Skip to main content

Why we need political parties


28 Sep 2016

Party conference season is upon us again. The annual jamborees attract thousands of delegates and activists to hear the keynote speeches, and take part in the hundreds of fringe events away from the main arena.

Each party is at an important stage right now and what happens at conference this year could have a significance well beyond the convention centre.

The Lib Dems are re-building. The Greens are looking for a breakthrough. UKIP have to figure out what role they have in a post-referendum world.

Perhaps most notable this year is Labour, whose Liverpool conference is closing just as the Post hits the news-stands today. They will have heard from a Leader with a refreshed mandate – one who appeals strongly to his party's membership, but less so to his parliamentary team.

Next week I will be with my Conservative colleagues in Birmingham. The focus will be on the new era we now have under a new PM, and the challenges and opportunities ahead as we manage the UK’s exit from the European Union.

Parties can be something of a paradox. Far from being groups of people who always agree with each other, they can accommodate a wide range of views, and debate on the party conference fringe can be lively indeed.

But what unites a party must be much stronger than what divides it. There will be shared core values and purpose, which enable a party to present a coherent programme to the electorate, accepting the inevitable trade-offs and compromises.

No policy programme could perfectly reflect every preference of any one individual in the party, or indeed the electorate.  But it must appeal sufficiently for a majority of people to get behind it. Then you can have a functioning and stable government.

Our parliamentary system also needs balance.  A strong and effective government needs a good opposition.  Despite the term, it can’t just be about opposing: it should be a realistic alternative government.

And that is why this week’s Labour party conference is important to everyone, Labour supporter or otherwise.

Labour has seen a big increase in its membership.  Locally, we’ve seen an increase in Conservative membership too, since Theresa May became PM.   

Whichever party people feel closest to, I hope more and more people will join it.  Because the more people are involved, the stronger our democracy is.

Of course joining a party isn't the only way to be involved in politics. Single issue groups have a really important role to play and new media has enabled many more people to express and exchange views in new ways. That is a good thing and it will grow and grow.

But it is no substitute for broad membership of and involvement in parties, which are at the heart of our democracy.


This article first appeared in the Herald Group newspapers and Petersfield Post in September 2016

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Climate change - a measured approach

27 Feb 2010 -  Letters to the Editor, Herald Newspapers Sir, In his letter in the Herald of 12 February, Simon Joslin of Oakhanger raises important points about the debate on global warming, points which cannot simply be ignored. There have been three key errors made by some (not all) of the leading proponents of action against global warming. The first error was to re-define ‘belief’ in global warming as some sort of article of faith, which should no longer be open to question. This is misguided; nothing in science should be immune to challenge. Calling those who do raise questions ‘flat-earthers’ is only likely to wind them up, and understandably so. The second error was to over-simplify the subject, to suggest that the world is just getting hotter, and that all studies confirm the same thing. In truth something as complex as world climate will always throw up anomalies, and trends will be more jumpy than straight-line. To pretend otherwise was asking for trouble. No wonder gainsayer
Post a Comment
Read more

Technical Education

6 Dec 2018 Speech at Battersea Power Station Good morning ladies and gentlemen… Thank you all for joining us here in Battersea… And thank you to Battersea for providing this very striking venue. I once came here as Minister for Employment and met some of your apprentices… I remember speaking to them about what they were doing…their future plans…and being struck - as I often am when talking to someone on a good quality apprenticeship - by their enthusiasm, their ambition, their optimism… the sense of what is possible in the future. Young people know when they are genuinely on a path to a good job, a great career – just as they know when they’re on a route to nowhere. And, unfortunately, for too long, we’ve had too many of our young people leaving school without the necessary skills or direction - and ending up on a dead-end route…getting in to work but not able to get on in work and progress to something better. I am determined now to change this. Everyone must be given the chance to ge
Post a Comment
Read more

For career success, character matters as much as qualifications

11 Feb 2014 We all remember classmates who got few O-Levels or GCSEs, but went on to become surprisingly successful in their careers. Likewise, there are always those who do very well at school but for whom success fizzles out later. So, what’s the difference? There is a wealth of research that suggests an individual’s character traits, as much as how bright they are or what exams they get, determine their path in life. The ‘recipe for success’ tends to include self-belief, the patience to pursue long-term goals, the ability to ‘bounce back’ from failures, recognition of the relationship between effort and (sometimes distant or uncertain) reward, and the persistence to keep going. For many years, our educational focus as a country has been all but exclusively on exam results. Now, leading education jurisdictions such as Singapore are increasingly adding an emphasis on the ‘character development’ agenda.  As John Cridland CBE, Director-General of the CBI has warned, “there is a danger t
Post a Comment
Read more