by Woollyback » Thu May 10, 2007 8:09 pm
billy connolly summed it up perfectly - "anyone who ever wanted to be a politician should be banned for life from ever being one"
the vast majority of politicians are in the job for personal gain. very few do it because they truly believe in a particular ideology. of the few in recent times who were genuine, 2 are dead (mo mowlem, tony banks) and the other one is margaret thatcher.
thatcher was a complete nightmare for many people but she was a necessity. she was the perfect prime minister for her time. it took a leader with balls of steel to drag britain out of the gutter in the early 80's amidst racial unrest, economic recession and the demise of britain's manufacturing industry, and a war fought 8000 miles away at sea. if it wasn't for thatcher britain would STILL be in the gutter. we wouldn't be competing with france, germany & japan, we'd be second class citizens in europe competing with poland and the rest of the eastern bloc
thatcher gave british people something they hadn't had for a long time - opportunity. for years our country had a culture of dragging everybody down to the lowest common denominator. the tories turned that cancer on it's head by rewarding hard work, risk and success and gave us a country where everybody wanted to drag themselves up to the HIGHEST common denominator. that's the legacy she left this country and blair has dined out on it for the last 10 years. if it's made some people very very rich then so what? they're the people who put their balls on the chopping block in the 80's and gambled their homes on setting up in business. don't forget those people now employ countless thousands of men & women
the trouble is now that people with real ideologies don't get elected. politics now is very americanised - the cult of personality has taken over. elections aren't won on real policies or proper manifestos. elections are now won on what suit you wear, how white your teeth are, and who your celebrity cronies are. for an affluent country we have an incredibly stupid electorate, completely unable to understand what the different parties actually offer. the net effect? the main parties throw their ideologies out the window and just go for what wins elections in this country - cheap soundbites, bandwagon jumping & toothy white smiles
it's a load of old b*ll*c*ks i tells ya
b*ll*c*ks and s*i*e