differences

in tuesdays guardian martin kettle wrote a comment piece saying that the one thing we have in common is our differences. he goes on to say that the reason why we are not keen on politicians is that they do not see those differences and the issues those differences raise, and that we are turned off of politicians by their offer of the quick fit one size fits all solutions.
in short we don't like politicians because they say we have a solution to the problem.

ah if it were only that simple.
we don't like (or trust) politicians for the more practical reasons of sleaze and greed. we don't respect our politicians because in the main we see them as having little to do with us. (i am sure the majority of back benchers are not living the life of larry, but one can't help feel that for most of them it's a case of hoping to get a leg up onto the gravy train. ok ok i am cynical and i know it!)
another reason we don't like our politicians is that we are so aware of them being "spun" having to wear the right clothes, the right hair, the right words, hand movements etc etc, it's why we take kindly to the boris johnsons of the world - they look natural they act natural (and for him it is being a pompous twit). not only have politicians given up their individuality but they have taken on board the buzzspeak of management training course. out goes vision and passion and in comes professional jargon. and lets be fair who can blame them it's worked so well for sainsburys.

but even when they decide to do something - it's not like they go for the simple uncomplex solution no they find away to make it messy and incomprehensible so that for those of us on the outside we have to scratch our heads and go "huh"!

look at immigration - the simple answer is open door policy or none at all. easy see i can be a politician (ok i still have to decide which one, but i have gotten it down to two choices). no what do the politicians do ? should we have a quota system? should be only have people in who can offer something to the country? what about refugees (proud heritage, not racist, made me what i am, but i am in you are not- pretty much howard's speech at the conference in a nutshell), what about asylum seekers? where to put them etc. all the time couching the debate in terms of we are being nice about it those unlike those people on the far right (who we are catching up) would be!

you only have to look at the public private partnership (PPPs) to see that politicians can take a simple issue such as investment in the infrastructure and turn it into a maze of complexity. oh i know what makes sense we can borrow money cheaply as we are a state, private companies have to borrow at higher rates because they are private companies. so if we want to finance the building of new infrastructure we will let the private companies borrow the money, but here's the neat part we will underwrite it so if it goes tits up the private company will not lose money the state will. and once the infrastructure is built we will rent it off the private company - they make loads of money and the tax payer out of pocket. and when it don't work properly we will do it again with another company. (yeah i know it sounds silly and i am confused by writing it but what can i say).
want a simple solution ? state finances infrastructure building.
easy.
vote pat.
and vote now.

we know our lives are complex, we know we are all different in one way or another. we don't need or want politicians to tell us that. we know! we know!
it's the reason why single issues do so well check out the anti-war marches, the fuel protests, the pro and anti hunt marches (no guesses for which of them the SWP were not at) we want simple solutions. we want to know that there are people who want to provide us with something like a solution.

what we want are politicians who have a vision (big or small it don't matter) who have passion and belief that things can be better.
instead we get people who tell us well they don't have a clue, well not really, but it's a nice career and if they are lucky they might get a job in the media or a directorship....
and they wonder why fewer and fewer people vote.

i tell you vote pat! you know it makes sense.