Monday, March 03, 2008

Political Performance Index: February

Each month I invite you to take part in compiling the Political Performance Index, which gives you the chance to rate how the top 40 politicians in the country perfored over the last month. Please don't just automatically give high marks to the politicians from the party you support - try to be as dispassionate as possible. Obviously I don't pretend that the readership of this blog is representative of the country as a whole - 55% of you vote Tory, after all! So if you are from another party and have a blog, please do link to this survey and encourage your readers to take part. I'd like to get at least 2,000 people taking part each month. You should give marks from 1 to 10 (1 being the worst) for how you rate each politician's performance during the month of February.

VOTE HERE

4 comments:

Wrinkled Weasel said...

Performance.

Your use of the word is apposite, Mr Dale.

In Machiavelli's play "La Mandragola" the author makes it clear that fraud and deceit are acceptable if the cause is a worthwhile cause.

The play might be a political allegory and then again, it might not. It might be the flip side of "The Prince".

Some will agree that the "performance" of elected members in recent times has been, if not Machiavellian, then at least it was pragmatic, and perhaps it was both, for pragmatists will always place expediency above honour and a feotid calm above righteous rancour.

A scribe has said:

"However, fraud prevailing over religion and morals seems to be the main theme Machiavelli wants to address"

The only performance index that counts is at the ballot box. Dron will be there, waiting.

Anonymous said...

I think the 1-10 scale is a bit of a dud. i'd prefer the following grading system:- 5) exceptional,4) good, 3)bad, 2)appalling, 1) who?

Anonymous said...

Would it be fair to compare the absence of 2 MP's out of 3 at the Welsh Conservative conference to been the equivalent to 2 of the main company directors being absent from the company agm?

Anonymous said...

Those who have conducted performance appraisals for on their staff may have experience of this - the scale ranging from 5 (Excellent) to 1 (Poor performance). Those assessed a 1 are usually shown the door (after the statutory but usually futile period of "development"). I can't think of more than five politicians who deserve more than a 1.

And another thing - any pay rises were based on their performance appraisal - so as I recall, those on 2 or below got nothing - not even a cost of living increase.