Do Conservatives ever change their spots?

Image credits: Financial Times photos

You thought politicians would learn what to say and what not to say, what to do and what not to do, or at least pay someone reliable to consider these things for them. In the wake of recent Tory slip-ups, Online Features Editor Imogen Watson examines the latest round of their problems.

With Boris Johnson speaking out of turn and Exeter alumnus and government minister Andrew Lansley MP being called out for poor expenses claims on dozens of seemingly unnecessary hotel stays, it has arguably been a bad couple of days for the Conservative Party.

To begin, everybody’s favourite London Mayor, Boris Johnson, has been at it again, suggesting last week that we ought not to spend too much time or too many resources on promoting equality within our society. Whilst apparently 16 per cent of “our species” have an IQ of less than 85, approximately two per cent has one over 130, and, during a speech about the benefits of inequality (which fosters “the spirit of envy”), it was the implied message of the Mayor of the Big Smoke that the state ought to use more of our resources for this latter group. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, whilst praising Johnson for being “a funny guy”, Chancellor George Osborne and the Prime Minister alike have distanced themselves from the Conservative Mayor, who is considered to be very high-ranking and a well-known member of their own party.  Experts have expressed that correlations between high IQs and educational attainment are existent but slight and probabilistic.

In the meantime, Exeter University’s own Andrew Lansley MP (who recently visited the Streatham Campus and an interview with whom you can read here) has been found to be using the taxpayer’s money to pay for stays in London hotels, despite owning properties both in London itself – a mile from Parliament – and near the village of Royston in his not-too-distant constituency of South Cambridgeshire. MPs are able to claim for a second home where appropriate for working either in London or in their constituency; yet Lansley has racked up a bill of £5950 since April 2012, although his million-pound flat is just in Pimlico. Although a family member is apparently living there (so Lansley can’t).

Granted, one must remember not to act in the moral high ground too much, as the number of employees stealing from their place of work is also on the increase, and at least this time we are not witnessing receipts for duck houses and the cleaning of moats. With Parliament having brought in the apparently Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority in the wake of the previous expenses scandal, it is questionable how such claims made it through the scrutiny, but it also does rather beg the question – do politicians ever change?

Politicians’ PR managers must have constant nightmares and demand constant pay rises, but there is a bigger debate at the heart of such comments and such actions. The political world is already a game for the elite, but politicians seem to be going out of their way to make it worse by annoying the public just a little bit more every time they open their mouths.

Image credits: NHS Confederation

After the last expenses scandal, trust in politicians as a whole dipped to an all-time low of 2.3 from its high of 3.5… out of a possible ten. If politicians are so aware of how much the public does not approve of their job performance, their natural reaction ought to be to be on high alert, ready to publicise something positive that they do, ready to avoid such gaffes. Clearly, however, they are not. For the Leader of the House of Commons to set such a poor example, we really should be shocked but instead I found myself sighing disapprovingly and rolling my eyes. What a great state of affairs. Not all politicians are awful, but the ones that are mar the others.

As for the Conservative Party more specifically, its reputation as “the Nasty Party”, rife with scandal and sleaze, is what made it lose the election of 1997 so badly. Boris Johnson may be in contention for the leader of the Party when David Cameron should choose to step down, but his humorous ways and amusing bumbling persona on the international Olympic stage will do him no good if he does not refrain from poor errors of judgement in public affairs that are inherently personal and offensive to large swathes of the population. It is this kind of error that sidelined the Tories for thirteen years, and it will do so again if left unchecked.

Imogen Watson, Online Features Editor

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3 Reasons You Should Vote If You Hate Politicians

President of Freedom Society Liam Taylor responds to a climate of political apathy and puts forward the case for the importance of voting, despite or even especially because of anyone’s hatred of politicians.

