Do elections matter?

The other night a friend commented that they weren't sure what difference it would make whether Labour or the Conservatives won the upcoming UK general election. My instinct was to disagree - I have what others might define as a tribal loyalty to the Labour party. I was a member for a couple of years, while in sixth form (and remember taking a girlfriend to a party meeting... hmm). It's the party that friends at home are active in, going as far as standing for parliament. But apart from that, I've not been active, beyond voting. In fact I voted Lib Dem in the last election, not being able to bring myself to vote for the particular Labour candidate, being one of a few hundred who could have been accused of 'letting the Tories in'. Maybe I'm not so tribal after all?

Well, there would be differences of course. But the Tories seem to have some difficulty in making clear what those differences would be, as if they're scared of offending anyone (on that score, they could always bring back Maggie and Norman Tebbit. Maybe not). Health and education have been Labour emphases, and in my humble opinion they've done a pretty good job. But I don't think a Conservative victory would bring great differences to most people's lives - it wouldn't stop Britain being Britain, the way it is to be a modern Brit. So actually, I found it difficult to disagree with my friend, and didn't - the point was valid.

Some people involved in politics might be aghast at what I've just agreed with. I'm not saying that the Tories' ideas and policies would be as good as Labour's. But I see that all the major political parties in the UK are led by people who generally believe in what they're saying, and, while they are not all necessarily people of the highest integrity, there's a real possibility that if they're not, they'll be found out, and end up in jail, like Geoffrey Archer and Jonathan Aitken. Just deserts. The press and the courts can be good at holding these people accountable, as we've seen recently.

Any party that thinks it has a right to power, becomes too used to power, will move towards corruption. Maybe that's starting to happen with elements in the Labour party. Elections, while not always replacing a bad government with a better one, help to stop the rot. The British normally turn against a leader who seems too powerful, no matter what they've achieved. Witness Churchill's massive defeat at the polls in 1945. I think similar things happened with Thatcher and Blair, who were initially very popular.

More important than elections is the rule of law, but this is difficult to maintain if politicians think they are untouchable (and that tends to occur where there are no free elections), and can influence the courts [this seems to me to be the weak point in the otherwise commendable US constitution, with the highest judges being political appointments]. But here in Kenya, politicians seem to be above the law, and that only exacerbates the impunity on which corruption thrives. Sunny Bindra, my favourite Kenyan political commentator, has argued that political parties don't really exist here, just matatus, minivans of convenience for politicians to jump on and then jump down from. The alliances are temporary, not based on principles or values, but as vehicles for personal advancement.

At least we know what Labour, the Tories (and maybe even the LibDems) are meant to stand for, and choose, at least notionally, what we're voting for. Maybe the election won't make much difference, but the fact that it's there, that it's fought by groups that stand for something, that it means that judges can be secure in prosecuting politicians where necessary, makes a difference.