It’s as bad as you first imagined
Like I suspect most prospective voters with a pulse I’ve been keeping a watching brief upon the recently-officially declared “off and running” General Election, just as I’ve kept one broadly-speaking over the last nine plus years since the Tories returned to office overlayed, as all events have been, by the spectre of Brexit ever since David Dimbleby brought his unofficial announcement at 4.40am on the morning of 24th June 2016 of the result of the UK’s EU Referendum to a conclusion with the famous words “We’re out!”
Yesterday I listened to the radio on and off for most of the day and also tuned in to BBC2 at 12.15pm to see Andrew Neil in the chair for the BBC’s daily Politics Live programme, towards the end of which Mr Neil announced that – because of the importance of the Election – henceforth it would be beginning fifteen minutes earlier than normal on weekdays, i.e. at 12 noon, and lasting a full hour.
The development did not immediately excite me.
The most depressing aspect of the forthcoming Election – and the state of the nation generally – springs from the fundamental and uncomfortable truth of public exposure of any individual or group as they really are in any form, but especially upon the national airwaves, viz. its unerring tendency to provide unintended harm to the reputation of all those involved.
Some Rusters will no doubt recall – if their distant memories are still strong enough – that there was no finer example of this phenomenon that Paul Watson’s extraordinary 1986 documentary The Fishing Party (made for the BBC) in which all he did was entice four right-wing-leaning City types to allow his cameras to follow them at home and then embarking upon a group fishing trip in Scotland.
Having gained their confidence – whether he had any idea what might unfold in advance – he then just kept the cameras rolling and then, whether subsequently cleverly edited or not, produced a piece in which, out of their own mouths and apparently with zero accompanying self-awareness, the principals involved managed to add potentially five million votes minimum to the cause of the Labour, Socialist, Communist and Anarchist Parties (official or not) in the forty-minutes of screen time that it occupied.
Simply by being themselves.
Just as a tester, Rusters with strong stomachs can use the following link, courtesy of YouTube, to watch (I’d suggest no more than the first three or so minutes is necessary) an extract of that to which I’m referring – THE FISHING PARTY
My point today is that from the moment that this General Election became inevitable – i.e. before it had even officially begun – politicians of every party in the land have been making monumental cock-ups in their strategies, tactics and responses to daily developments.
This is a classic case of a race to the bottom – and why is it happening?
Because an Election is the one time that the political classes need the public, or rather need their votes.
They’ll say and do anything to get them.
And whenever they get hauled up – or challenged – about any of their activities and statements, they’ll just bluster away about how they’ve done nothing wrong themselves … it’s their opponents who are all to blame.
It is all so predictable and pathetic.
They’ll do and say whatever they think it will take: dog-whistle politics, if necessary; falling over each other to promise untold riches, happiness, joy and even guarantee England winning the FIFA World Cup next time out to anyone who will put their cross against their chosen local candidate?
Well, yes – why not … if it brings in another vote?
But you wait and see.
Whatever the result on 12th December, you can put your house on the fact that they’ll never bother particularly with the views of the voters again – well, unless and until the next election comes around, of course.
And they’ll still all be blaming each other for the three years’ worth of Brexit paralysis we’ve had so far, plus (of course) any that is still to come.
And we’ve got, what – another month of this at least to come?