Politicians are held in very low esteem by the general public, somewhere
down there beyond estate agents and members of the legal profession. You know
why? They keep arguing with each other, that's why! Why can't they just agree to
put aside their differences, get rid of all that bickering and snarling? it is
all so divisive, and as any good pundit will tell you, it is divisiveness that
turns people off......The problem behind all of this is.... elections! Why do we have them?
They set people against each other, they cause rifts, and the dreaded
divisiveness, they force people into making unnecessary choices and decisions.
Surely, if only our own dear Queen were to be allowed to choose someone she
thinks is up to the job of running the whole country, we could save all the
expense and bother of going through these bloody silly elections. If the Queen
doesn't feel up to it, perhaps the Head of the Armed Forces could be asked to
intervene. No doubt a sensible chap, and well experienced at finding Heads of
State in other countries too.Then, instead of bickering and being divisive, we could all pull together in harmony and unity.
We've all heard people on the doorstep say 'oh why can't you all just agree with each other?' And then when we find an issue with cross-party agreement they complain they don;t have a choice. That's the politician's lot I suppose!
Well they've abolished democracy within the Labour Party - source - so why not go the whole hog.
ReplyDeleteThe issues on which there is cross-party agreement tend to be those that benefit politicians. I am thinking, for example, about state funding. No wonder they are roundly despised.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Bob's point about the low esteem in which politicians are held, but in my opinion, it is not down to the divisive nature of politics, although that definitely contributes. The main issue is to do with trust. Nobody trusts them, and with very good reason.
..and in the Tory Party MEP selection process.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that people can't agree and that's why we have politics. Unfortunately, that means politicians.
ReplyDeleteI suspect what 'ordinary people' dislike is not arguing per se, it's the childish, stupid way that most politicans go about it.
I don't mind arguments; I don't mind governments doing things I don't agree with as long as it's in the national interest; I don't even mind paying reasonable taxes. What I seriously object to is a bunch of tw*ts who couldn't even organise a bring and buy sale treating the electorate like children and basically treating this country like their personal property.
And I won't change my mind even if I can vote on the internet.
Bob Piper has long struck me as having cognitive level of a cuff link and unless this is supposed to be funny ( which it is ). I see little improvement here.
ReplyDeleteIt is , of course typical of a doddering antiquated and probably incontinent lefty to imagine that all this arguing is just a waste of time .
Similarly he believes to my certain knowledge that all this advertising and business competition is a waste. The state could supply us all with perfectly decent dungarees a small cubicle to live. Herded onto public transport under the watch of the state surveillance with our every movement tracked in mega computers we will all be content in the tadpole mind of Piper.
The Queen and Maggie did not fall out as was widely reported at the time but there was a real tension . It was far more comfortable for the Queen to sit on the vile welfare state we had than to speak with free independent citizens with their own property.
I hate the left not just theoretically but personally. I find them offensive . They have tried to abolish democracy and I suspect they are going to try harder when the left are kicked out of power forever following the end of the Union
Then they will introduce some sort of PR that ends the long history of freedom and participation in this country.
It is great mistake to imagine that politics can or should be above personal animosity inconvenient though this may be for "top bloggers" who want an open forum.
Its all personal
Step forward - Boris Johnson !
ReplyDeleteCheck out the video on the BBC politics website - a significant proportion of Portsmouth residents appear to agree with him...
Sorry,democracy required to throw one lot out when they become corrupt......as Labour have..
ReplyDeletePower corrupts etc, etc
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ReplyDeleteBel-The issues on which there is cross-party agreement tend to be those that benefit politicians.
ReplyDelete...what she said . Amen
There should not be politics!
ReplyDeleteWhat there should be is councillors who represent their parish / town. Who actually speak to the people from these places to find out their views.
These views for that village / town should then be put into the council offices (472 nationally) of which there is a leader who spends 2 weeks a month running the council / area/ finances / descissions and the other 2 weeks looking after the country (once out of Brussells there will not be the need for professional politicians debating clap trap and childish rubbish)
What happens now is the the Politician is instantly accountable, he needs to keep the rich happy for them to invest and the porr housed / fed all of whom will vote him in or out.
Getting rid of all the MEP's MP's is a reduction of 252 (min) jobs removing the chief execs 407 approx
chief officers 7,187
that will be a saving of about £800 million to the taxpayer!
AND we will get democracy as at the moment what we have is a councillor (mine refused to ask a question, on the grounds- he is obliged to protect the reputation of the council over and above the interest of the citizen)
a council, a country council, a mayor, a regional assembly an MP, the EU the commissioners
ALL without fail have as their first duty to protect themselves!
This is not democracy! abandon the parties put the royal back at the top for 5 years until we can get an honest group of parliamentarians who want to serve the public and not themselves.
Make no more laws for the next 5 years and abolish all the claptrap from Brussells and idiotic crap from Blair (Tories partly responsible for agreeing to the shit!)
We shall then return to a reasonably civilised society!
Bring back hanging and save the taxpayer a furth £160,000 per paedophile / murderer a year.
We'll have police who can do their jobs chief in spectors who can lead and not spend half their time on politics.
