When you walk a dog you meet some strange people and have strange half-conversations. This morning I met my father and a young couple taking their baby-buffer puppy for a walk - they were walking and the dog was wrapped up in a blanket being carried (strange people) and had a half conversation with a woman who said, "It's alright he's friendly enough." I began to wonder what friendly enough might mean. In my experience, most good dogs aren't really very friendly at all, they sort-of ignore each other, after they've sniffed bums and decided that they aren't from the same pack they just go on their way. They pretend to be friendly, look excited, wag their tails, sometimes jump up at the owner of the other dog for a pat on the head or a treat from the pocket but often that is followed by a dodging move, where both dogs pretend that no interaction was ever intended in the first place. Obviously, she might have been telling me that her dog didn't bite but I had already assumed that from the flexi-lead and the lack of muzzle but I suppose you can never tell, as some owners are just stupid.
This thought about stupid people led me onto thinking about politics, which has been bothering me since the Rochester by-election. There is a general election coming up and I think the world and it's attitude to politics has gone completely crazy. No one seems to know what any party stands for anymore and people are voting for the MP that looks friendly enough. We all know that at any moment they could bite but seeing a smiling man in a pub looking friendly enough can win many people's vote. Even if that man is saying that he will abolish the department for culture because it won't be needed when they send back all the non-British, people still thinks he looks friendly enough. Even if he says that he opposes all measures to stop climate change and plans to blow up all wind farms that's OK because he still looks friendly enough. Even if he says that he will refuse anyone who is HIV positive in the country then that's not a problem because he looks friendly enough. Even if he wants to legalise handguns then that will be perfectly fine because he looks friendly enough.
A colleague said that he was thinking that if UKip won many more seats we should all just leave, which might be necessary because I doubt many of us have pure ancient Briton genes, but I quite like it here. Admittedly, I'd probably like it even better in the Caribbean.
Since the by-election a Labour MP was sacked for tweeting a picture of a house. Ed Miliband was apparently shown up by Myleene Klass, although I watched the programme and seeing her squeak, "You can't just point your finger and tax things" and watching him laugh at her ignorance didn't make me think he'd been shown up. The hashtag #cameronmustgo has been trending on twitter. Politics is dead. It has become a joke.
I'm not surprised. What sane person would want to be an MP? Everything you say will be twisted, you will have to make decisions about impossible things, you will age 10 years in the space of 2. If you have a semi-detached house in London and you are a Socialist the Daily Mail will print a picture of it and accuse you of being a millionaire. If you are a Conservative The Guardian will write wordy articles about what you are doing wrong that most people will never read all of. I know there are people who say that there are benefits, such as being able to award yourself a 10% pay rise and having an extra housing allowance but money isn't everything. It's not a job I'd do for any amount of money.
I'm quite upset about the sacking or resignation (depending on which bit of the press you read) of Emily Thornberry. I don't know her and I don't know if she is snobbish and looks down on the poor but I do know that this was her tweet.
I can't see the judgement. England flags are the adopted symbol of those people who claim to want a 'white britain' and the council seat of Rochester had just been won by an MP whose party wants just that. My daughter sent me this picture of her MPs office on the Narborough Road in Leicester.
I very much doubt if the MP put the flag there herself, as she represents a very diverse electorate. I find the idea that people who claim to love England are prepared to deface the flag in this way and I'm very confused about the concept of Anglophobes. This makes me very worried and think that most people just aren't being friendly enough.
Emily Thornberry may be a snob, who doesn't like flags or she may be someone who thinks three is overdoing things slightly. I don't know. Maybe you know what she was thinking but I don't. The press phoned her to ask her what she was doing by tweeting it and she just said that she thought the image was 'extraordinary'. I don't think extraordinary implies judgement it just means more than ordinary.
I'm upset because I want a bit more fight in my MPs. I want someone to represent me who is prepared to stand up for what they believe in and not cave in to the first journalist who sees things differently. In the last few days Ed Miliband has been running round saying that he loves white vans and quite frankly that is extraordinary. There is such a thing as being too friendly.
People don't like Emily Thornberry though because she is wealthy. She worked hard at school, became a human rights lawyer and then a barrister and married a man with a title who is a high court judge. She invested some of her wealth in property. This seems to be the biggest crime a labour party MP can make. How dare they not be from the North, be fighting their way out of a wet paper bag and wearing cardboard boxes for shoes? To be a socialist, the aim is to lift yourself out of poverty and then pay a decent amount of tax to lift others out of poverty. It is not to stay forever poor. We need educated socialist politicians and educated clever people have usually had careers that pay them very well before they go into politics (or have a good inheritance, so they could start politics early). Gladstone, Disraeli, Joseph Rowntree, Octavia Hill and even Nye Bevan (I know his Dad was a coal miner but he had scholarships to the best schools and universities) weren't poor when they made lasting changes that gave workers rights and helped the poor lead healthier and happier lives. I know that labour politicians have a hard time from the press and can't win whatever they do and I remember when Michael Foot was pilloried for wearing a warm but not very expensive coat. Maybe she had to go because she wasn't friendly enough.
The idea that you have to be poor or Northern to understand what people are going through is bonkers. All it takes is compassion. At the weekend I noticed that India Knight (a twitterati journalist) was accused of not understanding what it was like to be an immigrant by someone because her mother (who was a Pakistani immigrant) married a wealthy man. I don't think that person was being friendly enough.
Theresa May was on Desert Island Discs this week, with unsurprisingly conservative music choices (Fanfare for the Common Man, Elgar Cello Concerto and Magic Flute) and when she was accused of being boring and not going to the pub with other MPs (I'm sure Sue Lawley put it much more eloquently than that though) she said that she thought women in politics should be allowed to be who they are and not pretend to be something they're not. This is probably the only thing I will ever agree with Theresa May over but I think she needs to be careful, as not going to the pub could be seen as not being friendly enough.
I would like to turn it round. I think it's time that we were all friendly enough and gave the politicians a bit of a break and let them get on with running the country and while we're at it we could give the teachers a bit of a break and let them get on with teaching our children. In fact let's just try to be friendly enough, sniff a few bottoms, decide not to bite and move on.
No comments:
Post a Comment