LibDem Peer, Lord Palumbo, thinks that politicians are making promises that they can’t possibly fulfill and it’s bad for democracy…but who’s to blame?
Wild election promises, funded with Monopoly money – is it any wonder nobody trusts politicians?
I don’t entirely blame politicians for behaving in this way. Our short-term cyclical political process seems designed to generate this auction of electoral bribery and reality avoidance. Honesty doesn’t win seats, promises do. The problem comes later, when politicians have to live up to their commitments while keeping the country’s economy afloat.
This is, however, one of the reasons we hit the financial crisis in 2008 and why deficit reduction has been so difficult during the last parliament. The needs of our democracy run against those of sound economic management. The skills needed by a media-savvy politician are the opposite to those needed to run a large and complex organisation. The by-product? As Viv Nicholson might have said: debt, debt, debt.
I take the somewhat controversial view that democracy would be enhanced if there was a little less electioneering and a little more truth telling. More experts, fewer communicators.
[Democracy] only works if voters make an informed choice, balancing individual needs and national interest, and if politicians are able to operate in an environment by which difficult choices and honesty are not prohibitively costly to their existence.
The choice for voters at this election is a critical one. The wrong decisions afterwards could bankrupt this country or leave us even more vulnerable to global economic turmoil.
We will pay a very heavy price if short-term political needs are placed before the national interest. And democracy will be undermined in the process.
Of course he is right as I’m certain we all recognise, politicians often refuse to admit there are difficult decisions, difficult choices, to be made, they refuse to admit mistakes and make rash promises, say for example to keep funding the NHS regardless of cost, because to suggest anything else is ‘death by Media’ and, they believe, electoral suicide.
Palumbo blames the politicians and only touches on the real culprits, the Media, which drives the agenda and makes politicians afraid to say anything that may later be held against them.
How often have we heard on the BBC that politics is failing, that voters have lost their trust in politicians (such as it was) and that democracy is on the rocks?
If that were so how much blame could be apportioned to the likes of the BBC which rather than merely seeking the truth to inform voters and their judgements also seeks to cast its own moral judgement upon the politicians and their policies or seems just out to trash any policy regardless of merit?
Here is a classic example of BBC mendaciousness…it can’t have been an honest mistake…how could a professional journalist make such a mistake? H/T George R:
“HOW THE BBC STITCHED UP CAMERON WITH A FAKE QUOTE ABOUT FOX-HUNTING”
Why is it that politicians refuse to contemplate reducing any funding to the NHS when it clearly has got out of hand? If the BBC were responsible it would allow the case to be made for such reductions but instead of that reasoned debate it goes into attack mode and as with welfare reforms sets out to paint any such change as an appallling, callous and wicked attack on the poorest and most vulnerable in society even if the policy might in fact be beneficial for them. The rants about food banks are another example…often cited as proof that poverty stalks the UK when the reality is that most of the recipients are those who are having to wait for their benefits to be paid for one reason or another…in other words not ‘poverty’ but a bureacracy that has failed. Britain is not starving.
There is a distinct lack of honest debate that would allow politicians to freely admit money is short and savings have to be made. How often do you hear the BBC criticise ‘austerity’ without reference to the causes…that being the worst recession in 100 years? It’s as if it was instead a cruel and heartless experiment that the Tories imposed, not out of necessity, but because they wanted to….that of course being a narrative that Labour likes to run with…the Tory (coalition) austerity measures are purely a nasty small government, everybody fend for themselves, Right wing ideology and nothing to do with fixing the economy….a narrative that the BBC’s failure to highlight Labour’s blame for the recession allows to gain credence and keeps up the notion of the ‘Nasty Tories’.
If Democracy is failing its because the Media is failing…and one of the biggest players, and the biggest culprit, is the BBC.
The media has come to think of itself as more important than Parliament. That is virtually all the liberal left media. The right is much more nuanced.
The main BBC shows on R4 etc are all agenda driven and from the left. It is as if by endlessly focusing on the need for more spending and by more special pleading the solution will be found to any social problem.
It is rubbish of course, The great majority of people in this country live well and have comfortable lives. Education , although dogma driven , is paid for by taxes as is the NHS and much else.
To listen to the BBC one would think we are all down at the food bank every week.
Politicians are all scared of the BBC /liberal media/ twitterati
It has meant that they all conform to a certain type and that is not what we need now in this increasingly dangerous world. .
They cannot tell us the truth now about anything.
Some truths. The deficit is insane. The debt is beyond any reality.
The danger from Isis and militant Islam really threatens us all. It will get much worse.
Africa and the Middle East are beyond salvation by us in the West.
Immigration now threatens social cohesion and the destruction of the social capital of the last 1000 years.
Education is failing. The NHS cannot cope with the demands upon it.
Any politician who dared to voice anything like this would be hounded into oblivion.
Meanwhile the liberal elite is looting from the nation rewards far above those it deserves and that reflect it’s real contribution.
If all this is not a recipe for collapse and strife then I do not know what is.
The SNP/ Milleband axis encapsulates the flight from the real in spades. Spend spend spend. The money does not exist.
Well said, could not have put it better myself.l
Ditto.
A couple of weeks ago the Beeb were doing a programme about stress in the teaching profession, and the calamity and misery and huge amount of teachers on sick leave .
Public sector workers get paid when sick .
Private sector most often don’t .
So in the haulage industry of 400 000 there were 6 people going sick with stress , whilst in the public sector ( like the BBC) there were 24 0000 million days off sick due to stress .
The problem lies in career politicians who cannot have a real conversation with ordinary people. Why can’t Cameron just speak to everyone as he would do his friends? Why can’t he just explain how throwing more money at the NHS will not improve it AT ALL!?
It’s because the Conservatives are no longer loyal to the very thing they are good at – increasing living standards for all.
David Cameron is no more than a politician. He isn’t a visionary, a pioneer, or inspirational. He is cowardly in his approach to addressing the people of Britain faced with a national debt that will be with us for at least two generations hence. Cameron fears more for his own position as Prime Minister than the fate of a nation saddled with sickening levels of debt and a deficit that will need to be eradicated before we can even think about paying it off!
Where are the selfless politicians who dare to broadcast inconvenient truths? Where are the political heroes we so badly need to come to our rescue? A noble politician would be satisfied to be voted out knowing he has voiced his true feelings.
A politician usually feels some sort of debt to his masters, the electorate. I think Dave (and many others) have other agendas driven from above. And these values are not necessarily conservative or anything else but driven by another type of idealogy. We can only guess what that is, but it’s clear that it involves the EU, mass migration etc. and all the legacy parties seem to share it. It’s true all political leaders are terrified of engaging with people on the street except for Nigel Farage, which is what makes him so refreshing. I’m sure everybody here enjoyed it when he had a go at BBC bias at the debate (and at other times in recent years as well). I wish we could see more of that from others. Democracy can’t work without a free press, and it seems to me most of the fourth estate has been co-opted; just like the political parties. There does seem to be some hope, the internet (scummy as it may be), is keeping free speech and liberty on life support and we should all be grateful for that. Thank you for this blog.