Comment Articles

Never mind the ballots

Rupert Goodwins AnchorDesk

Published: 20 Jun 2002 15:14 BST

There's an old anarchist joke that sometimes pops up on stickers at the time of a general election -- 12 pencil crosses and the message "Your lifetime's supply of democracy". And you already know the cynical saw that if voting changed anything, they'd ban it.

The alternatives aren't much more pleasant. I've been involved in local politics, and it was not a heartening experience: canvassing on an east London council estate in the winter rain is a good way to meet lots of big dogs and learn a lot of interesting swear words, but I couldn't say I felt I was really following in the footsteps of Churchill or Washington. In the end, I got slightly more votes than I was expecting, but the teller at the count told me that this was because I had the only English-sounding name on the ballot paper and in the absence of the BNP I'd hoovered up the white supremacists. You can guess how good that made me feel.

The way to get ahead in politics was obvious -- find the most successful local party, suck up to the right people, put in the time doing the jobs nobody else wanted and have just the right mix of creativity and loyalty. Principles? Well, try not to get caught doing anything you wouldn't want to be caught doing.

It's thoughts and experiences like this that deaden the soul and concrete the heart in the overcoat of cynicism. Yet this week, we've seen proof that people like us can make an immediate and worthwhile difference: the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act order extending the right to see our communications to umpteen bodies has been unconditionally withdrawn. The home secretary, David Blunkett, was forthright about it being a blunder, and went as far as any minister ever has in saying that yep, what a mistake that was.

It takes the right sort of person -- you couldn't see people like Byers or Mandleson getting on the BBC and saying that they obviously got it hideously wrong and were going back to start again. And if you are dead set on being cynical, you can say that the RIPA amendment would have been defeated in the Lords, it would have kicked up a huge storm and the government would have lost it anyway: they might as well make a big thing of not spinning and backing down gracefully and promptly.