Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 31, 1992 TAG: 9203310410
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But while there exist a number of parallels between British and American politics, there's also a fundamental difference. It boils down to accountability.
Like George Bush, Major is a softened version of a remarkably ideological leader - Margaret Thatcher in Major's case, Ronald Reagan in Bush's - to whom he is political heir.
Like Bush, Major is grappling with economic difficulties traceable at least in part to his predecessor's policies.
Like American politicking, British campaigns are increasingly preoccupied with poll-taking, the quest for the perfect sound bite, and show-biz techniques and personnel to get "the message" across.
Like America (and unlike most other Western democracies), Britain has no proportional representation by which parliamentary seats are allocated according to the percentage of each party's vote. The result, as in America, is to encourage a two-party system, and discourage third-party and independent movements.
Yet there is also this big difference: A British prime minister is elected by Parliament, not independent of it. Vote for the Conservative (or Labor or third-party) parliamentary candidate in your district, and it's a vote for the Conservative (or Labor or third-party) leader to become the next prime minister. In America, ticket-splitting is rife; in Britain, it is impossible.
That's one reason the British can have such blessedly short - one month! - campaigns. Candidates for prime minister, being those members of Parliament who've risen to the top of their respective parties, are relatively known quantities. America's self-nominated presidential candidates must undertake a tortuous marathon simply to introduce themselves to the public, a marathon that prevents many potentially good presidents from even considering a race.
Equally important, the British system tends to avert the sort of governmental gridlock that has afflicted America for at least a decade, and to make much clearer who should be held accountable for governmental deeds and misdeeds. Things may go well or badly under a British prime minister and his or her government, but at least a British voter knows whom to credit or blame: the party in parliamentary, and thus executive, power.
The American public at the moment seems frustrated, even enraged by government's failure to address (let alone solve) economic, health-care, education, crime-control and assorted other problems. Yet when the White House and Congress are controlled by opposite parties, each pointing fingers at the other, public frustration can be vented only at politics and politicians in general - which is to say nothing and nobody in particular.
And why expect progress so long as the voters themselves insist on divided government by simultaneously electing Republican presidents and Democratic congresses? Why expect improvement when outsider status - a disdain for government, or at best inexperience at making government work - is a valuable campaign asset for presidential candidates?
A mistrustful public withholds consent to govern from any party or any set of policies. With nobody to govern, nobody can be held accountable. With no one to hold accountable, public mistrust only deepens.
It's time to break this cycle of cynicism, to unplug the perpetual-no-motion machine. America isn't about to adopt the British system. But Americans can begin thinking more clearly about what they expect from government - and how their own voting behavior can advance or inhibit government's capacity to accomplish it.
by CNB