“If we simply don’t tolerate their spin and PR we’ll get leaders who have genuine policies rather than mere catchy headlines.”
Photo Credit: _Hadock_ via Compfight cc

Nobody likes politicians. I’d be the last person to defend them. Indeed I have written before about why you should hate them. It’s perfectly natural to look at the bland, interchangeable options presented to you and ask, “What’s the point?” I understand perfectly well the instinct to declare a plague on all their houses and go back to watching TV. It’s no wonder many people don’t vote. But here are a few reasons why, instead of giving in to apathy or heeding the incoherent revolutionary cries of Russell Brand and his comrades, you should vote – especially if you hate politicians.

1) You Can Punish Them.

Kick ‘em out! If they break their promises then don’t buy their snake oil next time around. If you hate a politician then vote against them, or even go out and campaign against them. Even if you live in a safe seat. How can you expect change to happen if you don’t do anything about it? It’s the prospect of losing power, and the access to all those lavish expenses that come with it, that keeps politicians awake at night.

If you don’t vote then as far as they’re concerned you don’t count. If you don’t vote then they have no reason to listen to you. If you’re tired of spineless liars who don’t have a principal between them then don’t vote for them. Take satisfaction as they squirm, desperately trying to claw your vote from you, and enjoy the look on their face when they lose. Putting Nick Clegg on the dole will make those £9000 tuition fees go down a little easier.

2) It’s The Only Way They’ll Learn.

Politicians need us a lot more than we need them. How do we replace incompetent empty suits with men and women of integrity? Simple: if you want to get rid of spineless flip-flopping career politicians then don’t vote for them. How do we make sure that the people we put in charge put our  national interests first? By kicking them out if they don’t, when they break promises or are otherwise incompetent. Either their survival instinct will kick in and they will give you the policies you want or they’ll lose and be replaced by someone of principal.

If we simply don’t tolerate their spin and PR we’ll get leaders who have genuine policies rather than a torrent of catchy headlines. If politicians know that a broken promise will mean they’ll be out of the job by the end of the week then they’ll be less likely to do it. The reason they keep breaking their promises is because they know they can get away with it. That we’ll still begrudgingly vote for them, moan about it in the pub but ultimately do nothing about it. Which brings us onto…

3) Don’t Waste Your Vote.

So goes the rallying cry of the crawlers running scared. “If you don’t vote for us then you’re wasting your vote.” You’re not. If anything, voting for them is wasting your vote. If you’re fed up of the mainstream parties letting you down, breaking their promises and putting their own interests above those of the country then vote for someone else. Anyone else. Whether it’s the Raving Loonies or the Beer, Baccy and Crumpet Party that stood in Exeter’s last election. It can be surprisingly effective. An Italian comedian’s protest movement became the largest party in the Italian Parliament and The Polish Beer Lovers Party managed to win 16 seats in the Polish Parliament a few years back. There are dozens of parties out there to cater for just about every taste.

Don’t listen to the scaremongering, protest votes do matter and are an important part of democracy. Without it, politicians can just rely on people voting for them through gritted teeth, purely out of fear of the other lot getting in, and its business as usual. All three of the parties depend on it. And they don’t have any incentive to listen to you until you deny them your vote. People have fought and died for the right to vote. Don’t waste yours. Don’t waste it on the same old backstabbing liars and cheats.

How much difference does voting actually make? Is the problem with politicians or our system of government? Leave a comment below or write to the Comment team at the Exeposé Comment Facebook Group or on Twitter@CommentExepose.

Five reasons we should hate career politicians

Image credit to will139

Liam Taylor gives us yet more ammunition to use against our representatives.

