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| Bristol's mayoral election: political karaoke with a testosterone chorus | Bristol's mayoral election: political karaoke with a testosterone chorus |
| (5 months later) | |
| There are 15 candidates, only one of whom is female. One guy thinks the answer to violence against women is for girls to get less drunk when they're out. Another wants to revivify Bristol's manufacturing pedigree using school leavers and a 3D printer. (Manufacturing what? "I've been inventing things all my life, and I'd be quite happy to pass that on without intellectual property costs," said Rich Fisher, an independent.) Another independent, George Ferguson, is a modern-day titan philanthropist, commanding an admiration you probably haven't seen directed towards a party politician since the 1950s. Bristol was the only one of 10 cities to vote yes (on a 25% turnout) in a referendum in May for an elected mayor. The election has arrived, anomalous and with scant precedent – and the question is, what does democracy look like, when it happens like this? | There are 15 candidates, only one of whom is female. One guy thinks the answer to violence against women is for girls to get less drunk when they're out. Another wants to revivify Bristol's manufacturing pedigree using school leavers and a 3D printer. (Manufacturing what? "I've been inventing things all my life, and I'd be quite happy to pass that on without intellectual property costs," said Rich Fisher, an independent.) Another independent, George Ferguson, is a modern-day titan philanthropist, commanding an admiration you probably haven't seen directed towards a party politician since the 1950s. Bristol was the only one of 10 cities to vote yes (on a 25% turnout) in a referendum in May for an elected mayor. The election has arrived, anomalous and with scant precedent – and the question is, what does democracy look like, when it happens like this? |
| In some respects, it's politics as usual – Labour's Marvin Rees is quite a way in front, for all the reasons you'd expect. Everybody I spoke to, from every point on the spectrum, said Labour and the Lib Dems were creating deadlock on the council and nothing ever got done. Parking that, and in the absence of a revolution, Rees is pretty popular. | In some respects, it's politics as usual – Labour's Marvin Rees is quite a way in front, for all the reasons you'd expect. Everybody I spoke to, from every point on the spectrum, said Labour and the Lib Dems were creating deadlock on the council and nothing ever got done. Parking that, and in the absence of a revolution, Rees is pretty popular. |
| The Liberal Democrats are fighting very dirty – a charge often made against them in elections, they're like a middle sibling who, without the distinction of being either older or younger, finds solace in being vicious. Many politicians don't mind this at all. "The Lib Dems will say all sorts of rubbish, but that's normal," the Green party's Daniella Radice (Daniella Then A Fella is her voting motto) says with equanimity. "We've campaigned against them before, so it's water off a duck's back." This follows a Lib Dem leaflet claiming it was a two-horse race between Rees and their Jon Rogers (in fact, the polls show a two-horse race in first choice votes between Rees and Ferguson, with the Conservative, George Gollop, third and Rogers fifth behind Radice). | The Liberal Democrats are fighting very dirty – a charge often made against them in elections, they're like a middle sibling who, without the distinction of being either older or younger, finds solace in being vicious. Many politicians don't mind this at all. "The Lib Dems will say all sorts of rubbish, but that's normal," the Green party's Daniella Radice (Daniella Then A Fella is her voting motto) says with equanimity. "We've campaigned against them before, so it's water off a duck's back." This follows a Lib Dem leaflet claiming it was a two-horse race between Rees and their Jon Rogers (in fact, the polls show a two-horse race in first choice votes between Rees and Ferguson, with the Conservative, George Gollop, third and Rogers fifth behind Radice). |
| Other people aren't so sanguine about the atmosphere. Ali Robertson is the director of the theatre at the Tobacco Factory, part of a multi-use space that Ferguson, an architect, rescued from dereliction and turned into a trust. He said: "I didn't plan on doing any campaigning for him, it's really in response to what I saw was going on. I think personally the mudslinging has been really vicious. Just today we had people saying, 'why won't George publish his tax returns?' I've seen first hand the kind of good that he does. I've seen this area transformed." (Everybody says this about Ferguson,that he has given a lot of money to the area, but is too modest to mention it. In this respect, it's a very courtly, 18th-century sort of a politics). | Other people aren't so sanguine about the atmosphere. Ali Robertson is the director of the theatre at the Tobacco Factory, part of a multi-use space that Ferguson, an architect, rescued from dereliction and turned into a trust. He said: "I didn't plan on doing any campaigning for him, it's really in response to what I saw was going on. I think personally the mudslinging has been really vicious. Just today we had people saying, 'why won't George publish his tax returns?' I've seen first hand the kind of good that he does. I've seen this area transformed." (Everybody says this about Ferguson,that he has given a lot of money to the area, but is too modest to mention it. In this respect, it's a very courtly, 18th-century sort of a politics). |
