Politicians

[woodrot]

On the whole, anyone who wants to be a politician is pretty much vermin.

Who is your least favourite UK politician & all round oxygen thief ?

Ed balls & Yvette Cooper - the pair of them make me dry retch whenver I see them together, usually pictured trying to dance at conferences, cold, dead eyes & rictus grins smeared across their shitty smug faces

[StraferJack]

And back in snorkys world... What would the reality be?

Problems with the system? Amen

Anyone who wants to engage and try and change it are vermin? Poor, poor

[woodrot]

your feeble attempt at derail is noted - back to the question - what politicians fill you with deep unease?

[StraferJack]

Never liked that Ben Bradshaw. Glad he beat his odious opponent back in 97 but even so

(Had to pick a less obvious one than Gideon. But really, it's him who makes me hold my daughter close and pray to a god I don't believe in)

[*Bob*]

It would have been Esther Rantzen.

Shame she lost her deposit. See? The electorate doesn't always get it wrong.

[Salsaboy]

Blair. Pure and simple.

[????]

Mellor anyone? And though everyone seemed to rave about his diaries, Clarke was a deeply unpleasant man. Modern ones, got to go with the harperson, I honestly shudder.

[katie1997]

Blair & Brown.

[El Pibe]

So many new labour folk, but aside from the really obvious ones Blunkett deserves a stab at most awful politician of the last decade.

Gove of the current crop.

[Loz]

Harriet Harmen. Euch. Just reeks with insincerity.

[the-e-dealer]

Mac alpine

[Jessie]

Ha, yes seconded, ted, mcalpine.

[Burbage]

woodrot Wrote:

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> On the whole, anyone who wants to be a politician

> is pretty much vermin.

That's a bit unfair. Not all politicians arrive via the route of a meaningless degree and a nepotisitic (or horizontal) Westminster job. The majority still come from what they call the 'grass roots'.

These are usually people who start off by thinking that a difference needs to be made, and that they're the person for the job. Especially if their current job isn't paying all the bills.

After a bit of research, however, they find out that to stand any chance of being elected to anything, they have to join a party. So that's what they do. And after a few years of being 'active' (lots of brown-nosing and door-stepping and envelope-stuffing and agreeing with whatever they're told to agree with), they'll simper enough at a selection committee to get nominated for a councillorship, which means lots of committees and surgeries and answering the phone to people complaining about bins or leaves or next-door's cat, and provided they don't say anything wrong or possibly misinterpretable at that job, they might be deemed a safe enough pair of hands to be sounded out as a candidate for MP.

Up till that point, they're almost human. Some councillors, despite being deeply odd, aren't obviously on the take, and genuinely want to make things happen, if only to stop the complaints or to get their picture in the paper again. They may have lost any illusions about making a difference, but that's understandable. Just see Cllr Barber's thread for a comprehensive list of very good reasons.

But for some, if their noses are brown enough, Westminster may beckon. And few will resist the lure of ?60k and a staff budget and a little bit of plutocratic privilege to make up for the years they've spent canvassing and flattering and sitting in meetings on behalf of people they didn't much like to start with. Now, it's payback time, and that's when they become vermin.

But while we have a partisan democracy, we'll never get anything better. A few independents will have a go, but unless they're in a constituency where people vote on the basis of something other than tradition, it's a hiding to nothing. Those that we have had, with only a couple of exceptions, are usually MPs already who just happen to have ditched their party or vice versa.

For me, my least favourite has to be Tessa Jowell. If only because she's (on occasion) nearest.

[janicemuir]

You need help.

[janicemuir]

her constituents don't share your views given that they have returned her as their MP for 30 years now.

[Huguenot]

I think most people vote for a party, not an individual in national elections, so Tessa Jowell's reelection tells us very little in terms of her quality or competence.

I thought Burbage's pr?cis of a parliamentary career was perfectly astute.

I'm more inclined to think MPs as idiots rather than vermin. I guess the nicest thing you could say is that by the time they reach parliament they've been ruined by the years of compromises they need to engage in to get there.

Visionary thinkers don't really fit into party hierarchies.