Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Ponder Post 15: Political Parties. Why?
With Hal smirking unattractively on the front bench, Al, his laptop, stole all the Tories' tax ideas. This means, of course, that political parties are now pointless. There was a time when Tory backbenchers with halitosis, tweeds, labradors and wives called Edith would bay for tax cuts while Labour apparatchiks with steel-rimmed glasses, cord trousers, red ties, foot odour and wives called Olga promised that, come the revolution, Edith and her husband would be hanging from the nearest lamp post. They believed in things - bad things, largely, but at least we knew we could choose in whose handcart we could go to hell. Now the choice is between two identical parties whose only aim in life is to get elected. The one differentiation appears to be age. The Tories are all twelve, Labour are all in their fifties and the main Libdems - Ming and Vince - have to be given heart massage as they speak. (Another indicator of change, incidentally, is an unfilled semantic gap. A Labour individual could once comfortably be described as a socialist. That is now absurd, but no word has appeared to take its place.) So the ponder is: political parties - why bother?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
One thing's for sure, Gordon Brown couldn't be described as sociable.
ReplyDeleteDon't like the idea of a one party state, though I take your point about modern parties. We've only had two great reforming governments in the past 60 years, Attlee's and Thatcher's, and the rest have followed on behind. In the meantime we need political parties so we can replace one lot when they find out where the money is and have learned how to to get their hands on it. Also, it is still pretty cool that every week at the dispatch box one lot can get up and say (in polite terms) that the group opposite are complete bunch of wankers and not suffer imprisonment or execution.
ReplyDeleteobviously the perception lately that choice between two or more equally poor things equals quality.
ReplyDeletethough the parties have never been for our benefit but for themselves. we'll not be invited to the party - well, we will but only because they think we won't turn up, and if that happens they won't let us in anyhow.
ReplyDeleteIt's gang culture, safety in numbers, all for one, the tribe, arsenal and liverpool, jumpers for goalposts, crumpets for tea...
and anyway, think about it. who's going to donate money to an individual? a £1m for my election fund Mr. (or should I say, Lord) Shadey-Biz? cheers, I'm off fly-fishing in Brazil...
Apparently we now need an Opposition to think up all the good popular ideas, so the governing party can nick them and stay in power until it just gets too ridicuolous to sustain. At this rate, Brown will soon be clamouring for an end to the Brown government.
ReplyDeleteI think the end justified the means and the people won for a change. but IHT was never an important issue to most Daily Mail readers, I don't know why they got so bilious over it. now it's buried for a few more years we can concentrate on the big issues of education, health, environment, industry, foreign policy etc.
ReplyDeletebut where are these policies?!
Ian, I think most political parties try hard not to have any identifiable policies to debate as they are vote-losers. They're all "for the environment," for example, because that polls so well, but details don't.
ReplyDeleteyes, I believe you, ronin. it is a democracy of fools!
ReplyDeleteIsn’t there a theory of queues in which people are naturally drawn to join a queue even when they don’t know what it’s for? That, I think, is the whole reason we have political parties. We wouldn’t believe a thing these idiots say should they be on their own.
ReplyDeleteIt’s the same reason why Jehovah’s Witnesses turn up on your doorstep in pairs and why there are two Chuckle Brothers.
It used to be said that the most reliable gauge of an Englishman's politics was to ask whose side he wpould have been on at the battle of Marston Moor. Political parties exist to make sure the choice doesn't have to be made for real. Being boring is the highest aspiration any politician should have.
ReplyDeleteWhy not?
ReplyDeleteThe election is rigged by the illuminati to introduce the one ( a Young man who truely embodies the image of the second comeing the perfect man ) on his agenda is to present Obama as the false prophet, to give people absolute faith in God, He will be the true symbol of peace and progress. Essentially the Holy Grail is comeing.
ReplyDelete