Save Politicians from Dole Queue

General Election Day. Politicians have been trying to convince us this is a grave day of decision for most of the populace, who, by and large, seem to feel it isn’t, really. It’s a matter of articulating distinctive selling points against the backdrop of a large public narrative, fuelled by expenses scandals and media cynicism, that says “they’re all the same.”

This is especially hard to do with a voting system which, as the Electoral Reform Society points out it, produces 600,000 players and an audience of 25,000,000. 600,000 people happen to live in marginal seats, so they get a real election, complete with politicians who take them serously, whilst the other 25 million of us, merely watch the floats go by. 385 seats are a done deal before the show begins. The only political animal 95% of us can aspire to be is a sheep:

You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to see that, however exciting this may all be for the lucky 600,000, the other 25 million shuffle in their seats.

All politicans agree people ought to get out and vote, and profess dismay at the way turnout has collapsed over the past twenty years and among the young. If they mean what they say, an alien inquirer might wonder, why not do the obvious and bring the disenfranchised 25 million onto the stage? It’s not rocket science.

Or perhaps it is

1. Changing the voting system means turkeys voting for Christmas. Why would they? The present system suits the political nomenklatura, because it creates a landscape they can manage without much reference to ordinary people. So we have a burgeoning professional political class that squashes its personal discretion and conviction in order to keep on message. It’s the price of power. Anyway, it would be a fearful bore and rather expensive to engage with 44 million. It’s as much as they can do to talk to 600,000.
   
   
2. Furthermore the present system means politicans sometimes lose, but it’s worth sticking with the game because only by doing so can you win it. And when your turn comes, Bingo! you can live for five years in bright sunlit uplands where you don’t have to listen to or take other politicians seriously, let alone the public.
   
   
3. This leads to rather unresponsive government. To give just one example someone mentioned to me this week, against the clear opposition of 60% of the population you can start an illegal war that kills half a million innocent civilians. Legitimacy is a vague, slippery concept. It won’t lose you an election.

Meanwhile, one thing that has well and truly got our daughter Steph’s goat is the Sun’s take on the election — especially one story yesterday that showed 16 Page Three models pleading “Save these girls from Dole Queue.” This did not sound like the kind of thing a nice little bishop should be scanning, but in the interests of political esearch, and finding out what the best selling newspaper in Britain has to say for itself, I pressed on.

I am a doctor.

SIXTEEN Page 3 Girls in all their glory represent the very image of freedom in this country. But if Labour or the Lib Dems win the election, this could be the last time they are allowed to pose together.

The “True Blue 16 Beauties” had, unfortunately, done their usual thing and forgotten to get dressed yesterday morning. They excoriate Labour and Liberal democrat politicians for questioning Mr Murdoch’s soft porn habit, and warn that if he managed to tame it

at a stroke the very liberties that put the Great into Great Britain will be torn asunder. The radical ideas of the 17th-century philosopher John Locke helped shape our freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights and, later, America's Constitution

Scary stuff. One of the girls, Poppy, explains:

The basis of Lockean thought is his theory of the Contract of Government, under which all political power is a trust for the benefit of the people. His thinking underpins our ideas of national identity and society

Poppy’s words call into serious question Locke’s observation (in the Essay concerning human understanding) “that in bare naked perception the mind is, for the most part, only passive.” If Poppy does end up in the dole queue, it won’t be long before a University Philosphy Department snaps her up. Lecturers get the kind of regular salaries that will enable her to buy herself some nice clothes, including, perhaps, some underwear. So what’s the Sun trying to say to us? “You don’t have to be a Dirty Old Man to vote Tory, but it helps?” Now that is off message...

Is it the Sun wot will win it?

Brown doomed. Official. The Sun has decided to support the Conservatives for the next election. For overseas readers, the Sun is a British end-of-the-pier newpaper that can be good fun and surprisingly cleverly written, the front page of which occasionally captures a national mood crudely but effectively. It has a capacity to annoy all sorts of people, but can be immensely entertaining, if rather right wing, sexist, and celebrity-obsessed.

Much wry comment could be made about the Sun. Some say it’s only what most other UK newspapers except the Financial Times really are, but they are far too snobbish to take responsibility for being as crude and vulgar. The Sun is generally good natured. It also seems to believe its readers are people who don’t think for themselves and will therefore follow its advice, sheeplike, about how to vote. As much as I’d like this not to be the case, it may be right.

