That is Britain today, in which the parties have lost any interest in the public and the public have lost their interest in the parties. Mair mourned these trends, even while he understood them to be deeply rooted, reflecting the decline of social institutions such as trade unions and the church as well as the professionalisation of politics. Mass engagement in politics had allowed the public greater say, however imperfect, over how their countries were to be run and in whose interest. It is no accident that the golden age of mass parties in Britain was also the golden age of the Keynesian welfare state.
What remains, argued Mair, is a “governing class”. This is a kind of working aristocracy of politicians: some politicos sport distinguished family names (Kinnocks, Goulds and Benns), but all are increasingly divorced in background, education and profession from the people they are meant to be representing.
And increasingly they are financed by the working aristocracy of business people and financiers who run our economy. Half of Conservative funding comes from the finance sector, which is duly repaid in tax cuts for the super-rich and advisory posts for private equiteers such as Adrian Beecroft.
Even Jeremy Corbyn’s rise can be explained through Mair’s lens: here is a not especially prepossessing backbencher who smashed his opponents for the leadership because he better represented the views of the Labour base. Writing in September, political scientist Henry Farrell argued that Corbyn proved Mair right – but that his party “will face relentless opposition from
the elites that have replaced the masses as the main source of resources for parties and politicians”. That has proved eerily prescient. Britain’s party democracy is in its death throes; what is supplanting it is an unholy coalition of elites and cults.
Maybe the mantra 'they work for us' is no longer credible?
With the demise of unionised workers and the donations to party funds coming from kickbacks from the financial and private sector, maybe they now work for them?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...ults?CMP=fb_gu