Party candidates versus independent ones
There is no definitive answer which will be correct in all circumstances to the question of whether candidates affiliated to a political party will, other things being equal, be preferable to independent ones.
For example, the position of the Conservative party nationally is to contest all district/borough/city, county and parliamentary elections but to leave it to the discretion of local constituency parties whether to put up slates for town and parish council elections.
In most of Copeland, as much of the rest of the country that decision has been, this year and usually in the past, not to put up Conservative slates for Town and Parish elections or ask people to vote on party lines in those elections.
That's because the very local decisions which these community councils take, parochial ones in the positive sense of that word, are generally not amenable to being taken on national party lines.
There are those who argue that the same applies to other levels of government, right up to parliamentary elections. They are entitled to their opinion, but I don't agree. The key points are these:
Running an organisation the size of Copeland Borough Council, let alone Cumbria County Council or the government of the UK simply cannot be done in a centralised manner with all the decisions taken by one individual and it would be a disaster to try. It needs a team of people working together with co-operation and compromise.
When someone stands for election with a party label what they are effectively doing is telling the electorate who they expect to try first to work with and what the nature of that co-operation and compromise is likely to be.
No political party is perfect, and it can at times be intensely frustrating when a political label causes councillors and council candidates to be judged not on their own records or what they are trying to achieve locally but on what people with the same political label have done at Westminster.
However, during my 26 years in local government I would argue that local parties have done more good than harm in two ways
1) In forming a basis for people to come together in teams to debate and put ideas forward on local issues and to do so in a manner which can be presented to the electorate reasonably clearly, and
2) Local government in most parts of this country would have died decades ago without the political parties encouraging people to get involved and stand for election.
That does not alter the fact that it can be very unhealthy for one party to run a council or government for too long and a change can be very helpful at times. It is sometimes suggested - the quote has been attributed to many people but it may have been a libertarian candidate in the USA called John Walner who was the first person to add - that politicians, like babies, should be changed often "and for the same reason."
For example, the position of the Conservative party nationally is to contest all district/borough/city, county and parliamentary elections but to leave it to the discretion of local constituency parties whether to put up slates for town and parish council elections.
In most of Copeland, as much of the rest of the country that decision has been, this year and usually in the past, not to put up Conservative slates for Town and Parish elections or ask people to vote on party lines in those elections.
That's because the very local decisions which these community councils take, parochial ones in the positive sense of that word, are generally not amenable to being taken on national party lines.
There are those who argue that the same applies to other levels of government, right up to parliamentary elections. They are entitled to their opinion, but I don't agree. The key points are these:
- Politics is, and should be, a team activity
- You can achieve very little in any political system based on a parliament or council without a pattern of alliances and working agreements
- Democratic accountability works more effectively and transparently when those alliances and working agreements are openly declared, preferably in advance of the elections. And that's precisely what a system of political parties is
Running an organisation the size of Copeland Borough Council, let alone Cumbria County Council or the government of the UK simply cannot be done in a centralised manner with all the decisions taken by one individual and it would be a disaster to try. It needs a team of people working together with co-operation and compromise.
When someone stands for election with a party label what they are effectively doing is telling the electorate who they expect to try first to work with and what the nature of that co-operation and compromise is likely to be.
No political party is perfect, and it can at times be intensely frustrating when a political label causes councillors and council candidates to be judged not on their own records or what they are trying to achieve locally but on what people with the same political label have done at Westminster.
However, during my 26 years in local government I would argue that local parties have done more good than harm in two ways
1) In forming a basis for people to come together in teams to debate and put ideas forward on local issues and to do so in a manner which can be presented to the electorate reasonably clearly, and
2) Local government in most parts of this country would have died decades ago without the political parties encouraging people to get involved and stand for election.
That does not alter the fact that it can be very unhealthy for one party to run a council or government for too long and a change can be very helpful at times. It is sometimes suggested - the quote has been attributed to many people but it may have been a libertarian candidate in the USA called John Walner who was the first person to add - that politicians, like babies, should be changed often "and for the same reason."
For example Labour ran Copeland council for far too long for anyone's good including their own and they got complacent and arrogant. the same can happen to any other group of political leaders if they don't work at avoiding it.
There was a lot of debate in the 19th century about whether party government was a good thing. Perhaps the most powerful reply was given by Benjamin Disraeli who said that the choice between parliamentary government and party government was a false one because you could not make the latter work without the former. In his words:
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