Future to the back
Perhaps comic Frankie Howard’s most famous catch-phrase (I recall it most often in the context of his vehicle Up Pompeii!) was a staged aside protest to his audience as they were laughing at a previous insult/gag he’d just cracked about some hapless fellow character: “No don’t – it’s wicked to mock the afflicted …”
Which is why I am not going to comment today upon yesterday’s excruciating embarrassments suffered by Diane Abbott, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, after she suffered a very public brain-fade whilst discussing how much Labour’s election promise of 10,000 more policemen on the beat would cost on a radio show.
Instead I am simply hoping to register a single, broader, point.
In these heady days of President Trump, Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, Brexit, Emmanuel Macron versus Marine Le Pen for the French presidency, ‘fake news’, potential Russian hacking interference in Western democratic elections and sundry other craziness going on from which one conclusion that might be is that the world has gone completely mad, there is a slight sense that suddenly we are in an era when ‘anything goes’.
Included in this theme is the possibility that some of examples of supposed ‘populism’ [a word often used sneeringly by the chattering classes and Hampstead sets] are nothing more than an ‘a plague upon all your houses’ reaction by sundry electorates who have become generally and terminally fed up with politicians as a group.
A development that is naturally very worrying to politicians as a group.
[Advance warning: I shall now begin to read, or should that be sound, like the proverbial ‘stuck record’].
Regular readers will be aware of my lack of regard for politicians and indeed all who sail with them.
It springs from my conviction that – for all their pompous protestations to the contrary and proud statements of principle detailing how and why they originally became involved in politics – in Western democracies, almost without exception, all politicians become inevitably involved in what I term ‘the game of politics’.
This has nothing to do (necessarily) with notions of right and wrong, whether here we’re referring to instinct, morals or logic. The ‘game’ is all about gaining – and then holding onto – power in a supposed democracy and specifically how to do it.
Focus groups.
Avoiding difficult questions and issues.
Creating ‘clear blue (or red) water’ between your manifesto policies and those of your opponents.
Defending your avowed intentions, promises and costings (this time’s I mean) against attacks from other parties … and then attacking other parties’ manifesto policies and costings … in an attempt to convince the electorate that true credibility sits with you and nobody else.
Calculating the odds relating to particular votes and subjects – should your party (for example) vote with the Government, against it, or just abstain?
Further, if you were to combine your resources and votes with parties A, B C or even D [none of which in other circumstances you would be seen dead having even a cup of tea with] could you possibly defeat the Government in a House of Commons vote?
And so on, ad infinitum.
One of the ever-present ‘topics of the moment’ in a General Election campaign – certainly in the UK context, and for all I know that of every democracy in the Western world – is that of dealing with the media.
Because, totalitarian communist party on the one hand, or right-wing semi-fascist on the other, every political party ever founded and every politician who ever lived knows that who ‘wins’ with the national media will also tend to win the upcoming General Election.
It may therefore provide reassurance to those of a generally nervous disposition – especially in light of the geo-political developments of 2016/2017 [see above] – if I report that, without any doubt, certainly as far as the UK is concerned – that ‘politics as per normal’ still reigns.
Since Saint Theresa announced her plan for a snap General Election to be held on 8th June I should estimate that I have already watched or listened to nearly fifty television and/or radio programmes analysing the issues, predictions and policies of all the parties involved in the contest.
And yes, the ‘game’ of politics, as known and loved by all involved in it for the past century and a half, is not only in rude health but dominating the agendas and talking points.
Thus whoever appears on whichever programme to represent their chosen political party will do so only when programmed to the hilt with the latest themes, policies, viewpoints, defences, attack weapons and stock phrases and answers that have been devised at their party’s campaign HQ and then dished out to be learned by rote that day before going out into the wide and wonderful world of media interviews, discussions and carefully-staged public appearances.
And so it transpires that whenever interviewers ask questions that seek to unearth the thinking behind certain policy statements or positions – or indeed simply put to their guests the questions or points to which the average man or woman on the Clapham omnibus would like to have answers – almost invariably each politician will immediately ‘fire up’ their personal ‘hot air’ machine and simply spew out the guff that they’ve been given to say, this specifically designed to ‘get across’ their party’s viewpoint on the issue and/or attack the opposition’s similar.
The one thing they won’t do, of course, is answer the bloody question.
The other ‘classic’ this time around, obviously, is the stock theme – accompanied, apparently without irony, by the excuse that the delay is caused entirely and exclusively by the ‘suddenness’ of this volte-face Election, courtesy of Saint Theresa – that unfortunately they cannot currently give specific numbers for the projected costs, savings and improvements that will result from implementation of the policies now being floated by them … because the exact wording of the policies (and indeed the financial implications) will only appear in detail in their party’s manifesto when published.
As a direct result “You’ll have to wait and see when our manifesto comes out” and “I’m not going to speculate here on what the implications will be, but they will be there in black and white when our manifesto comes out” [both being code for “Nobody’s yet worked them out and/or – perhaps more important – yet told me what they are”] are phrases that hit the airwaves repeatedly on all sides every time one or more politicians are interviewed on current affairs or Election coverage programmes.
It’s becoming boring, so it is.
Ah, but then that’s the ‘game’.
Plus ça change …!
