Hey Everyone! Come And See How Good I Look!

Ok, did anybody see the Leaders’ Debate the other night? I missed it myself but frankly I think there’s not nearly enough half-cocked bullshit political rambling on the internet right now, so it’s time for my two cents…

For all our non-UK readers out there (hi Paco!) the Leaders’ Debates are a stupid bullshit idea that someone decided to import from America to celebrate the General Election we’re about to have here in Britain and to give the leaders of our three main political parties an opportunity to go on TV and do their best John Kennedy impression while managing to look like a satisfied boy, a factory-rejected Ken doll and a lump of granite. And they’re bullshit for this reason: their whole point is to turn the election campaign into some sort of a bizarre popularity contest instead of an intelligent political debate. I don’t understand why so much stock suddenly has to be put into the leaders’ personalities, it’s seems like now we ought to care as much about their favourite colour as we do about their actual policies. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that a General Election is a thing designed to elect a new government, not the Nation’s New Best Pal. Here’s a good example: sidekicks. Have you noticed they all have sidekicks now? Gordon Brown and David Cameron have their wives and Nick Clegg has Vince Cable. Now the easy joke to make here, and it’s already been made ad nauseam, is to be like “what a gaffe by Clegg! Cameron and Brown have pretty wives for sidekicks and he has an old man! Lol!” but think for a moment… What’s happening is that Nick Clegg appears to be saying “vote for me, my right hand man is an astute political mind and arguably one of Britain’s most progressive economic thinkers,” whereas Brown and Cameron are both saying “no vote for me, I have married a stylish woman.” I don’t know about you, but I know which of those arguments makes more sense to me.

The trouble, though, is that they’ve got to have these debates and here’s why: because British politics, and it’s major players, in recent times they've started to look exactly the same; and the reason for this is pretty depressing. The way I see it, it’s as if our main parties don’t care about what they themselves believe anymore, they just want to convince the people that they’re out for their best interests, apparently attempting to follow a madcap “let’s please all of the people all of the time” sort of a policy, and that’s really not what it should be about. There’s been a lot of rhetoric about “broken politics” recently, well I figure if Labour and the Tories still had opposing ideologies then it might actually work, know what I mean? If politicians had any dignity or integrity they’d go ahead and say “forget about what the public want, here’s what I belive, take it or leave it.” That way maybe they’d get into power because they actually wanted to change something, as opposed to wanting to get into power for it’s own sake. By the way am I rambling at the moment? I suppose this is what happens when I try to be smart and don’t write about wanking. If this doesn’t make any sense feel free to stop reading at any time. Umm, back to the matter. Careerist politicians, to make an easy comparison with musical artists (do I do this too much?) are sort of like x-factor hopefuls or something. They’ll literally say or do anything if they think it’s gonna make them popular, which is pretty much the opposite of the integrity and honesty that some of the campaign’s popular soundbites have promised.

I could be wrong, but I think that brings us back to the beginning. I don’t want to vote for the guy that I‘d most like to have a beer with, or the guy that seems most convincing when he’s talking to a TV camera; the dude could have the charisma of JFK or be a one-eyed man o’ rock, if he’s got integrity then I’ll vote for him. So I suppose it’s just a shame Vince Cable isn’t handsome enough to be Prime Minister any more am I right? Ok, that’s enough of this.