| Then there are the aspects of the election that are genuinely unusual: debates more consensual than normal, because almost everybody wants to be in with a chance of getting the second vote on someone else's ticket. Candidates from right across the piece say that other parties nick their ideas during hustings. You might expect that to happen to Radice, whose manifesto promises are political memes like a living wage, but even Owain George, the publican with the fruity views about drunk women (and old people and the homeless), says: "Every single one of my policies has been quoted back to me at some meeting or other." It's like a kind of political karaoke, " I might not know the tune now, but goddammit, when I get up on that stage … " (George was misquoted on the matter of sexual harassment being the drunk person's fault. "All I said was, I'm a publican. In the past 20 years there has been a shift, you go into the city centre, you'll see a lot of drunk people, the difference now being that 50% of them are women. There will be people who prey on that, and they're not going to go away." You can make of that what you will). | Then there are the aspects of the election that are genuinely unusual: debates more consensual than normal, because almost everybody wants to be in with a chance of getting the second vote on someone else's ticket. Candidates from right across the piece say that other parties nick their ideas during hustings. You might expect that to happen to Radice, whose manifesto promises are political memes like a living wage, but even Owain George, the publican with the fruity views about drunk women (and old people and the homeless), says: "Every single one of my policies has been quoted back to me at some meeting or other." It's like a kind of political karaoke, " I might not know the tune now, but goddammit, when I get up on that stage … " (George was misquoted on the matter of sexual harassment being the drunk person's fault. "All I said was, I'm a publican. In the past 20 years there has been a shift, you go into the city centre, you'll see a lot of drunk people, the difference now being that 50% of them are women. There will be people who prey on that, and they're not going to go away." You can make of that what you will). |
| Martin Booth, who organised one set of hustings to which he only invited a third of the candidates, said: "A lot of people find him (George) quite refreshing. So that's good for democracy, I suppose." The uninvited candidates held a protest outside, at one point bursting in and shouting: "Anybody who cares about democracy, follow me." One person did. So the campaign hasn't been without its comic moments. | Martin Booth, who organised one set of hustings to which he only invited a third of the candidates, said: "A lot of people find him (George) quite refreshing. So that's good for democracy, I suppose." The uninvited candidates held a protest outside, at one point bursting in and shouting: "Anybody who cares about democracy, follow me." One person did. So the campaign hasn't been without its comic moments. |
| There are serious flaws in all this – as laudable as Ferguson is, he has sunk about £60,000 into his campaign. Of course that's been part fundraised, but the independents are all either rich or cranks, which model of representation would look, well, not very representative. | There are serious flaws in all this – as laudable as Ferguson is, he has sunk about £60,000 into his campaign. Of course that's been part fundraised, but the independents are all either rich or cranks, which model of representation would look, well, not very representative. |
| "This is just the politics of testosterone," said Helen Mott from the Bristol Fawcett Society. "I gave a paper at the university about the future of local democracy, and at the end of it, the audience were saying to all these academics, 'you've talked about mayoral models but you haven't talked about London.' I just can't see that as success, where it's just measuring charisma. I can't see that as a good thing for democracy." | "This is just the politics of testosterone," said Helen Mott from the Bristol Fawcett Society. "I gave a paper at the university about the future of local democracy, and at the end of it, the audience were saying to all these academics, 'you've talked about mayoral models but you haven't talked about London.' I just can't see that as success, where it's just measuring charisma. I can't see that as a good thing for democracy." |
| But there's no going back now, with the election on Thursday. The best you can hope is that the right charismatic wins. | But there's no going back now, with the election on Thursday. The best you can hope is that the right charismatic wins. |
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