Thread by @jonworth

There's an old definition of a party system from Schumpeter that dates from 1943

I use it sometimes in my teaching, and it's quoted in a Judge & @earnshaw1's book about the European Parliament

The EP, they argue, doesn't fulfil this:

1️⃣Parties present programmes
2️⃣Voters make an informed choice between competing parties
3️⃣The successful party puts its programme into practice
4️⃣The governing party judged on its successes at the next election

But what happens when a supposedly modern democracy does not comply with this?

It's the UK I am of course thinking about

The Tories did not present a detailed manifesto for the 2019 election, and the spending commitments in it are already being called into question

I am not sure an informed choice could be made between the parties - not least as the leader of one did not submit himself to any public scrutiny

The party that won presented itself as an insurgent, rejecting what its predecessor Conservative governments had done and said - Johnson's win was based on a rejection of parts of the predecessors' victories

Johnson's government is already honing its victim narrative - if Brexit goes very badly it will be the fault of the EU for giving the UK a lousy deal, not the UK government at fault for negotiating the wrong thing

Or - in other words - it is only "the economy, stupid" if the people you are talking to think the incumbents are actually responsible for the predicament, i.e. the voters can make an informed choice

Now some folks will gnash their teeth at this thread. Yes, there are other factors like Corbyn being useless that led us to where we are today in UK politics

But the central issue is this: the assumption *still* is that the birds will still come home to roost for Johnson with Brexit.

What if the UK system is so broken they do not?

/ends