Don't put politics before common sense.

I am an avid follower of political events around the world and I really don't know why, because politicians frustrate the hell out of me!  They really are a strange breed.  What motivates individuals to be representatives of the people, when the real agenda is looking after number one, themselves?  Are there really any 'conviction' politicians or is that just a tactic to feed their own egotistic traits?  Why does the electorate keep coming back for more and expect the next generation of political animals to be any different?  The answer to the last question must surely be because there is nowhere else to go. There are some pretty crunchy national and international issues that affect all of us and generations to come.  So the politicians' jobs are extremely important and democracy does give the populace some influence on national and to a lesser extent, international governance.

I met a guy who had been on a course aimed at teaching people how to deal with the media.  He told me he had been taught the ABC technique for dealing with questions, which apparently most politicians learn.  Seemingly, when you are faced with a difficult question from a reporter you Acknowledge the question, Bridge across to something you prepared earlier and then take Control by talking about what you wanted to talk about in the first place!  So Acknowledge could be "That's an interesting issue........", the Bridge could be a simple "but........", and Control might be "What I really want to get across is that........".  Next time you watch a programme like the BBC's Question Time, observe how many times variations of the ABC technique are employed to avoid difficult questions.

From my comments thus far, you will gather I don't believe politicians are very good value for money, but can they do any harm?  Yes, I believe they can and let me provide a very recent example.  One of the major political issues disrupting life in the UK right now is the European Union - in or out?  Well I don't want this post to stray into the minefield of independence versus dependence, at least not directly.  But I would encourage the reader to raise the level of thinking beyond the UK, those little islands off the north west coast of mainland Europe, to world trade.  After all, the global economy transcends all national boundaries and if the global economy collapses, we all perish.  Earlier this week, a group of British businessmen, including Richard Branson and Martin Sorrell, wrote a letter published in the UK's Independent newspaper urging the government not to pull the UK out of the European Union.  They made the point that the benefits of membership overwhelmingly outweigh the costs and to suggest otherwise is "putting politics before economics".  I think that is an understatement.  In my opinion, this issue is yet another example of self-gratifying politicians putting politics before COMMON SENSE.

Whatever, your views on Europe, it must be obvious to all that the issue has become purely a political debate in the UK, triggered by the success of UKIP in the local elections.  Politicians are concerned firstly for themselves and secondly for their party, although their party is a very poor second.  So survival tactics have become the name of the game.  Political debates become full of populist statements and where there are audiences, searching for the maximum applause.  But returning to the example of the BBC's Question Time programme, I have noticed how very often, in my opinion, the quality of the audience is better than the quality of the panel.  So if the audiences are representative samples of the 'public at large', i.e. the electorate, then maybe that's why apathy (reflected in election turnouts) has been so apparent in recent years.

People power has never been greater, particularly with the effectiveness of social media, so hopefully democracy will improve.  Maybe online voting will one day replace archaic ballot boxes and voting slips.  Whatever, the aim should be for common sense to take precedence over politics but common sense is not very common! :-)