Like the rest of Fleet Street, it probably overclaims its readership in order to prop up its dwindling advertising income, but they all do, and business is business. So come in, Gordon Brown, your time is up. A brave face was put on this yesterday by Labour politicians, of course, but according to conventional wisdom the writing is now on the wall.

I’m not sure, myself, that the Sun does win or lose elections. The Sun, historically speaking, trims its views pragmatically to match whoever it thinks will win. I suspect it follows as much as leads public opinion. And, of course, in these days of collapsing newsprint, it will be interesting to see exactly which part of fractured public opinion it follows. My hunch, for the little it’s worth, is that the age profile of people who actually vote could be weighted towards elderly. I rather doubt the Labour party has the will or the wherewithal to connect with voters under 30, so the election may well be decided by the kind of people who still read the Sun. I wouldn’t be so sure about the 2015 election. On the day the value of UK advertising on the internet overtook the value of TV advertising, it may be the writing is also on the wall for the Sun. Could Gordon Brown thus get the last laugh after all, but too late to save his government?

Mike — Icon for Today

We need inspiration in these dark days. Every now and then the animal kingdom throws up an iconic hero for our times — Rin Tin Tin, Simon, Ship's Cat on HMS Amethyst... Reading reactions to Rowan’s Law Lecture last week, I propose Mike, the Rooster (1945-7). For two years after a botched execution attempt Mike the headless chicken lived a celebrity life, touring with various exceptional chums including a two headed calf. He even made Time Magazine.

His success resulted in a wave of copycat chicken beheadings, but no other chicken lived for more than a day or two. A pickled chicken head was also on display with Mike, but this was not Mike's original head, as the cat had already eaten it.

Like other postwar youth icons, Mike died mysteriously and young, in a motel room in 1947 (“but how did he get the barbiturates down?”) To this day Fruita, Colorado has a Mike the Headless Chicken Day, which has come early to Fleet Street this year. Among other kiddies’ diversions there’s “Chicken Bingo” where chicken droppings on a numbered grid pick the winning numbers. Try that in the Sun?

The moron version of this story goes like this:

For some inexplicable reason, but mostly just because he’s a bit of a lefty, the Archbishop of Canterbury has randomly suggested swapping our legal system for the Saudi one, complete with burkas and public decapitations. This all goes to show how the C of E has lost the plot and somehow managed to become simultaneously feminist politically correct and fanatically Muslim, along with everything else we don’t like or understand.

And so say all the silliest rentaquotes out there, especially the ones who hadn’t got round to reading the lecture before the journalist rang, but thought they’d have a go anyway. The real story (here), bears absolutely no relation to the moron one. Andrew Goddard’s intelligent Evangelical analysis is here.

The issue of how to relate effectively to others in a globalized world is obviously crucial. Any notion we can simply sail on like it was the fifties is dangerous childish rubbish. Rowan said

if we are to think intelligently about the relations between Islam and British law, we need a fair amount of 'deconstruction' of crude oppositions and mythologies, whether of the nature of sharia or the nature of the Enlightenment

Anyone who really thinks this is a “hysterical outburst” can borrow my kids next weekend. Most reactions to it have conclusively proved this point. All the (boys’) toys come flying out of Jeremy Clarkson’s GT pram in the Sun. He proposes his own religion:

It’s headed up by a God, called Enzo, who says that a wise man should drive in bus lanes and that speed limits are for the weak.

He also says that smoking is a noble thing to do, particularly in a pub, and that his followers are exempt from the London congestion charge.

He also says I can sleep in any church that takes my fancy, drink all the wine and use the archbishop’s hat as a urinal.

It’s the job of the Sun to entertain us, and the job of our spiritual leader to scope hard questions we’d rather ignore. Rowan didn’t propose radical answers, let alone anything buffoon entertainers like Jeremy Clarkson are accusing him of promoting. He drew attention to something we may not have noticed that’s already going on, asking our best legal eagles to work it through. Confronting people with hard headed questions they’d rather avoid is what real leadership is all about, stimulating not squashing intelligent debate, not pandering to fears and prejudices; far less keeping young Master Jeremy’s bottle warm.