Friday 24 April 2009

Thought of the day


Yesterday I sat down and read the most recent issues of Spectator and Prospect magazines cover to cover. You really get a good sense of the political positions of magazines like this when you read them side by side.

The conclusion I came to was this:

Labour hate people. Tories hate people too.

Labour pretend to like people by arguing for big government, lots of spending, lots of services. Tories pretend to like people by arguing for less government, less spending, less services. Though I'm clearly boiling this down to its lowest common denominator (and partly for the shock factor fun of it), the point is that the politicos in both parties think they know better than the people they supposedly represent. Whether they say so of course is another matter altogether...

More on this later.

7 comments:

CiarĂ¡n said...

errmmmm Crystal, isn't that the way it should be though? I'd hope that what ever country I was in the Finance minister would know more about Economics than me, same goes for almost any ministry. The problem comes when you have people in charge that haven't a clue or have a load of half baked ideas.

Gorilla Bananas said...

Maybe they do know better than the people they represent. It's not a feat that requires much wisdom.

Phoenecia said...

And yet, I bet both of you consider yourselves to be liberals. Supposedly one of the most dearly held beliefs of liberalism is a fundamental optimism about human nature.

And yet here we have nothing but pessimism. Do you really think that people are so incompetent/untrustworthy/idiotic as to not be able to decide whether or not they should be followed by ten trillion CCTV cameras.

Again, I put it to you that aggressive apathy is neither a political party nor a political system.

Gorilla Bananas said...

Liberal? I'm a Gorilla-Buddhist. And I'm not apathetic either. Those CCTV cameras are an essential tool for rooting out the evil-doers and giving them a good thrashing. The application of the cane to the buttocks is my remedy for the social ills of humanity.

Phoenecia said...

So perhaps the conclusion I should have come to was that everyone hates people, not just politicians.

Max said...

I certainly do!

Anonymous said...

love the idea there's only two options?? Ok, so the others won't get in (a lament to the sad state of our managed political system - the possibility of the conservatives getting in is clearly the least bad option for either party of anyone actually wanting real reform getting in). Old enough to remember the last 2 years of the last Tory administration? Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. I weep for my country (and its inhabitants)