By Andy Maciver, Political commentator and director, Message Matters
WHO trusts politicians? According to Ipsos MORI, less than one in five. No other profession is trusted less.
In my job, I work with dozens of politicians from all parties. Per hour, they must be amongst the lowest-paid public servants in the country. We demand much of them; they must be highly intelligent but also understand the lives of the poor, in attendance at every parliamentary vote but also at every local event, lead a healthy family lifestyle but also attend evening and weekend functions, often missing family birthdays, working 70-80 hours a week, and sometimes more. And they must do all of this for the salary of a middle-manager in a local authority.
In this context, why when they deserve credit do they receive derision; abuse rather than sympathy? Thinking about this, I return to an inescapable theme – our aggressively polarised party politics encourages opaque answers and calls into question whether the utterances of our politicians are a product of their own intelligence and experience, or implanted thought, taught and drilled over decades of tribal activism.
An obvious and topical example is the Israel/Palestine conflict. Politicians of the right say Israel has the right to defend itself against a savage terrorist organisation which deliberately places children and women in the line of fire, knowing that they will be killed, in order to win the international PR campaign against Israel. They are quite right. Those of the left rail against Israel for persistent and apparently enthusiastic over-reaction and use of excessive force. They’re right too. But the left cannot bring itself to condemn Hamas, just as the right persistently refuse to criticise the IDF.
This is not evasion or fence-sitting. This is just what is. Israel and Palestine will be peaceful when their leaders have an unmitigated thirst for that outcome. Currently, neither side’s leaders do. However our politicians appear blind to this because their worldview is constructed not by what they should see in front of them but by the collective, un-nuanced view of the tribe.
Closer to home, unfortunately, we are no less tribal. In the land of the Enlightenment, we have grown sceptical of intelligence and hostile to discussion. Ours is a discourse where #lovetheNHS is a healthcare policy rather than a cop-out which intentionally stifles debate. Where #frackoff informs our energy and economic policy rather than being dismissed as non-think. Where, for any sake, those of us who voted No to independence feel compelled to support Madrid while the Yessers amongst us buy a Catalonian flag.
It would not be so corrosive if we at least conducted our debate with civility. But there’s the real problem – our politicians, from top to bottom, behave repugnantly toward one another. We are vile.
I’ve been watching Bobby Kennedy for President on Netflix. RFK’s platform was shaped not by his party, nor by his brother, but by his own morality, his own life and his own experiences. As I watch it I can’t help but wonder if something better is available in our country, as Bob Kennedy made available to his in 1968, only to be cut down by a bullet. He said: “Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not.”
Where are our great men and women today, who dream things that never were and say, why not? Do we have them? I believe we do. Let them define themselves, not be defined by their tribe. Let them lead, not be led. And let them practice decency, not disrespect. They’d soon see their ratings rise.
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