David Cameron voted against the repealing of Section 28, did y'all know that? So that's gay people AND foxes he doesn't like. But at least he smiles nicely for the newspapers, eh? I could never elect someone with a leer like Gordon Brown's...
I wrote the above on Facebook this morning, taking one of my periodic stabs at Shakespearean irony. But it will undoubtedly be ignored, as most of my political comments are. I can't say I blame anybody for that either. This coming Election has managed even to alienate those who are normally politically engaged. All you hear on the streets and in the pubs and in people's front rooms is a general agreement that "we have to get rid of Brown".
When you ask people why, they're usually hard pressed to give you an answer, unless they're Tory activists in their spare time. They might tell you he got us into the Recession, which of course is nonsense; they might tell you his ideas for getting us out of it, even if he didn't create it, will leave us walking forlornly around the world with a begging bowl for the next ten years--and whether or not you believe that depends on your view of economics. Your understanding, even, of economics, and who you think should bear the burden as we climb out of the hole we've been in towards the brighter sun of the recovery.
Most people, though, just want Brown out because they don't like him. They think he's creepy. But they don't like Cameron a great deal more. He seems insincere. He reminds us a little too much of the perfectly stage-managed Tony Blair, who turned out in most people's minds--whether they voted Labour or not--to be a conman of the first water. George Osborne has failed so spectacularly to make a hit with the public the Tories have even theorised about bringing back Kenneth Clarke as Chancellor. And as for the LibDems...well, Vince Cable is popular with political junkies because of his sharp wit and his gift for the soundbite. But nobody else would be able to pick him out of a police line-up; and the leader of his party may well be no more than a rumour.
In other words the public, whether it be cynicism or the truth, sees the current crop of politicians who will soon be asking for our vote as a generation of shop-window mannequins dressed up like human beings by their vested interests and convincing nobody except the really foolish. And behind all that there remains the whiff of corruption caused by last year's expenses scandal.
Hardly surprising, in the light of the above, that people miss Margaret Thatcher and Tony Benn and plan to use their vote purely as an act of protest against the party in power. It may well be an impotent act that does more harm than good to the country, but what should they vote for when they have their own crowded lives to lead and one has to dig the truth out of politics with an industrial machine these days?
1 comment:
Is that a threat or just the usual anonymous gibberish that people leave here for reasons known only to themselves? If it's a threat please be a little more explicit so I know a) who you are (go on, stand up for your convictions, like I do); b) how I've offended you, and c) whether or not I should report you to the Police.
As a Buddhist, by the way, I don't believe I have a Maker, though no one in ordinary life could be more aware of the possibility of their death than I am. I've felt it hanging over my head like a dark cloud since I was a small child.
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