It’s no secret that politicians aren’t exactly the most popular breed of people, and with good reason. But there is one type of politician that is worse than the others: the career politician. A particularly untrustworthy and ruthless breed of lawmaker, who have never had a job outside of politics and treat conviction like a contagious disease. In short they are the worst type of people to run a country, and here’s why…

5) They lie (badly)

The cynical amongst us are resigned to the fact that politicians lie about their policies. But careerists who change their minds with every new focus group are the worst culprits. Isn’t it funny how believing in nothing and an insatiable lust for power can do that to people? Sometimes they are just unashamedly blatant about it. Take the Lib Dem’s election broadcast that had Clegg promising an end to broken promises, only to set about breaking as many of his policies as possible, as quickly as he possibly could. Add that to the expenses claimed for moats, duck ponds and other such ‘necessities’, and you have your perfect cocktail for distrust in politics. Though we don’t have a monopoly on greedy, lying politicians. Just look at a certain Norwegian politician who racked up thousands of pounds of expenses in calls to physic hotlines and blamed it all on an imaginary boyfriend. Honesty in public life, indeed.

4) They’re all the same

Now I don’t mean they are literally clones of one another that have all rolled off the same assembly line; although Cameron, Clegg and the other one (Milli-something I think) seem to have alarmingly similar haircuts. I’m not just talking about the fact that they all went to the same schools. But they all sound the same and act the same. They’re more interested in their image than in ideas; more interested in the polls than what is actually best for the country. This could be written off as the inevitable result of a lifetime spent crawling up the slippery slope of politics, but there’s more to it than that. They’ve all climbed the same slope, and come out the same tired political product.

3) They’re hopelessly out of touch

It’s no secret that politicians live in a bubble; they mix in the same social circles and get invited to the same soirées. This has the inevitable effect that they start to care more about what these social circles think about them than what the voters think. It’s all about what policies will impress the host of the next dinner party. This creates a kind of echo chamber which not only means that they sound and look alike, but they start to think alike too. And they don’t think anything like the man on the street.

2) They don’t like you!

They don’t like us. The little people. The plebs. They need us to vote for them but they don’t like us. It’s not just Cameron’s thinly veiled disgust for all those unimportant people demanding EU referendums. The same disdain for the ordinary man on the street is just as prevalent in the Labour leadership, which contains its own fair share of small-minded millionaires. Am I the only one who feels a party that purports to represent the working class should perhaps be led by people that have actually worked real jobs? They all think the same, and this is the reason they don’t like us; because we don’t think like them. Because ordinary people have an annoying habit of holding different opinions to them. But, nonetheless, they still need us to vote for them. So every 5 years they throw us a few treats and vague promises through fake smiles, and then hope we don’t kick up too much of a fuss when it’s just business as usual after the election, except sometimes with a different coloured rosette.

1) They’re incompetent

But all this would perhaps be bearable if they were at least competent at running the country. They’re not. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that basing policies around what your friends in Notting Hill think isn’t a reliable way to run a country. That’s how you end up with a gargantuan debt and a school system that’s worse than Estonia is at science. It’s the combination of a complete lack of experience of the real world outside Westminster and the disregard for the concerns of ordinary that makes them so bad at their jobs. I mean how else do you explain how otherwise bright Oxbridge-educated individuals keep messing up so badly?

So there you have it, just in case you ever needed any reason to hate politicians more. And trust me, you can never hate politicians enough.

Liam Taylor

Website of the week- official idiocy

Picture credits to Boodoo

There is nothing more delightful (or worrying, depending on which way you look at it), than hearing someone important saying something, well, unimportant. George W. Bush was a prime example of this. He was in one of the world’s most powerful positions but one might argue that his words did not really reflect this.

When he spoke of education, he made his point of view very clear to his nation: “You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.” -Townsend, Tenn., Feb. 21, 2001.

If for one moment we can ignore the inclination to be angered by the, how shall we put this, wise words of those running our world, we may find light amusement in what officials have to say for themselves. If anything, it makes us feel a bit better about ourselves.

There are hundreds of websites dedicated to people who are prone to a few slip-ups, even though most of them will happily do the job for themselves on Twitter. One such website that is worth a visit however, is a tumblr blog- Officials Say the Darndest Things.

Kate Townend

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