-Caveat Lector- >18 December 2000 >New Statesman (London) > >Cover story - Frankly, I don't give a damn > >Voter turnout is at an all-time low, but don't blame it on apathy. The >electorate has turned cynical, and that is quite a different matter. > >By Nick Cohen > >The great conflict of the 19th century was between those who could >vote and those who could not. All adults had won the right to vote by >the early 20th century, and they used it to fight among themselves. >Today, a new division is gaping, which the Chartists, suffragettes and >Labour class warriors - and their opponents - would have found >impossible to comprehend. The great split of the 21st century is >between those who can and do vote and those who can but, well, can't >be bothered. > >Getting to grips with the Won't Vote Movement (or non-movement) is >necessarily a difficult task. It has no manifesto. It employs no >spin-doctors to brief journalists on its tactics and ambitions. The >BBC never feels that the duty to provide impartial coverage requires >that Tory, new Labour and Liberal Democrat suits on Question Time and >Today should be balanced with a casually dressed Won't Vote leader. >There is no leader. They have no representatives. Won't Voters are >disenfranchised in every respect. > >And yet the apparently powerless are sucking legitimacy from public >life with extraordinary speed. The historic 1997 general election, >when the electorate was presented with the chance to - at last! - >remove a corrupt and loathed Tory regime, produced the lowest turnout >in the history of British democracy. When the Scots were able to >relish an opportunity of equal historic importance and bring what was >supposed to be the national project of generations to a conclusion, a >mere 60 per cent of citizens participated in the first Scottish >Parliament election. The London mayoral contest had much going for it: >charismatic candidates who offered a genuine choice to the public and >whose words were reported at exhaustive length by the metrocentric >national media. Only 34 per cent of citizens voted. Both Charles >Kennedy and David Blunkett have noted, with understandable shock, that >more people voted for extroverts to be expelled from the Big Brother >house than turned out to vote in England in last year's European >elections. > >The swiftness of the rise of political indolence can be measured with >a glance back at the mid-1990s. The 1997 general election was prefaced >by two by-elections, in Wirral South and South East Staffordshire. The >turnouts were 69 and 73 per cent respectively. Last month, during what >every pundit assured us was the prelude to the May 2001 general >election, there were by-elections in West Bromwich West and Preston. >The turnouts were 27 and 29 per cent. > >Not voting, in short, is all the rage, and yet few know how to pin >down the phenomenon. Backing away from politics is usually described >as "apathy". Voters are bored but contented, soothing voices assure >us. The hollowing-out of democracy is nothing to fret about. Indeed, >to those who bought Francis Fukuyama's theory that the fall of the >Berlin Wall and the success of western markets and democracy marked >the end of history, no less, nothing could be more welcome or more >natural than an outbreak of apathy. "The contagion of indifference is >spreading at a healthy pace," wrote George Walden, an ex-Conservative >MP, in the London Evening Standard. For 200 years "politics mattered", >added Barry Cox, a television executive who bankrolled Tony Blair's >Labour leadership campaign, in the Observer. "Now many people think it >doesn't matter. And surely they are right." > >Both believe that there really is no point in voting. New Labour and >the Conservatives agree that capitalism is the best and only way. >Their disputes are noisy but trivial arguments about the detail. >Healthy and prosperous people have turned away and are now far too >busy discussing the merits of the latest iMac, gawking at the >Zeta-Joneses or trying to master Nigella's latest tasty recipe to care >about anything else. Politics is little more than the leisure option >of cranks - train-spotting without the travel. > >It is easy to mock these gentlemen. The triumph of western democracy >brings the collapse of democratic participation! Things are so bad >because they're so damn good! It is easier still to point out that, >when the gulf in wage inequality between rich and poor has never been >greater since records began in the 1880s, and the deunionised and >downsized British work the longest hours in Europe, it is a tad >tactless to proclaim that all have reached a bourgeois utopia. The >followers of Fukuyama have not so much slipped into smugness as dived >in head first. > >For all that, millions from the classes that Walden and Cox are most >likely to meet are enjoying a sweet life, and no conceivable change of >government will add a dash of bitters. Their apathy is more than >justified. Why should they trudge to the polling booth when they face >no threats? > >The contentedly apathetic do not, however, make up all of the Can >Vote/Won't Voters. When Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell rant against >indifference, they do not attack the "apathetic", but the "cynical", >and they do so with real vehemence. > >Their use of "cynic" is a smear. But you should always take your >enemies' insults as badges of honour and, before donning the >decoration, it is worth asking: just who is a cynic? > >Cynicism is now the antonym of apathy. While the apathetic don't care, >the traduced cynics care greatly. When Blair