Today I picked up a copy of The Times for the first time in a while. The reason was to see if there was anything there to justify paying to see behind its online paywall. I only had to read as far as page two and its lead editorial before I had my answer…
The Slow Death of Politics
All the mainstream parties are suffering a long-term decline in membership. To become representative of voters, they need to adopt a looser model of participation
Clearly, within the bubble, the concept of political parties being representative of voters by, you know, representing their wishes and talking to their interests rather than those of party managers and the whip’s office, is completely alien.
It’s not just the political parties that are in decline and increasingly irrelevant. The media is in similar decline and the Times’ editorial today is a very good example why. Neither have anything to offer to those of us outside the bubble in the real world.
Autonomous Mind 
Some info on what you read would have made this more interesting. As it is …
“All the mainstream parties are suffering a long-term decline in membership”
AM I suggest that fact should not concern us too much – it will perhaps increase the incidence of a political vacuum which in turn may provoke people to think for the first time on questions like – ‘What is the institution of the State? What is its primary function? Who gives it authority – and many similar. All of these have been faced and discussed in ages past, and not least by English statesmen, thinkers and constitutionalists.
I suggest therefore that it is not a “looser model of participation” which is the real issue, but MPs, policy makers and the PTB need to ask far more fundamental questions about authority and power – of the State and how it is to be applied in constitutional and political terms.
Time then perhaps to reconsider the Christian and Biblical view of government which has, arguably, served us so well in the past, recognising that the State has no power of its own, but it is ordained as an institution by God for specific functions and responsibilities. These now go completely unrecognised and rejected for ideological secularism which dominates the thinking of our politicians. They have failed, are failing, and will always in some measure do so until this lesson is re-learned.
The positive answer to the modern assertion of secularism at every point is familiar ground to the writers of the New Testament and Christian apologists who have an entirely different view of the role of the State. (political parties per se are largely irrelevant to this bigger picture).
Why not try exploring this theme – it has promise of being very fruitful in terms of explaining the present impotence of our “democratic” government?