Let's abolish democracy, it's too goddamn expensive

It was once said that there is no argument on this earth that can make a stubborn man alter his opinion, other than to receive news that his point of view is shared by either Yasmin Alibhai-Brown or Henry Porter; such a realisation inevitably sends him hareing at top speed in the other intellectual direction.

In a similar way, I'd usually be the last person under usual circumstances to defend MPs against accusations of troughing with regard to allowances on second homes and the John Lewis list, in spite of the wider tendency of the media to lump all MPs' expenses in together so the pittance that us bag-carriers take home every month (if you're lucky) gets reported as if it were part of the Elected Representatives' Cocaine and Hookers Budget. However, I'm getting a little bit irritated by the tendency of the right-wing media and bloggers alike to constantly bang on about how hideously expensive all this democracy business is.

The latest in this series is Iain Dale's post yesterday on the cost of policing party conferences. According to Iain, Conservative MP David Ruffley wants to know why the cost of security at Labour Party conferences is more than that of its Conservative equivalent, and why the total price has increased in the last two years. As for the first point - and I would have thought it fairly obvious - the conference of the party of Government is going to be a greater terrorist target than that of opposition ones. Sorry, I know that Boy George Osborne is already squeaking as if he were in Government, as his natural birthright holds self-evident, but it's still the case that Labour is the party of power. In a similar manner I'd expect more security outside Number 10 Downing Street than I would for the Smith bunker in Greenford because, y'know, I'm not the Prime Minister. Fairly obvious, really.

Iain goes on to make the case that, given the overall cost to the taxpayer, we should "call time" on party conferences, which is interesting because I don't recall him directing a similar bitchslap against David Davis last month, whose exercise in electoral willy-waving in the by-election for Haltemprice and Ainshuntliberties (copyright PooterGeek) cost the British electorate about a million quid. Party differences aside, are the commentariat really asking why public money should be spent on the political process?

Personally, I regret the fact that the Labour Government increased the amount of Short money available to the Conservatives threefold between 1999 and 2000 at a time when the Tories had nothing coming in. Until Lord Ashcroft bought the party in (I think) 2003, the state was providing the Conservatives with over 60 percent of its income and introduced a ring-fenced budget for the Leader of the Opposition's office. This year the Tories received a whopping £4.5m windfall from the apparently beleagured taxpayer. Surprisingly, the why-o-why howlers in the media are silent on this munificence, which leads me to suspect that many are not actually opposed to money being spent on politics, just money being spent on those with the wrong politics. So, was the Labour Government wrong to help out the Tories until Ashcroft hoved into view with his chequebook? Between gritted teeth and if I was being logical I'd have to say no, I don't think so. A properly operating Opposition - even though it took them many years to get their act together - is important for a democracy.

Similarly, party conferences may be tedious for many and little more than political set-pieces these days, but they are a time of year when parties get to showcase their policies and the people formulating them. Okay, so most normal people turn over to Extreme Makeover as soon as an update from Brighton comes through the televisual tubes, but there is the option for those who don't to watch and form an opinion on the electoral wares on offer. Abolishing them because they cost too much to police would save the equivalent of what the Conservatives are going to cane in in Short money for the 2008/09 financial year, but at what wider cost to an informed electorate?

Iain might say - and forgive me if I am wrong - that people should not have politics forced down their throats, that they can engage over the internet or through newspapers with political arguments. That may be so if you believe in what Berlin termed "negative liberty," the desire to be "free from" rather than to be "free to" which is, in essence, the philosophical thesis behind Cameron's Conservatives (and finds its chief proponent in that tedious old high Tory, Henry Porter). But who does this benefit really? Politics for a select few, that's who: people who have the leisure time and education to get involved in the political process, people who can afford the time and money to attend meetings of political parties that are held in camera and not subject to public scrutiny.

What of the money spent on MPs salaries and second homes? Whilst undoubtedly some of our elected representatives do indeed extract the Michael in this regard (cf. Derek Conway [Con], the Wintertons [Con], and Caroline Spelman [Con] inter alia) the reason such expenses exist is to allow the democratically elected who lacked the foresight to be born rich like Osborne or in line for the throne like Cameron to hold office. I'm not going to make the argument that MPs aren't paid enough (they are) but they are paid for a reason: so that politics is more than just a playground for the wealthy who can afford to "do" Westminster when they are not managing daddy's estate, or "Kent" as it's sometimes known.

None of this is to say that where abuses occur that they shouldn't be investigated and the perpetrators punished. What I am saying is that representative democracy - like liberty - is not something that exists as some form of omnipresent deity that requires no sacrificial lambs. It exists as a complex man-made system of dispute resolution that is necessary for the common good even if we occasionally disagree on what that constitutes. Happily, a reasonably informed electorate comprised of individuals who are not barred by birth or poverty from engaging with the process in order to change it can exercise a view as to what comprises this good through the ballot box or by standing themselves.

This will, inevitably, cost public money. The fact that concerns over the cost of the by-election in Magnercarter and Howden (again, copyright PooterGeek) and the going on for £40m the Conservatives have cost the taxpayer in Short money since 1997 have been so muted leads me to suspect that the real motivation behind these save-the-money-of-the-people narratives is now that the Tories are back on their feet, they want to ringfence politics again for the chosen few - the rich - whilst claiming they are only acting in the interests of saving us poor little people money.

Real democracy? I don't think so.