An election is looming! Thus, one is, perforce, moved to contemplate that virulent species, homo politicus. What a spectacle, containing as it does, elements of disgust, contempt, ribaldry and sheer disbelief. In a word, they are appalling. Were they always thus? I don’t think so. I could have sat happily in the company of Gladstone, Disraeli, Salisbury, even Atlee and Bevan, and certainly Bevin; and who would not wish to have spent an evening at Churchill’s dinner table in the certain knowledge that the more pissed the old boy became the more entertaining he would be? Big men, with big ideas; men, to quote that old clubman’s phrase, with bottom! Even ‘that woman’ who, like her or loathe her, came to the leadership of this country armed with a fierce intellect and a well-honed philosophy to act as a template against which she could measure the alarums and excursions of day-to-day politics. To make my point clear, I simply ask you to contemplate dinner with the Blairs! Suddenly, redecorating the mother-in-law’s kitchen seems like a pleasant prospect.
Of course, in music, theatre and painting, the dross is quietly forgotten over the years and one is left with the very best. It may be thus with politics, but even so, one is entitled to ask today, where are the ‘big men’ with the ‘big ideas’ over which we can all wax passionate in hot debate? What great idea ever drove John Major? Can anyone tell me what Alan “Spend More Time With My Family” Milborne believes in apart from the future of Alan Milborne? Would you buy a used car from George Galloway? (I mention him because, usually at the extremes, you find men of principle, even if they are bonkers.) What is Jack Straw for? I could go on but I am moved to another question.
Why? Why has the calibre of our national politicians shrunk to a level where one ceases to dislike them and instead one merely laughs at them. (The late, great Auberon Waugh advised us all, when faced with a pontificating politician, to shout out, “Show us your willy!”) I can only suggest my own, one word explanation for this decline – democracy! The 20th c. movement to wider and wider enfranchisement has produced a generation of politicians whose sole aim in life is to please you, the voter. This monstrous sucking-up has reached its hideous peak in the oily, ever-smiling face of Tony Blair, truly a man of, by and for the people; a man for all seasons in the sense that he will change his coat depending on the temperature!
But what else can we expect? Who, in his right mind, would actually wish to be a politician? To spend one’s entire life kissing babies – and that’s on a good day, on a bad day it’s kissing something altogether worse – all for the chance to boss other people around. Anyone who volunteers for this, let alone fights tooth and nail for the chance, must, by definition, be lacking more than just a social life. They are all, all, deeply suspect! But, and here’s the rub, in a democracy we get the politicians we deserve. So, if you are looking for someone to blame, look in the mirror! Oh, for a politician who would, just once, let slip what they truly think of us, the electorate, in the style of Coriolanus addressing the crowd thus:
What’s the matter, you dissentious rogues,
That rubbing the poor itch of your opinion
Make yourself scabs!
Sit down with a stiff drink, David - I agree with you!
It's a type of democracy led by opinion polls, focus groups and marketing - democracy supermarket-style. I'm sure we could do it better somehow.
Thing is they only take our opinion into account when it suits them - when it comes to bombing the middle east and getting rid of our civil liberties, THEN all of a sudden it's time for strong leadership!
Posted by: Ryan | Friday, 25 February 2005 at 08:55
Well, we *almost* agree!
No-one is entirely good or evil, including Mr. Blair. He and his apparatchiks, particularly the malign, Alistair Campbell, are a pretty despicable bunch, and yet, and yet....
Suddenly, in regard to Iraq, he acted on principle. It may not be a principle with which you agree, but, had I known what was coming, I would have put the deeds of the house that he would trimmed and followed the European fashion. After all, consider the risks he took - splitting his party, splitting the country, the possible electoral back-lash - and yet he stuck to his guns, or to be precise, he stuck to George Bush's Colt .45! I repeat, you may not agree with the policy, but it took real political guts and drive to push it through. That is, I suppose, an example of the paradox that is human nature. Shakespeare would have smiled at the irony! If only the other 95% of his administration had been as forceful and dynamic.
I shall write further on the subject of modern democracy and its inherent weaknesses, but first, I want to re-read "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" by James Fitzjames Stephen to clarify what passes for my brain!
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 25 February 2005 at 12:51
There's three reasons why politician are rubbish.
Firstly MP's salaries are nowhere near enough to attract people intelligent and experienced enough to do the job properly.
Secondly the party structures reward people who are prepared to spend years stuffing envelopes and doorstepping morons. Nobody with talent would do this.
Thirdly the electorate are stupid. Adopting the long term planning and short term investment required to run the country properly would be electoral suicide.
Posted by: Keano | Friday, 25 February 2005 at 15:54
Keano,
Taking your points in order, I'm not sure the money has anything to do with it. They earn a tremendous amount these days compared to the past, but the quality is getting worse.
The party structures might well have something to do with it, in that it rewards, potentially, the 'Yes-men' and penalises anyone capable of original thought.
Your third point rang warning bells in my head, quite apart from the fact that telling the voters they are stupid is not perhaps the best way to get into power. I assume from you remarks that you are in favour of spending even more of my money than the current set of rascals do already, and that there exists some great, over-arching plan that will lead us all to Utopia. I'm afraid that has been tried before and very definitely led to tears before bedtime! And when did you hear of any politician with a plan worth a damn?
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 25 February 2005 at 16:46