Facing Out many with a sense of struggling to catch up: whereas 30 years ago money was considered people’s most scarce resource, by 2005 they placed the highest value on time and energy.5 These time pressures have put a premium on convenient and ‘low-investment’ activities, and those prepared to invest the kind of effort demanded by traditional political activism are an increasingly atypical minority. As a result, all forms of associational behaviour which rely on collectivism have suffered. The decline of membership within the Labour Party – from a million members in the 1950s to 200,000 today – mirrors that in other political parties and civic associations (such as trade unions or the Women’s Institute), both within the UK and elsewhere. The 2003 Citizen's Audit found that although much political activity still exists in Britain, it consists mainly of individual actions such as donating money or consumer boycotting, rather than collective actions like protests or strikes.6 Meanwhile, new forms of association have sprung up. The internet has given rise to new networks and communities. And the competitive landscape for parties has been transformed by the emergence of singleissue groups who offer a low-investment, high-feedback form of engagement which allows people to define themselves. Oxfam, for example, has almost doubled its membership over the last six years. Labour’s monopoly of the progressive cause – if it ever existed – has long been broken; not only has what people want from participation changed, but there are now plenty more progressive organisations out there prepared to offer it.
The erosion of partisan loyalties Perhaps the deepest impact of these economic and social trends on our politics, however, has been through gradual erosion of traditional voter loyalties. Whether measured by declining party identification or the 20