A FEW long days into the official General Election campaign and a huge wave of indifference has swept majestically across the electorate already. It’s Groundhog Day but without Bill Murray and the comedy.
Breathless commentators say it’s the most important General Election ever, and it might well be, but it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like, well, 2017. And 2015. And 2016 and 2014 and for the historians amongst us 2010 as well. Yes, all those years ago, when results actually seemed to mean something and the country was not on a permanent election footing. This campaign has started like it’s set in a cave full of budgies watching the finesse of a duck-billed platypus making a break to become 200m Olympic champion with Punxsutawney Phil as referee. Groundhog Day indeed. If the party leaders were all charged with the task of performing a church fête raffle it would be exactly the same. Jeremy Corbyn would nationalise the draw and ensure the prize fund was distributed equally amongst the entrants while charging the wealthy three times more for their tickets. Nicola Sturgeon would insist that Scots carried out the draw to make sure the result was determined by Scots for Scots.
Jo Swinson would challenge the result and then put it out to a confirmatory referendum while Boris Johnson, if he knows what a raffle is, would take the huff if the raffle result was not confirmed by a certain date and then take away the prize and die in a ditch with it. Do or die.
General Elections used to mean a lot more than they do now. Held every five years or so, there was something nearly resembling excitement as canvassers arrived at your door seeking your vote.
Sometimes even the sitting MP would make an appearance and you could get the chance to grill them over a cup of tea. It was democracy in the rawest form and MPs knew they had to fight for every vote and weren’t afraid to engage with the voters directly. Now the closest most of the public get to an MP is watching them on the telly being grilled about the so-called issue of the day. But the issues of the day on these shows are chosen by highly-paid producers and not the people who matter the most – the wider electorate who are increasingly becoming marginalised from modern politics despite being asked to participate more.
What today’s politicians need is a good old fashioned rammy on the doorstep about bins with an angry local to make them see what really matters to the electorate and not what the party’s focus groups say is important.
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