Well, what a couple of months that was. A surprise, and ultimately doomed, general election called by Rishi Sunak which threw the airwaves into a tailspin in the UK.
24-hour news reporting and ticker tape running along the bottom of our screens, debates, more debates, he said she said propaganda, name-calling and I suspect a few little fibs thrown into the mix. It was exhausting – and most of us were simply watching on TV!
It really did get me thinking though.
As one of the corner stones of modern democracy and political stability and as a self-proclaimed voice of reason, I’m not sure UK PLC did itself many favours.
Whichever colour floats your boat, there wasn’t too much to get excited about was there? To be honest there was plenty to be a little bit embarrassed about. There wasn’t much grace or pride in our elected representatives going hammer and tongs on personal attacks and mutual blame gaming with each other.
Worse though was the way that some of our politicians, again representing a rainbow of colours, just won’t answer a bloody question. I’m sure that they must think we’re a stupid public if they don’t realise how ridiculous, vacuous and evasive their answers sound.
ITV, BBC, Sky, LBC – you name it – all asking perfectly reasonable questions only to be given pre-prepared and irrelevant responses. In some instances it was both childish and ridiculous. When a question is framed with a yes or no answer, a meandering tale of blame is not what we want to hear – please - give us some credit!
The unfolding drama reminded me of 1990’s sketch shows like The Fast Show. “Tell me Secretary of State, would you raise taxes / increase public spending / build more prisons etc?”…“Well I’m glad you asked me that because the price of bananas is at an all-time low and cinema seats are wider than they’ve ever been”.
Argh!
That coupled with gambling scandals, scare mongering, bullying, misogyny – you name it – the list goes on. How do these people get to the top? Are we the idiots – after all we put them there?
In the middle of the circus were an army of hard working, decent, down-to-earth politicians with common sense heads and decent hearts. The good ones must have been wondering what the hell was going on around them – and I suspect a good few lost their jobs through no fault of their own. I feel sorry for these poor folk and I also worry that any new-blood thinking of entering the fray will be put off by the farce.
It’s time for UK politics to start working on solutions, start looking forward and start putting people first. A little kindness and respect wouldn’t go amiss either.
There, rant over. Apologies for moaning.
Perhaps I should try and do something about it myself and enter the theatre. My manifesto is however a meagre tome at the moment.
Can you guess what I’d be banning if I got into power?
