Tag Archives: British elections

red white blue bar

The Mercy of a Short Election Season

No wonder the drudgery of political posturing has provoked a sense of dread in the nation.

                                                      A.I. Image

The U.K. and most parliamentary democracies are able to keep elections periods to relatively reasonable lengths. Most recently, the required dissolution of Parliament before a new election took place at the end of May, this year. The general election to elect a new parliament and Prime Minister followed on July 4, allowing a campaign just a few weeks long. That’s it. In that amount of time U.S. candidates would still be pondering the color of shirts that look good on television.

To be sure, the new government headed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer is not very popular. But the Tories had worn out their welcome long ago. And the country was in the mood to bury them in  a landslide.  That they called for a new election is still a surprise.

As many have noted, running for the presidency and some congressional offices has turned American elections into “permanent campaigns” full of lies, distortions, ad hominem attacks and doubts about their basic fairness.  And we can add in assassination attempts.  It’s no way to run a democracy, creating a train of palaver that rarely seems to ever get out of the way. No wonder the drudgery of political posturing has provoked a sense of dread in the nation.

Imagine if you were charged with attending a film festival of an endless cycle of long and over-the-top Hollywood sagas: perhaps Gone With the Wind, Apocalypse now, and Godfather II: enough mayhem, preening, bluster, and excess to last a lifetime. And then imagine a Groundhog Day moment where the cycle repeats at the start of every new morning. This is now a feature of a typical news cycle: an endless nightmare of invective from politicians convinced they need to speak in oversimplifications to reach a distracted public.

The press is only too happy to set up shop and cover this free marathon for as long as the candidates can draw a breath. Add in a Supreme Court that thinks money is speech, and we are seemingly doomed to witness the agony of a democracy that is failing.

short black line

“If we want to find the nadir of human folly, we should at least consider modern American campaigns, which, coincidently, offer the worst moments in the culture in service to one of its best traditions.”

The “system”–voters, the Constitution and political professionals– have inadvertently perfected an electoral system that has devolved to yield far more heat than light. Like the bleary-eyed viewer of those overheated Hollywood sagas, we stagger under the weight of glibness, lies, and—every now and then—a rare moment of insight that gets overlooked in a sea of dross. If we want to find the nadir of human folly, we should at least consider modern American campaigns, which, coincidently, offer the worst moments in the culture in service to one of its best traditions.  Elections based on the mood of voters and legislators rather than a set calendar has its advantages.

To be sure, Britain’s electoral efficiency has not cleansed itself of all political ineptness. Brexit especially has punished their manufacturing, the arts, and European solidarity. What remains  are shrunken aspirations of an island-nation cut off from the expansive EU. But they clearly have a less ossified mechanism for cleansing their political system.