Somebody please put politics back into our politics

Donald Trump has a few admirable qualities.

Yes, that’s correct. I did just type that line and, what’s more, this hole I’m digging isn’t about to get any shallower, so before you reach for the biggest stick with which to beat me, allow me to double down on my irresponsibility by adding that there are many things about Jeremy Corbyn that I like. John McDonnell has some good ideas and Boris Johnson is not an entirely useless Foreign Secretary. Theresa May, meanwhile, has made some sensible decisions since she arrived in Downing Street. I can go further and suggest that Diane Abbott will bring something positive to the job of Shadow Home Secretary. Even Jacob Rees Mogg has demonstrably more wits than the playroom rocking horse he often resembles in manner and gait.

Now, of course, that’s not to say that I’m a devoted fan of any of the above but I am, I hope, a rational man with a reasonable point to make. I am tired of meaty outbursts on social media in which perspective is discarded for an absolutism borne in deep partisanship. No sooner do I write an article about ‘The Great British Bake Off’ than I’m attacked because the article didn’t address the threats posed by radical Islam. The Right accuse me of being on the Left who themselves scream at me for being on the Right. Such is the hell-in-a-handcart hectoring that never ceases; the drip drip drip of doom-mongery that eventually dulls one’s senses. Was Christian Holliday, a Conservative Councillor, being quite serious this week when he launched a petition to ‘to amend the Treason Felony Act to make supporting the UK membership of the EU a crime’? If he was then we’re in a far worse place than we ever feared. Barricades have been stormed for less.

Cynicism towards politicians – and, to an extent, the reporting of politics – is hardly new. Yet, even if examples such as Mr Holliday’s Stalinist petition warrant our scorn, cynicism has become too routine. Satire, once the reasonable tool of cartoonists, has transgressed its boundaries. Having become normalised, mockery has become the dull stuff of everyday politics. Spoof news is in the ascendancy and quality news in decline. Behind it lies the often voiced opinion that ‘they’re all as bad as each other’ and, to a degree, the cynics have a point. Donald Trump accuses Hillary Clinton of wanting to get rid of the Second Amendment. She replies by saying that Trump is a Russian stooge. Meanwhile, nothing meaningful is actually said between the two; just mutual loathing coded into sound bites.

This wouldn’t be so bad except none of it helps those we might describe as the ‘real people’. We have reached the point that if our grid is blocked, we wouldn’t expect a politician to say something as practical as ‘remove any leaves, rinse the grid, and flush the drain with some hot water.’ One politician will question the existence of leaves whilst another will say the problem lies up in the trees. Both fear giving the wrong advice so, in effect, they give no advice.

That is not, however, to say that politicians are at fault. Politicians reflect the nature of contemporary politics and it is the sphere of politics itself that makes them so wary. Politics has become strictly confrontational, especially in social media where debate is often feral. Talk radio swings between opposing opinions and unless you particularly enjoy this game of shuttlecock (with the emphasis definitely not on the shuttles) then, like me, you’re prone to feel increasingly despondent at what politics has become. The last Presidential Town Hall debate was characterised by questions from the audience that could well have been written by a partisan ten year old (and not even one of those ten year olds they make spelling bee documentaries about because they can spell ‘eudaemonic’). Even the public seem to believe that catching a politician in a lie is now more important than giving them chance to talk some sense.

It leaves us, then, with nothing good to say about any man or woman if that man or woman represents the counter to our own political point of view. Every mistake is there to be exploited, ridiculed, and displayed for the world to see. Last week, Boris Johnson admitted that he couldn’t describe the Commonwealth flag. The video went viral. What a fool he was, cried the multitude, most of whom would have failed to pick the Commonwealth logo out of a line up of embroidered wing-dings. Of course, it could be argued that those people are not the Foreign Secretary and the Commonwealth is part of his job remit but, equally, you could argue that Boris is simply human and that no Foreign Secretary, past or future, has fully mastered of his brief, not least within the first few months.

That, however, is to miss the point. There are no hits, clicks, or advertising revenue to be had in trying view politics through the prism of common sense. The media ridicule Boris in the same way as they report a monkey using an iPhone or a surfboarder getting nipped by a shark. The only thing that matters is the CPI (‘cost per impression’) that a story generates and, in truth, there’s not much cash to be made in Boris saying something sensible. Trump, meanwhile, is fair game for every allegation directed his way. The same could be true of Corbyn or Farage, Hammond or Hunt. Once the media decide it’s open season on a politician, then fairness, balance, and old fashioned journalistic integrity will not get in the way of a good CPI. In turn, politicians have become wary. Increasingly rare it is to see one who speaks anything other than the practiced party line. Competence means not getting into trouble rather than serving the interests of their constituents. They seem to believe that ‘professionalism’ means much more than being a real politician.

Yet fallibility should be no more reason to condemn some politicians any more than infallibility is the reason we elect others. Politicians represent us and that should mean, in a sense, representing us in our faults, doubts, and insecurities. We should learn to be less critical when politicians make mistakes, change their minds, or even say something that is later shown to be wrong. What we need is a political climate in which debate, argument, disagreement, and compromise remain the business of politics. A politician who performs a u-turn is a politician true to their calling. It is those wedded to ideas in the face of evidence and reason that we should fear. Jeremy Hunt was right when he said on Radio 4 on Monday morning that ‘if we weren’t having lively debates in cabinet you would be saying what’s happened to cabinet government, why aren’t you going through incredibly thoroughly to make sure we end up with the right decision.’

It is, however, expecting too much so long as the media sustain the feedback loop by which politicians are encouraged to engage in oppositional politics in the name of web statistics. As news channels cut back on their coverage, they invest more in glossy ads, designed to appeal to social media, thereby generating greater ad revenue. And as the news media reflect social media, they begin to reinforce what social media reports. This is where we are today, with a cycle that continues to push opinion to the extremes, widening the gap in the centre such that everybody is so busy shouting that nobody is left listening.