goes for "cynics", he >means a democratic socialist or libertarian or anyone who clings on to >a principle. Norman Mailer once wrote that what disturbed him most >about Bill Clinton was that he was a man without a last ditch, a man >who would do or say anything. Clinton's British child, Blairism, has >gone further than its parent ever dared. It requires its adherents not >only to flee from any and every ditch on demand, but to do so with an >evangelical faith in the justness of their flight. You really will not >get on in the political class if you give up what you hold dear with >resignation, as a sad but necessary act in an inevitably compromised >world. You must retreat with joy, eyes shining with the fire of >belief. In these psychological circumstances, your former comrades who >stick in the ditch are cynics, perverse heretics who reject the true >religion. > >Tellingly, this novel definition of cynicism comes from advertising. >In One Market Under God, his forthcoming study of how corporate values >have seeped into every crevice of public life, Thomas Frank describes >a speech that Phil Teer of St Luke's, the grooviest and most >influential ad agency in London, gave to his American colleagues. Like >Charles Handy, Charles Leadbeater and so many others in business and >politics, Teer sounded like the most radical of democrats. Business is >revolution. Hierarchies must be destroyed and boundaries transgressed. >All must unite in the task "of killing cynicism". His cynics, I >scarcely need add, are not those who persuade the public to buy goods >they don't need at prices they can't afford, but pernicious >know-nothings who refuse to believe in brands, who ignore media >messages and refuse to consume. > >Frank echoes Eric Hobsbawm and many others of the left when he points >out that the populism of the market has undermined popular sovereignty >and the readiness to vote. "Free-market theory effectively claims that >there is no need for politics," wrote Hobsbawm recently. "If consumers >are able to achieve their aims by exercising their power of choice >every day through the purchase of goods or the indication of their >opinions to the mechanisms of media consultation, what exactly remains >of citizenship? Is there still any need to mobilise groups of people >for political objectives?" > >The danger is that such musings lead to a reflection of Fukuyama and >Walden from the other side of the looking-glass. The common belief is >that, for better or worse, the values of consuming have conquered the >virtues of citizenship. I've no doubt that they have in part, but >their success is not total. > >Both William Hague and Blair, after all, have adopted all the >techniques of corporate marketing. They have PR men, pollsters and >focus-group organisers at the top of their debased professions who >have dedicated their waking hours to finding and accommodating >consumers' desires. As Hague proved in the summer and Blair proved in >the Queen's Speech, there is no populist bandwagon they won't jump on >if the opinion-poll numbers order them to leap. The most basic test of >a political marketeer is his ability to get the voters through the >door of the polling booths. By this measure, and on their own terms, >the Philip Goulds and Amanda Platells are utter failures who have >inspired the cynicism they are meant to counter. > >For all the difficulties of getting to grips with why people don't >vote, there is circumstantial evidence that many are doing so out of >political disgust rather than a surfeit of apolitical contentment; >that they are propelled by "cynicism" rather than apathy. > >The great mass of absentees aren't the happy haunters of juice bars >and gyms of Walden's and Cox's imaginations, but the wretched poor and >the working class. It wasn't Fulham or Solihull that recorded a >turnout of 1.5 per cent in the 1999 European elections, but the slums >of Sunderland. In every contest since 1997, the sharpest falls in >voting have been in the poorest areas. Labour governments are meant to >redistribute wealth. When they don't deliver the money, they don't get >the votes. > >For new Labour's middle-class supporters - the bleeding heartlands, if >you will - the urge to join the cynics comes from the abuses of civil >liberties and persecutions of asylum-seekers, which would have been >quite unthinkable even in 1997. I frequently hear that they and many >from the sullen working class will stay true when the general election >comes, and prefer to ignore their churning stomachs and vote new >Labour to prevent a Conservative revival. The lesser-of-two-evils >argument is a powerful rejoinder to cynicism, which we will hear daily >as the election approaches. > >Yet to support an evil party because it is not quite as evil as its >rivals is not, I think, a resolution that can be taken indefinitely. >Labour leftwingers or Tory Europhiles are, in effect, being asked to >give their leaders a free pass; to grant their support to policies and >to politicians they find repellent and to forget about their >democratic right to have their opinions represented. > >The alternative to this unappealing bargain is to refuse to be >complicit. In a country without proportional representation, joining >the huge numbers who refuse to vote is one honourable option. You may >not do much good - and you won't do any good - but you will not lend >your name to those you often despise (and who often despise you). > >In the fourth century BC, Alexander the Great went to meet Diogenes of >Sinope, the original cynic. 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