Felders' Blog

So, last night we witnessed our first prime ministerial debate. The first thing I thought (other than how incredibly grating Alistair Stewart was) was that it was one in the eye for those who feared the Americanisation of British politics. Of course style will always be important in a TV age, but I was genuinely surprised at how much the debate was policy driven.

Cameron disappointed me; while he was understandably passionate about the NHS, very few of the other policy areas seemed to be communicated with any real resonance or conviction and it still seems, even now, that he is struggling to encapsulate what it means to vote Conservative. I actually thought - and I’m no fan - that Brown wiped the floor with him in the early exchanges. He looked far more nervous than the others, though to be fair he also seemed to get the rawest of the three deals from the strutting, peacock-like host.

It should be easy for the opposition to convince the public of its credentials in an economic climate like this, particularly when the incumbents have been there so long, yet Cameron isn’t finding it easy at all. The reason for this is, I believe, his own spin doctors, who have informed him that the public don’t take kindly to him when he adopts an aggressive stance. What this results in - and I think it was painfully exposed last night - is a sort of uncomfortable morphing of nice guy and adversary. I’m not sure that ‘nice’ Tories have ever sat well with the public for too long (think Heath, think Major). The one thing people do like about Brown (and there aren’t many) is that he exudes a sense of strength and control. That is difficult to combat when you’re consciously trying to totally avoid finger-pointing and aggression. Unfortunately for Cameron, I think his attempts to be ‘the bigger man’ actually made him appear worryingly ’small’.

It’s been widely reported that Nick Clegg was the real winner and I generally agree with that. My hope is that the popularity of his approach will translate to votes, though I’m not yet convinced that will happen. It is, as it’s widely pointed out, easiest to be Nick Clegg at the moment. While the public are clearly taking to him, he is still after all a politician, so whether people truly embrace the idea that his lot are different remains to be seen.

However it is he - and not David Cameron - who has mastered the ability to instil the sense of hope and change that Tony Blair did with such aplomb in 1997.

…and I find it strange that so few people I know seem to care.

I admit that I’m a Politics bore. In fact, I’m the worst of those - I’m a Party Politics bore. I find the whole game as intriguing as the impact that the parties’ respective policies have on my life and the country.

That said, I’m going to take a slightly controversial view here and suggest that actually the public is as to blame for its apathy as the politicians are.

There are a couple (well, lots more in fact, but I’m already harping on quite enough…) reasons touted as to why voters have lost interest in politics.

1) “You can’t trust politicians. Look at the expenses scandal.”

Firstly, I am amazed that people were so surprised that MPs were abusing such an easily abusable system. While I totally understand that this is an issue with public money (which differentiates MPs from someone in the average office nicking stationery), the fact remains that we are essentially talking about people. Human beings. It is easy to underestimate the influences of the environment to which one belongs; things just simply become acceptable.

Our MPs are not super-humans and are no more vaccinated against greed than anyone else. If you look at the proportion of MPs who have really claimed against the ridiculous, I would imagine it to be no higher a proportion than you would find in society in general. The question we must ask ourselves is: Do we want to elect the perfect? Or do we want to elect a realistic cross-section of who we really are as a society. (I add to this the caveat that clearly parliament is NOT a fair cross-section, ethnically, sexually or in terms of class - but all of those things are separate from the issue of behaviour, the facet that most of the public are currently taking issue with).

Secondly, disgust in current politicians is more of an excuse to get out and vote - not less. If you don’t want to vote for the people you’re disgusted with, vote for someone you’re not disgusted with, which leads me on to…

2) “It doesn’t really matter which party I vote for, does it? They’re all the bloody same…”

To a certain extent there is a truth in this. It doesn’t take much political knowledge to see that the difference between today’s Labour, Conservative & Liberal (Democrat) parties is a world away from those in say, 1983. But there is a reason for that: we’ve all actually started to agree a little bit more. Today there are subtle differences, nuances of policy, variations of approach - but there certainly isn’t the blanket Left/Right divide as there was in the Thatcher vs Foot days of 1983.

In some ways this is a blessing. Yes there are still class divides and yes there are still traditions which run deep, but, as a country, we have got to a point where we don’t feel we need to vote Labour just because we are the Marx-inspired working class, or vote Conservative just because we are royalist landowners, or vote Liberal Democrat because we support Keynesian economics. The extreme poles have contracted - possibly because we have seen the failure of such extremes - and now, apparently, we all seem to agree…ish.

I would also urge - and this is crucial - that you actually read the manifestos. Just because BBC News, or Sky News, or FOX, or CNN, or ITN, or whichever paper you read decide to focus on something, that isn’t enough. If you care about your life, read them. Yeah they’re a bit boring. So is doing your tax return, so is doing an appraisal at work, so is…well, most of our everyday lives, if we’re honest. Am I looking forward to reading the manifestos? No. Even though I’m a political geek, I’m bored by that. But how can I possibly contribute unless I do?

Or maybe you feel that everyone else agrees, but you don’t. Either way, without voting, you (or any of us) have no way of expressing those views. So, if you really, really, absolutely can’t find common cause with any main party then at least go down to that booth and spoil your paper. The country has no way of assessing how you feel without you putting a cross in a box (or covering your ballot with obscene pornographic doodles). Spoiled ballots are counted - I don’t personally think it’s the best way to get things done, but if you’re that disgusted with the entire political scene, show it actively - don’t sit at home and assume they’ll credit the low turnout to disgust. They’ll blame the weather, or the polling station site choices, or the fact that something was good on telly. Do SOMETHING.

…and this is where I get my most critical and sound most like an old, moaning git.

I ask, have people really just lost interest in politics, in isolation? Or has there been a general trend away from difficult discussion in general?

I’ve been in several positions over the last few years in which I’ve been involved in an argument - a discussion, a confrontation, not a fight - in a place where there are others. I continuously hear “PLEASE…don’t talk politics” (or - on a tangent - “PLEASE don’t talk about religion") - and my conclusion is not that which the media would suggest. This is not about apathy.

People today are, in fact, scared of real discussion. In this age of mass communication and image-consciousness, we are far more relaxed having a long, drawn-out, faceless conversation over facebook or MSN that we can abandon with a click than we are to look someone in the eye and state our views.

Without argument, we can never aspire to more. In the next four weeks, I urge you all: Discuss, Argue, Learn, Progress.

…until I got reminded.

It’s rather liberating to be able to write more than 160 characters somewhere.

And yet…

…but I’ve signed up to Twitter.

Follow me. http://www.twitter.com/felders_

So Phil Spector convicted of murder eh?

That’ll teach the weird little bastard to mess with Let It Be. Oh, and it might teach him not to kill people.