It’s about the policies, stupid

I am not an American (as I might have mentioned before), but – since whoever sits in The Oval Office apparently has a direct influence on my life and the lives of everyone else in my country – I have occasionally been paying attention to the reality tv show that is the general election.

And, because I come here most days to (try to) write witty and stunningly insightful entries about my life, or to catch up on notes and friends, I also tend to notice diary entries from other diarists about the general election. 

But while I notice them, I tend not to actually read them. Because – as far as I can tell – they don’t actually have any substance to them. 

No – they just seem to be about calling the person they aren’t voting for insulting names and explaining why they are liars. 
 

Not that this is any surprise. From what I can gather, that’s all that politics is about nowadays. 

It’s not about the policies, stupid, it’s about insulting your opponent as well and as often as you can. You don’t have to provide anything of substance, you just have to show why your opponent can’t do it. Because – apparently – if your opponent can not provide any decent policies or any decent plans, then you win by default because you must be better than he is, right?

Now normally at this point I would get all smug and superior about British politics and say that our politicians would never behave in such an infantile and insulting way. They wouldn’t treat the people asking for their votes like children, and they certainly wouldn’t actively indulge in negative campaigning. 

Unfortunately it seems that our current crop of MPs are actually the same. The government seems to blame every unpopular thing it does on the fact the previous government got things a bit wrong, and the opposition does nothing but attack the government without providing any alternatives of their own.

It is a plague on both their houses, and something I am pretty sure we imported from over the pond (like a fair number of other things that are either ruining or have the potential to ruin this country). But regardless of where it came from, it is here, and there doesn’t seem to be much to do about it. 

But just once – just once – I would like to see an election campaign run where the candidate does not mention their opponent at all. Where every statement is about them, about what they can do and how they will do it. Just once I would like to see someone do that, because I suspect it would be a sight to behold.

Just once I would like to see someone say "it’s about the policies, stupid" and mean it.