Our old friend Ennui kicks in
Discerning Rusters may have noticed a strange irony emerging from this ‘sudden, short, sharp (and December) General Election campaign’ which has been pitched by Boris as the best and/or only way of breaking the deadlock of the paralysed Houses of Parliament over Brexit as a result of the secret conspiracy coup mounted by the Remainer (liberal with a small “L”) Establishment elite and the Hampstead set chattering/media classes.
For some 250 years now the UK has been governed by ‘important people who know best’ via various means including landowner decree, rotten boroughs, areas of the country that vote one way or the other out of ‘block class voting’ or habit and then – since universal suffrage – by what the world now describes as ‘fake news’ unashamedly peddled to the masses by news media owned and controlled by vested interests signed up to one political creed or another (okay, arguably mainly the one).
And, admittedly with a few bumps and scrapes along the way, the country has just about muddled through.
Now, however, in this 21st Century world of social media, sophisticated foreign power computer hacking and election-interference, data-harvesting, targeted advertising and outright double-crossing propaganda deliberately designed to go ‘viral’ – which metaphorical ‘coin’ has on its other side the inevitable consequence of promoting a general global cynicism towards the entire process – we have reached the point where the electorate is acutely suspicious of anything presented to it.
Add in the fact that the mining seam of great political leaders in this country appears to have become exhausted and – thanks to the way we now conduct our politics – we have reached the unhappy position of a bunch of second-rate no-hopers and incompetents leading our political parties.
Sadly, they manage to confirm this impression with every public uttering they make, and worse (on the ‘emperor has no clothes’ principle) then expose themselves for exactly what they are whenever appearing in “Election Special” TV debates.
By way of contrast to the dross we’ve been subjected to during this General Election campaign, I thought Rusters might like to see an example of a consummate US politician dealing with a heckler at one of his rallies that I recently came across.
I have no personal brief for former President Barack Obama (and some Rusters may not regard him of one of America’s greatest presidents), but I just ask readers to consider whether any current British political party leader could possibly have matched this – see here, courtesy of – YOUTUBE
Yesterday, last into bat, the Tory party election manifesto was launched. I have neither read a word of it nor intend to – I cannot be bothered.
Let’s review the set:
The Brexit party didn’t even call their effort a manifesto, which is just as well since they didn’t seem to have any policies worthy of the description.
The airy-fairy Green party manifesto launch got plenty of airtime because of the global Climate Change crisis but now – a fortnight later – they have disappeared from sight as per usual.
The Lib-Dems, under their hapless “I’m your next Prime Minister” leader Jo Swinson, have at least been consistent.
Their raft of policies comprise nice, fluffy, pie-in-the-sky stuff (as ever) but this time they’ve embarrassed themselves with their hubris and bold ‘Revoke Article 50′ stance on Brexit and are now (thankfully for them) drifting back to their comfort territory of somewhere between 8 and 25 seats and a undeserved mandatory ‘Third Party’ right to be on telly nearly as often as their Labour and Tory counterparts.
Meanwhile, over at Labour party HQ, the left-wing lunatics having taken over the asylum.
The Corbynistas have been playing at politics by pushing out disbelievers and any heretic to the right of centre with Stalin-like ruthlessness and – Jeremy himself now being past his 70th birthday – have decided, in a blaze of either integrity or madness, to ‘go for broke’ by publishing a manifesto resembling little more than that last issued by the socialist Venezuelan government … with all references to ‘Venezuela’ crossed out and replaced by the letters ‘UK’.
Not to be outdone – and in line with smug ‘received policy wonk consultant opinion’ – the Tories have decided that General Election manifestos are dangerous animals.
Why? Because all they ever contain are ‘sexy’ policy aspirations dreamed up at the last minute on the back of a fag packet designed to impress at the time of launch, but which then inevitably come back to haunt a Government when those few that are ever actually delivered tend to go catastrophically wrong in the execution … and thus later become ‘crosses to bear’ and/or ammunition for the opposition parties in attacking the Government’s record.
The solution? Boris has opted for a non-manifesto – the complete antithesis of the Labour party (supposedly detailed and fully costed) version, which has become a source of controversy as those vested interests that would be worst affected if its policies were implemented have inevitably challenged both the theories and figures.
Thus yesterday, with huge fanfares and fireworks, the Tories launched their manifesto.
The political correspondents and media reporters immediately spotted there was nothing to it – thankfully none of them referred to Emperor Boris having no clothes, which would probably have been an image too far – and said so.
And so there we are. At the stage when the UK electorate has become bored, fed up and finally – I’d submit – exhausted and disinterested.
And yet, Heaven preserve us, there’s still about two and a half weeks to go …