David Gildeh

After glazing through last nights debate and starting to get slightly political recently, I have to say I’m really disappointed with our politics in the UK. We have two main parties who constantly engage in a slagging match and the ones that annoy me the most with their petty slander are the Conservatives.

Recently the Conservatives have plastered posters of Gordon Brown smiling all around the country with statements basically blaming him for loads of problems which frankly were out of his hands. The global recession was not Labour’s fault – it was loads of people’s fault all over the world – but to blame him for record unemployment, record debt like they could do any better, is just ridiculous and sad. Sadder still when Gordon Brown in internationally recognised as one of the key players to take the lead not just in averting a huge economic meltdown in the UK, but across the world as other countries like the US followed suite with the policies he started. So taking a bunch of issues that are clearly the result of a large global recession and blaming him is ridiculous and patronises my intelligence.

The other day a complete twat – a 24 year old Labour Politian up for election – was fired for using racist and completely unacceptable Twitter messages for someone hoping to be elected, and the Conservatives also jumped on that bandwagon trying to take “advantage” of the press showing another Labour gaff. The thing is though, every large organisation has rogue employees and members, but it doesn’t necessarily reflect on the top management. Do I really believe Gordon Brown and his cabinet even use Twitter and keep abreast with what’s going on instead of running the country?! The way the Conservatives responded you would have thought so! I guess David Cameron probably does waste his time on Facebook and Twitter then… Stop patronising our intelligence here, do you really think we’re that stupid to believe this one member is a reflection on the state of the whole Labour party?!

So even though I’m probably a Conservative at heart (an undecided one at best) I’m afraid they’ve completely disillusioned me with this crap. They’re throwing stones in glass houses, we all know full well if they came into power they would probably do about the same, if that! I truly believe Gordon Brown has done a lot for Enterprise and the Economy, two issues I care about being a new Entrepreneur, and I doubt the Conservatives would have handled the recession as gracefully. But they’re not offering anything of significant value or difference that would suggest they could do a better job than the present government, so blaming them for things they would fall foul to themselves had it been the other way around is just silly.

To be honest, the only major party with any original ideas are the Lib Dems, but unfortunately for them I don’t support higher taxes, believe their banking penalties on bonuses will work, or infact many of the other ideas they’ve come up with. However it is good to get new ideas and I’d be very happy with a Labour/Lib Dem coalition. The experience and credibility of Labour balanced with fresh blood and ideas from the Lib Dems would definitely reinvigorate things.

But definitely not Conservatives right now, not only for the way they’ve acted with the slander, but if anything because David Cameron simply comes across as a smug public school toff – or dick for the unpolitically correct like me. Maybe the slander is a reflection on him, the kind of guy who used to be the Eton boy jock and make fun of all the boys he didn’t like at school, but I don’t believe he has any substance beyond the shallow soundbytes. And the shadow chancellor, who looks pretty much the same type and frankly too young and inexperienced to be running a country’s finances, isn’t helping…

And finally it really (really!) annoys me that the David Cameron is trying to start a grass roots campaign for the General Election on the back of what Obama did in the US. Obama did it because he was inspiring – he inspired me and I’m not even American. David Cameron does not inspire anyone, and if he really believes he can get than kind of grass roots campaign going for him he must be on cloud 9!

You could criticise me for judging a book by its cover, and I would accept that. Right now I really can’t remember (or care) to differentiate between the policies of both main parties, and as we all know most campaign promises are usually empty to win votes and get quickly forgotten afterwards. So for me it really does come down to the person – who I can imagine leading and running this country best, and David Cameron it isn’t.

But what’s most disappointing is how stagnant our politics has become. Our politics is becoming increasingly slanderous and petty, the public have become apathetic to lying Politians who are completely unoriginal in their soundbytes, approaches and policies. Basically Whitehall has developed a stagnant culture that promotes the same old crap to the top keeping Eton boys and rich kids running the country. Where is our Barack Obama? Someone who came from nothing and inspires people around the world with hope? Could someone like him even get to be Prime Minister in this country?

The only Prime Minister that really made a radical difference to the UK and the world we live in was Thatcher (in my opinion) – that was over 20 years ago now! We need another Thatcher, or we need our own Obama. A mixture of the both would be amazing. Thatcher – get things done and drive through the difficult changes that need to be done but everyone’s afraid to admit or do, with the hope and inspiration of Obama. If that person appeared one day, they’d definitely get my vote, but you’re probably not going to get someone like that from Eton so we need to really shake things up!