Been thinking to myself a lot recently. You know me, I think a lot. While I'm lying in the sun, dreaming of chasing the tennis ball, biting Frida and cuddling my folks - a few thoughts on current affairs have been creeping into my head. In order to get across my thoughts I'm gonna write them down as though they're a conversation with my dad. He's my intellectual inferior (as, indeed, are many - so no offence) but he'll serve a purpose today.
TZ: Hey dad, you read the Guardian today?
Jaff: No son, i read the Sport and Nuts: I like the pictures better.
TZ: Pfft, I should have known...anyway: Gordo's seen better days as PM, the knives are out (still). It does my head in. I was wondering, do you think people get on his back more because he's ugly?
Jaff: He is ugly, and he does that weird thing where he drops his jaw after every sentence, sometimes just when there's a comma in the sentence.
TZ: Yeah, that's pretty odd. Just that, I heard on Radio 4 the other day that we pretty much had a period of economic growth last quarter (like only 0.05% or something) but I was thinking, that in the midst of a global recession, how can any leader be criticised given this information? I know the expenses thing was a bit rubbish but are we not looking for some broad strokes here? I fear we might get too tied down in the minutiae at such a critical time.
Jaff: Hmm, maybe like...
TZ: Well, for starters, from what I've seen the Tories have been slightly worse than the other parties re expenses (which can only be seen as ironic seen as the paper to have leaked the 'scandal' in the bleedin' Torygraph). Yet everyone around here wants to See Gordo's head on a block. It's not very good is it.
Jaff. Crap.
TZ: Well I put it to you that it's because of how he looks. The media find it so easy to find horrible photo's of him looking stressed and tired. Plus, poor enunciation and ill-fitting suits really don't help his public speeches. Compare him with some other past leaders and I think we'll see a pattern. For some unbeknownst reason people thought that Margaret Thatcher was presentable, nay attractive, even sexy to some idiots! But to her media savvy credit, she had neat hair, wasn't overweight, had a great speech writer etc etc. The guy that followed her (the grey dude...erm, Major that's him) was well, grey and dull and typically Tory. Didn't last long at all.
Jaff: True, but was it not like the poll tax and Black Friday that did for him?
TZ: Well, can't those policies be seen as an extension of Thatcherism? It's all well and good to blame him, especially as he was chancellor under the Iron Idiot, but really...he's just another ignorant Tory that didn't care about anywhere North of Cambridge. Not the arch Twat Thatcher was. Indeed, I've read a book where he blames Thatcher for tying his hands as chancellor but blaming him when it went wrong: yet -when PM - he was painted as being boring, dull and grey: his wife even had a boring name!
Jaff: What's your point?
TZ: Well, my point is that people often don't care about policy. They want their leader to be charismatic, charming and attractive. Probably because that's how they see see themselves, even though most of them are cretins. So people liked Thatcher, even though she was abhorrent and destroyed ways of life willy-nilly, because she turned out nice...but boring Major got the boot at the first sign of discontent. I see a similar pattern with the Blair to Brown transition...Tony Blair took us into an illegal war, supported the deregulation of the financial system, removed/amended clause 4 from the Labour party's manifesto but was handsome so it's all been forgotten. Hail to the handsome dude. Now bring in Gordo - ah, it's all gone a bit to shit, and he looks a bit crap, get rid of him.
Jaff: Aye, perhaps. Is that what happened with what's-his-name who tried to lead the Tories after Major.
TZ: Both Iain Duncan Smith and indeed William Hague (the gentleman to whom I believe you are referring) suffered from looking a little, well crap. No one was too bothered as the Tories were so unelectable at the time. Same too for Menzies Campbell. Yet, both those parties have sworn in new, dare I say it, 'handsome' leaders recently. Well, ones that don't look like aliens anyway. People are more bothered that their leader looks good than has decent policies. What anyone thinks millionaire idiot David Cameron has in common with the voting mass I'll never know, but he'll win the next election for the Tories you mark my woofs...
Jaff: Perhaps you're right Tee Zee.
TZ: Well, I know I'm only looking over the last twenty years or so, and the argument that Neil Kinnock wasn't ugly is fair enough. Arthur Scargill, though, who was massively influential in the labour party at that time used to come across as some kind of socialist Picasso painting with a 'death warrants for the middle classes' T-shirt on. He had more to do with them not getting elected than Kinnock's looks. There was a study done in the US recently that said people voted for candidates that look presidential (hence GW Bush getting in, as he looked exactly like his dad who was president, well that and the cheating).
Jaff: So what you're saying is that the 'tits-out' culture of Nuts, Big brother and Heat magazine has infiltrated politics to the nth degree. Is that not good seen as that's what people like, and government is supposed to represent the people not tell them what they want to have represented?
TZ: Perhaps, I don't know. I just thought we lived in country where giving asylum, the welfare state, national education and health services would and should be important than someone dropping their jaw in speeches. Lets save the good suits and haircuts for popstars and have some sensible fair policies from our MPs.
Jaff: Nice one, you're right...now, don't go to sleep there - you're on top of my Zoo magazine and it's a Danni Lloyd special
Or something like that. I'm only a dog though, so what do I know? Instead of talking politics I should stick to chasing balls. On that theme, why am I not at Wimbledon? I'd make a great ball dog...
