to illustrate the limits of the party system at the local level. This argument is a well-worn one, so please forgive me for veering sharply into the blindingly obvious, and I certainly won’t labour the point. However, after my experience working on the PCC election, I feel that it is a point worth briefly reiterating. The problem on town councils, (and in Westminster actually, but that’s an article for another day), is that individual issues are not approached on their individual merits – nor even indeed with the most universally beneficial outcome being borne in mind. The prerogative of political parties is not (shock horror) public service for the welfare of all, but simply to get power for their “team” – and once they have it – to cling on. In decision making, the electorate always come second to the party.
Unsurprisingly, by drawing party lines across the town hall and blindly standing behind them; firing petty potshots to discredit opponents but not engaging in constructive debate to progress the issue (“I don’t understand your argument but I disagree with it on principle”), time and budgets are frittered away. Amidst partisan bickering, the original issues get lost, or if not, are deliberately dropped or delayed to avoid anything contentious being associated with a party’s name. To come back to the PCC, is this really what we need when it comes decisions such as setting police budgets? In the small amount of electoral literature I did see last month, party lines were admittedly not at the fore. But when these elections come around for the second or third time, when the candidates have a history in office and there’s ground to be gained by drawing attention to their failures, the “team” mindset will no doubt make itself known again. The shortcomings of incumbents will be attributed to their parties by others seeking to gain, when the question really should be “what is good for our local police service?”.
Thankfully, the PCC elections saw twelve independent candidates make it to office, and elsewhere what happened in Frome is a testament to what can be achieved by individuals working truly for the benefit of all. Everyone says they want politicians to work together more, and this always proves to be popular rhetoric – just look at Obama and Romney sitting down across the Atlantic to discuss the economy, or back home, the cross-party promises last week to collaborate over implementing the Leveson recommendations. This matey rhetoric is so popular in fact, that the parties have caught on and are now cynically using it to enamour themselves to the public. “Look at us! We’re working together for the benefit of all! Now vote for me!”.
Unfortunately however, a cursory glance towards Westminster and the farcical coalition of the past two and a half years quickly demonstrates the reality of self-interested party collaboration: a case in point, the annual Energy Statement, also published last week, exemplifies the compromises that are forced when ideology is placed above public service. The national picture is inescapably depressing, but on a local level changes can and have been made – although by its very nature this isn’t something that can be organised centrally or top-down. It has to start at the most basic level: in town halls and of course, in the pubs. I’ll repeat a quote I’ve used before from the academic Susan Fainstein, first brought to my attention by the Mayor of Frome Pippa Goldfinger: “At the level of the neighbourhood, there is the greatest opportunity for democracy but the least amount of power. As we scale up, the amount of decision making power increases but the potential of people to affect outcomes diminishes”. Here’s to hoping that the Frome can serve as an example to all of us for reclaiming that responsibility.
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Nick Reading is, amongst other things, a rehabilitated artist and part-time writer. He works in public affairs and has previously contributed to the Democracy2015 campaign. He is active on Twitter @nickreading1
You can find out more about Independents for Frome here.
This article appears in the current issue of Stir To Action
