Dear Politicians, You suck. yours, the electorate.
If my job was persuading the people of Britain that I should be trusted with the future of their country, the following chart would concern me more than a little.
Asked which party the statement : "It is led by people of real ability" applies to most, British voters give "None" a lead over all UK Parties combined of six points.
None: 45 vs Conservative: 20, Labour: 16, LibDem: 3.
In May last year, the political parties had a seventeen point lead.
None: 33 vs Conservative: 28, Labour: 19, LibDem: 4.
This isn't a question of David, Ed or Nick, it's something that every frontline politician should feel stung by.
Data is from here. (p2)
Brian Hughes:
June 16th, 2012 at 7:52 am
Why would anyone of "real ability" strive to get into political leadership these days merely to be hounded and harassed by the 24hr media with its prurient moralising and its simplistic analysis? There are many much more rewarding (in all senses) leadership careers to be pursued safely far away from prying journalists.
It's hard to believe that many of the allegedly high ability politicians from the old days, several of whom had "very interesting" private lives, could have survived for more than a few months in the current environment.
We seem to be doomed to live in a world led by second rate weirdos…
PS can't we have some more challenging maths for your security question? How about some third order differential equations to solve?
jethro:
June 16th, 2012 at 5:12 pm
I think Brian Hughes is rather too prurient and simplistic: we, the Electorate, their Paymasters, can overlook/forgive a lot in return for competence, the ruthless pursuit ofthe Country's best interests, "the vision-thing". Most of our politicians have shown themselves to be incompetent, not really concerned with this Country's best interests, and utterly devoid of "the vision-thing". Whither would they lead us? Who knows? What is their vision for where we should be in, say, five years' time? Who knows? What have they done so far to enable us to trust them to be, if nothing else, efficient? [Answers should not include course phrases ending in ***-all]
jethro:
June 16th, 2012 at 5:24 pm
Dear Hopi Sen,
Please permit me to point out that in English, the abbreviation is customarily 'Maths' (Mathematics, without the ematic bit), and that 'Do the Math', 'Go figure' and so on are Americanisms (do they, over there, talk and write about 'Physic'? If so, they might find themselves in unexpected company, not least those who spell it Physick); will they insist that winsome Gymnasts are pursuing Aerobic?
jethro:
June 16th, 2012 at 5:28 pm
…' petard' and 'hoysed' come to mind:for 'course', please read 'coarse'.
therealguyfaux:
June 16th, 2012 at 6:53 pm
What an "impolitic" thing for you to say about the USA!
Man in a Shed:
June 17th, 2012 at 6:35 pm
What this shows is that the current political settlement is highly unstable.
It might suit the current crop of Oxford PPE career politicans to fight over the ever decreasing pool of active voters, but some time soon an even may trigger the end of them all. Think of the revolution that hit Italian politics, or more worryingly Weimar Repulic politics.
Add to this the fact that the current generation is enslaving the next in debt and destroying their futures with its selfish mega-state solutions and when the young finally figure out what's going on there will be trouble.
Gold Bug:
June 18th, 2012 at 6:22 am
I find this poll deeply shocking. 39% of people believe that the political parties have people of real ability. How can 39% of peoplebe so blind?
Alasdair:
June 18th, 2012 at 10:33 pm
Maybe they conducted the poll in Westminster?