In part 2 of my analysis on The parties and election prospects, I looked at the public’s expectations, and concluded that the public at large is cynical about politics and politicians.
How pleasing, therefore, to find the ever perceptive Daniel Finkelstein, chief leader writer of the Times, express the same view in his article today – Westminster chatter won’t change the result. Here’s where Daniel says this,
“The cynicism about politics is so pervasive that it embraces almost all political activity. Use a statistic? It’s a lie. Cry on television about your dead child? It’s an election gimmick. Attack your opponents’ policy? You would say that, wouldn’t you. And this cynicism extends to the media and our coverage. So not only politics, but news about politics, is seen as a fiction inside an untruth wrapped in a piece of spin.”
Daniel doesn’t explain why this has happened. But I’m pretty sure I know why. After 18 years in office the Conservative government lost the will to fight the extraordinary bile, character assassination, half-truths and lies from Labour in opposition, and also for the whole parliament that followed Labour’s election victory in 1997.
Instead of leaving campaigning tactics behind them, Labour saw these tactics as the way to hold on to power. The low ethical standards of Alistair Campbell, Charlie Whelan, Ed Balls, Damian McBride, and even Gordon Brown is what has polluted our body politic.
I always come back to Michael Howard’s stinging rebuke of Alistair Campbell in a Newsnight. In my view it’s the only direct attack on Campbell’s malign influence that has occurred on-screen, and even that almost didn’t happen, because it was at the end of the programme. Watch it here again. Cleaning up our politics will only happen when these poisonous people are our of our political life, entirely.
Lightwater 