The Conservative Party has always been much more 'bottom up' than Labour, which is very centralising and 'top-down'.
You must be joking!!!
For decades, nay centuries, Conservative leaders were chosen by senior grandees. The so called 'men in grey suits' (or should that be men in 'white coats'?). Leaders would simply "emerge" as a result of private room discussions, rather than having any kind of electoral process. In the 70's this was altered to allow the parliamentray party to select their leader (still no concession to their associations or membership you note). Thatcher beat Heath under this format, as the vote was restricted entirely to the parliamentary party. Ultimately the same less than inclusive system would do for Thatcher herself in 1990, and John Major became another unelected Prime Minister (aka Gordon Brown). It might irk the Tories that Brown lacks a degree of democratic legitimacy, but then they did nothing different when Major replaced the mad mongoose.
It was William Hague who actually introduced a reform that allowed the parliamentary party to select two candidates, and it was only at this stage that the decision was finally put to their membership. This would make it crica 1999.
Labour have been at one member one vote for longer, and prior to that they had a college system where votes were divided amongst the parliamentary party 33%, the Trade Union funders 33%, and the party membership 33%. Labour has had a more representative electoral college that includes more of its members than the Tories ever have, and even today the Tories still don't have a strict one member one vote system.
Funding has also been something of a black hole for the Tories. It took the introduction of primary legislation to try and uncover this mysterious element. Note that the tories introduced primary legislation themselves that forced trade unions to hold ballots as to whether their members wished their union to pay the political levy (not a single one voted No incidentally, much to the tories embarassment and shame for trying such a hypocritical stunt). Strangely enough, they never introduced any legislation about corporate donors and steadfastly refused to disclose who their paymasters were. Every now and then you'd get embarrasing ones that seeped out, like John Pamplonis (or whatever his name was). He was the overseas donor who funded anti-democratic parties and movements in Greece, and obviously spotted a kindered spirit in the Conservative party and they duly accepted millions off him, until it was rumbled, and John Major was embarrassed into returning it (problem being that they'd already spent it!!!). Still I'm sure they'd have returned it, had they known...... not. Asil Nadir rings a bell too. The fugitive former head man at Polly Peck who was allowed to escape justice in return for funding the tories.
The tories have no tradition of democracy that I can see to be honest, and of the two big parties it is they who've been the greater offenders. Subsidiarity of course was another of their inventions; (the philosophy that advocated the devolution of the decision making executive to the lowest level in Europe). However, their definition of the lowest level just so happened to be parliament!!! And guess who was in power of that parliament? yep.... you guessed it.... the conservatives. So more power should be taken away from Europe an dgiven to the lower level. So when it came to rolling the principle of subsidiarity out nationally then, you'd have thought they have been in favour of it wouldn't you? Well no, not bloody likely, as this would have meant handing power down to local authorities (many of whom weren't conservative) so they deemed this to be an inappropriate transfer of devolution that couldn't work, and that the optimum level of power meant centralising all on Westminster and themselves. Very representative and democratic. Take power from Europe, take power from local government, and then give it all to the Tories in Westminster!!!!
On the subject of local democracy of course, they introduced rate capping. Originally they put their faith in the fact that high spending, service providing labour authorities would be voted out if they raised the rate too high. Unfortunately though, this didn't happen. The electorate were faced with their choice, and a majority decided they'd rather pay more and have the services (it's called democracy). When democracy took root however, the conservatives decided to short-circuit it and stipulate how much a council could charge. Wouldn't want local democracy getting in the way of centralised imposition now would we?
We have of course had two full national referenda in this country's history. How many of these were as a result of the consrvatives offering the people the vote? None.
Now you might say that Labour promised one on Lisbon and didn't go through with it to their shame (you'd be right). Mind you, the conservatives took us into the EEC in the first place and didn't offer a vote on the subject either, and also turned down similar calls for one over Maastricht. It was Labour who called the 1975 referundum on continued membership, it even brought Maggie Thatcher onto the streets wearing a rather fetching pullover featuring all the member states flags because in those days she was a pro-European of course. (hillarious picture if anyone can find it - though I suspect its been airbrushed off google)
In addition to this of course, Labour governments have also introduced voting for directly elected mayors, regional assemblies, and various traffic toll schemes, something the tories have never shown the remotest appetitie for, but then they wouldn't, they have much more of a tradition and culture in the party that 'they know best', and that people should trust them, because they are afterall the natural leaders of society.
Under the new white paper (labour again) their is a provsion called a "community call for action" which if signed by enough people in the electorate, can reverse a local authority decision, if 'called in'. There is no way on this earth that the conservatives would ever dream of extending something like this to the country for fear that people might start using it and exercising their democratic rights (they'd probably have a proviso that said you could only call in Labour decisions).
Labour has also reformed (not far enough in my opinion) the House of Lords, which the tories steadfastly refused to do for centuries as it would have involved upsetting their class interests and jeopardising their inbuilt and unaccountable majority in the second chamber.
The biggest growth this country's ever seen in unelected and barely accountable qangos also came under Thatcher and Major, who routinely appointed their supporters and friends into positions of influence in the public services. Labour has been marginally better (not that much) but are at least starting to roll back (slowly) some of the numbers of these agencies and their proliferation into our lifes.
I'm sorry, but it's the Tories who are manifestly the least democratic of the two, and who have exhibited the more reluctant appetite for involving their membership and trying to be altogether more inclusive of society
