One of the main advantages of having political parties is that there is almost always someone there who has the same or similar beliefs to you. The political parties give the people a voice. There are no substitutes for political parties in our political system; no other groups are able to represent the electorate’s views in the same way. Parties harness the powers of numbers within the political process, they use the people to get into power and the people use them to get what they want, that is to say on some levels.
Political parties are needed to lead the country. They are the ones who decided, the ones who dictate and the ones who are democratic. Without political parties there would not be a democracy. Democracy is important to a country because it is the way the country is run. Democracy is the rule of many or the rule of the people as a whole; without democracy the United Kingdom would not be the country it is today. The United Kingdom is what is called a representative democracy, this means that voters choose with a free and fair election who they want as their leader. In a representative democracy the country is typically divided into different constituencies, members of each political party run for the leadership of their particular constituency during the election process. The party member with the most votes becomes the MP for that constituency; their seat adds to the total number of seat won by that party. The party with the most seats wins the general election and wins the right to lead the United Kingdom.
One of the main disadvantages of having political parties is that they lie. For a political party to succeed they must be democratic, this is true but hardly any political parties are seen as 100% truthful nowadays. Political parties have the trust of the people, they produce a manifesto of what they will achieve while in power and the public relies on this as the truth. However, many political parties, although they do produce a manifesto leave certain things out of it, they do this because they want to be elected. There are also other dirty tricks that the political parties use to effectively trick the electorate into voting for them; I will give examples of the dirty tricks used by the Labour party during the last three elections.
In 1994 Tony Blair took control over the leadership of the Labour party and renamed them as “new Labour”. With the decline of the Conservative support the Labour party used every dirty trick to win the election in 1997. Then again in 2001 Labour resulted to using dirty tricks to win the election, and then again in 2005 Labour returned to using dirty tricks to secure a third consecutive win for the party. Some of the tricks Labour used to win the mentioned elections were as follows…
- They produced template letters to be sent into local newspapers around the country, apparently written by the “public” that would commend the Labour party on its progress within such areas as the NHS and education.
- The letters mentioned above were written by the Labour parties’ staff, they were given a guide on how to write the letters called “how to make the media work for you”.
- Labour used the Astroturf technique throughout the elections.
- Labour sent protestors to sabotage the other parties walk abouts.
- The Labour party used people called endorsers in and outside events to show them with support.
- They refused to answer questions that had not been rehearsed before hand. They even went as far as to use a helicopter to escape questions from the media.
- The speeches were written for the MPs by the Labour party staff.
I am sure that most or probably all of these tactics have been used by the two main opposition parties, these being the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. However the party in charge is the Labour party therefore more attention is put upon their faults rather than the two opposition parties. It is quite plain to see that although the political parties are supposed to be the symbols of democracy they act in a most undemocratic manner to win.
In conclusion the reason it is so vital for political parities and indeed the political representatives to act a certain way is this. The electorate looks to the political parties and representatives for leadership, control and above all responsibility. If the political parties or their representatives don’t look and act the part of leaders then the electorate will simply not vote for them. You could say that as an electorate we are extremely stereotypical towards those that lead us. It is because of the above reasons that it is vital that the political parties and representatives lead by example and that all of their activities are done in such a manner as not to offend or displease the electorate as a whole. It is vital for democracy that our leaders act and look like leaders.
