I like to think I'm an intelligent man so this article in the Independent depressed me just a little. One of the small joys of being a political junkie is that at election time you get to assess policies for yourself. Political parties being what they are, they deny us even that. The spin doctors have returned from their Christmas hols reinvigorated and as full of bile and cunning as I was of mince pies and port. We have charge and counter-charge and more rebuttals than any sane person can easily cope with and it's only the 5th of January. What's it going to be like by the middle of April?
I'd like to make a small request. It will likely be ignored. May we have an election this year which doesn't treat the electorate as idiots incapable of assessing evidence put in front of us? Some of us can do that. Really we can. I don't want spin. I don't want lies or accusations of lies. I'd like each party to make its own case and not spend any time at all trashing one another. Turnout in the General Election is likely to be low enough as it is without the parties turning off sectors of the electorate by acting like a chimpanzee's tea party. Each party's core voters will continue to vote they way they have whatever happens and they're not going to engage those who don't intend to vote acting like this. The rest of us want to be treated like adults. We can pick out the information from each campaign which is important to us without prestidigitation from the politicoes.
While I'm on the subject, I don't think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be giving any attention at all on the Conservatives' election promises. That's not his job. It's his job to sort out the fiscal pickle he's got us all into. He has an entire party machine to take care of the politics for him. Unless, of course, he doesn't trust the Party to get the job done.
I'd like to make a small request. It will likely be ignored. May we have an election this year which doesn't treat the electorate as idiots incapable of assessing evidence put in front of us? Some of us can do that. Really we can. I don't want spin. I don't want lies or accusations of lies. I'd like each party to make its own case and not spend any time at all trashing one another. Turnout in the General Election is likely to be low enough as it is without the parties turning off sectors of the electorate by acting like a chimpanzee's tea party. Each party's core voters will continue to vote they way they have whatever happens and they're not going to engage those who don't intend to vote acting like this. The rest of us want to be treated like adults. We can pick out the information from each campaign which is important to us without prestidigitation from the politicoes.
While I'm on the subject, I don't think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be giving any attention at all on the Conservatives' election promises. That's not his job. It's his job to sort out the fiscal pickle he's got us all into. He has an entire party machine to take care of the politics for him. Unless, of course, he doesn't trust the Party to get the job done.
Great blog / good point. Unfortunately though most of the electorate are ignorant sheep-proletariat who NEED to be prodded with a thick a stick as possible, hence the uberbollocks we all have to endure before the actual vote.
I just wish the intelligent could press the 'red button' on the TV and get something designed for people with higher levels of nous than pigswill.