Let’s face it, the UK general election is going to be a travesty, and social media is to blame for much of the foolishness. It’s now guaranteed to be a triumph of marketing over actual policies, with the crucial vote of the lethargic young hanging on stupid and misleading impressions of each Party’s intentions, perpetrated by Twitter or amusing Facebook groups extolling negatives like “Not Voting For… X” At the moment David Cameron seems to be coming in for most of the hatred on Fbook, presumably because the young, the unemployed and terminally lazy on the interweb feel that he represents the interests of the rich rather than their own. Which is strange, because I haven’t ever been able to divine what, if anything, the post-Thatcher Conservative Party does represent. And also, I would have thought that the vast swathes of British people who are messing about online at the office rather than doing any actual work would rather like to keep their clearly pointless jobs for a bit longer yet… but the Cons are not going to get in, because they aren’t doing what the poor people think is required. And that’s a pity, because government is essentially an exercise in economics. So doing what poor people want isn’t a very good idea? Because I don’t think I’m being unkind in saying economics might not be their strong suit…
The LibDems have, as I see it, never had any policies apart from the “Keeping quiet so that you don’t make a dick of yourself” strategy, at which they excel, and this in combination with the two other main Parties’ stunning ability to make dicks of themselves at every turn, is probably the reason why the LibDems actually garner most of the votes. Bit unfair really, as I think everyone agrees, but since Britain’s not a democracy it doesn’t matter what most people think, does it? Otherwise motorway speed limits would be 85mph for cars, and there’d be no traffic wardens, and very possibly capital punishment for smackheads.
Labour on the other hand… Eighteen years in Opposition made these clowns so worried about being perceived as Communists that once they did accede to government, every time banks, big business and hedge fund managers asked for deregulation and growth incentives, they gave it, and now we live in a society where the rich are super-rich, the rest feel like second class citizens, your parents’ pensions are worthless and people actually get paid to have children in a feeble anti-crisis manoeuvre - you don’t need to be an economist to see that it’s glossing over the problem for the lifetime of our current politicians, and then it’s going to be suddenly even worse. If ever a policy glaringly highlighted human greed, that one does…
So, vote for the politician with the best haircut or the name of your favourite uncle. It’s a tried and tested strategy for not losing too much on the horses - if you don’t know what you’re doing, you may as well just guess…