Prison warders who'll have the breathing space to try to rehabilitate those with minor crimes.
Of course every politician has told me this will not work because too many will lose their jobs, so they wont vote for that!
Oh that was Tory/Lab and Lib's so people well seen who they all look after!
The irony here is, constitutionally the Her Majesty can nominate any individual she wishes to be Prime Minister. It is only convention that allows the leader of the majority party in Parliament to assume that position. Perhaps we should revert to the rule of law and allow the Queen to pick her preferred champion to lead a Government.
ReplyDeleteRather demonstrates the value of the House of Lords. The elected politicians argue (increasingly on a content-free basis) while the Lords get on with the job in a largely non-partisan, undemonstrative and informed manner.
ReplyDeletePeople don't want their politicians to agree, but they do want them to handle themselves with some dignity, have at least an ounce of integrity, and argue with grace and intellect in the House of Commons rather than in the manner you expect of badly behaved children. Not lying so much would be nice too.
ReplyDeletechameleonsonbicycles.wordpress.com
That Bob Piper, he has the manners of a gentleman.
ReplyDeleteOf course they don't belong to him.
I want my (read : all) politicians to think before they support or oppose.
ReplyDeleteI want them not to blindly follow my leader.
I want them to be trustworthy .
I want them to practise what they preach..
Then I might respect some of them..
Having said the above, very few of them hack it. The "practise what they preach" stuff seems very difficult for them.
I find , however, when it comes to pay and allowances they tend to agree ...
On the basis of the above, I think very few deserve any trust or respect...
Leave it out Iain. You're posting this as a joke, right?
ReplyDeleteCouncillor Piper is beyond counselling. He needs immediate and major medical intervention.
I don't want agreement, I want choice!
ReplyDeleteThis post and your previous similar one have made me have a good long think.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that modern societies like Britain are now extremely complex. Old loyalties have broken down, diversity means there is a dizzying array of groups with competing interests, many of our decisions are not even made by our government anymore and the dominance of the free market means that our politicians seem like little more than caretakers.
The pensions controversy is a case in point. Despite what the ranters say it is far from clear that Gordon Brown made a "bad" decision. It is far too complicated and who really understands it anyway?
This article in the Times says that politicians should publish the advice they are given so that people can see the choices that were made and that all choices have risks and consequences for somebody. Then maybe we could rely on the "with enough eyes all bugs are shallow" philosophy of Linux and Wikis with watchers and commentators digesting and interpreting it for us.
But this of course would not please people who are hopelessly waiting for a time when politics is "simple" again and politicians "told the truth". The days when politicians could make simple promises and keep them, if they ever existed, are probably over.
Piper is part of the problem. scrap political parties in local government and let people decide on real local issuies not whether they like tony or dave
ReplyDeleteI think Mitch has hit the nail on the head. It's the "holier than thou" attitude a lot of politicians seem to adopt once elected that really grates.
ReplyDeleteAnd the patent falsehood of their public relations antics hardly does them credit either. Do we really believe that just because Hack A has gone to the rainforest and kissed a tree he's really a greenie? Does the picture of Appartchik B making unfunny jokes with a bunch of crumblies during a staged visit to a nursing home make us think he really cares about them? Of course we bloody don't.
Maybe if the pols spent less time, effort and money on self-agrandisment and more on informing the electorate truthfully about the problems we face and how they intend to deal with them we might respect them more. To put it succinctly, more substance and less "image".
Sadly, many politicians are career hacks for whom "image" is substance. Perhaps we should enact a law making it illegal for anyone to become a public representative until they have at least five years of real* work behind them.
* Where working for an NGO, think tank, campaign group or public relations organisation does not count as real work.
Of course the other way politicians could gain a lot of respect is to get the flip out of all those areas of our lives in which they have no business being.
ReplyDeleteEspecially when their dismally small knowledge of many matters largely appears to be formed by the antics of that other profession whose reputation could use some upgrading: Journalists.
The more I think about this argument the more stupid it gets. It's a bit simplistic to say politicians should stop arguing and just do what the electorate want. Who decides and defines what the electorate want?
ReplyDeleteLet's say 50% of the electorate want zero taxes and 50% want 98% taxes. What should the government do - 0% or 98%? Or somewhere in-between?
But how do you get to that in-between? Let's invent a word called 'compromise' which means finding the in-between which satisfies the majority. All agree so far? Then congratulations, you have just invented POLITICS.
If we all have the same opinion on every issue then we can have politics without argument. Back in the real world societies have many disparate and often conflicting views and these have to be resolved by argument - how else will you do it?
One of Charles Dicken's books has a scene where an MP is having to face a delegation from his constituency who have come to complain about his actions - so on the matter of 'dodgy' politicans, little changes.
ReplyDeleteNewmania, as ever, misses the point entirely, but why am I surprised. The posting was actually about an article in Comment is Free by two Labour loyalists who don't want an election for Leader because they think it would be divisive. Unfortunately Iain missed that reference out, which almost negated the point, but I have no confidence that Newmaniac or Pratory would have comprehended it anyway, it was far too lengthy.
ReplyDeleteThat man belongs in the Tory party
ReplyDelete