What would be nice, but won’t happen in an election year, would be if politicians spoke in our language and not that of their advisors and spin doctors. Instead, we will hear Cameron and Clegg – and just about every other Tory politician – droning on about ‘our long term economic plan’ which consists of them getting elected. Osborne-omics consists of a short term debt-fuelled mini-boom to help get them through the year.
Both the real Tories and the yellow Tories (Clegg’s snake oil salesmen AKA the Liberal Democrats) will attempt to blame the previous Labour government for ‘the mess they left behind’ which is a bit rich, blaming Gordon Brown for the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the state of the Greek and Spanish economies. But it’s politics, innit?
I have said before that politicians have forgotten that they are supposed to be there to represent us and to do our bidding. But what politicians habitually do is to tell us what they are doing and expect us to meekly accept, which we sadly and too often do. For instance, does anyone remember being asked by Cameron or Clegg whether we minded if they ran down the NHS and then started to privatise it? I certainly don’t recall Cameron promising a highly expensive top-down reorganisation in his manifesto. But then, I don’t recall him saying he’d flog off the Royal Mail or cut the police service, either. I suppose I thought: well, he won’t be able to do anything too major because the Liberals will stop him. Oh dear.
I used to love Prime Minister’s Questions but now I hate it. These MPs, these people we pay good money in order to represent us; well, they don’t do they? Baying, shouting, interrupting. They’d probably get thrown out of most pubs in the land behaving like that.
I appreciate that politicians are supposed to provide leadership but they are not supposed to dictate. It is not Cameron’s fault that he has led a sheltered, privileged life but you would have thought he might make a token effort to even just act like he doesn’t feel like he was born to lead, to rule. But everything about the bloke, the sneering upper class air of superiority, the smarmy arrogance, shows no sign of abating.
They need to treat us like we’re stupid. Osborne, the tactician, the fixer, spends his time setting traps for Labour. No strategy with George: just politics with a capital P. Games, as if it’s all a bit of a laugh.
I want hope next year. I am sick of austerity and anyway it’s not working. I want a politician to come along and offer some policies that can be achieved and will make your average punter better off. We are told the economy is now in great shape and Osborne has sorted everything out. But most of these new jobs are rubbish jobs, paying around the minimum wage and most of the new self-employed are of such a Mickey Mouse nature, they’re not really proper jobs at all.
Talk in my language and not the spin of ‘long term economic plan’ and ‘Broken Britain.’ This won’t come easy to your average politician, and they don’t come any more average than Cameron and co, but I am sick of them and their class.
