In some ways it now resembles the situation in the nineteenth century, before the advent of universal suffrage, when politics was openly acknowledged to be the exclusive preserve of an oligarchy. Even extra-parliamentary campaigning tends to involve a relatively small group of affluent people. A recent study on democracy and participation, sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council, indicates that protesters are likely to be middle class, younger and more highly educated than their inactive counterparts. The erosion of popular engagement with the political process threatens to weaken the authority and relevance of important institutions. Even parliament has lost public credibility.
Political parties continue to lose members.
In fact, party officials believe that the real drop is far greater. The Conservative Party also faces a steady decline of its active supporters. It is not just the prospect of another election defeat that has led numerous leading Tory politicians to contemplate very early retirement. Shadow chancellor Michael Portillo's public mid-life crisis is symptomatic of a wider sense of parliamentary politics becoming futile and purposeless. The main difference between today and the nineteenth century is that the oligarchy is now much more sensitive to its isolation from the wider public.