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?
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.
