There was a time when politicians seemed human, but most today come across as overly-rehearsed and permanently defensive spreadsheet managers with every answer calculated, writes Brian Reade
There was an eye-opening drama on Channel 4 this week about Margaret Thatcher, called Brian and Maggie.
I’m not the Brian in question, I’m afraid, as I only met the great She-Devil once, as she hurried past me in a Blackpool hotel lobby during a conference and I shouted after her “when are you going to drop your vile Poll Tax?” She stopped, turned round and yelled back “Never. Because it’s right and just.” And I admired her for confronting me, a mere junior reporter.
The C4 drama concerned a famed 1989 interview between Thatcher and journalist Brian Walden played by Steve Coogan, when he left her rattled, and some say heralded her downfall (although I’d argue that point was overblown, just as I’d argue Steve Coogan sounded more like Roy Hodgson than Walden).
But what the drama managed to do brilliantly was remind us of a time when politicians who were grilled got angry, personal and spoke their mind. When they seemed human.
Today the majority come across as overly-rehearsed and permanently defensive spreadsheet managers with every answer calculated to rile the least amount of people.
They say what they think voters want to hear, not what they believe. If indeed they believe in anything other than their own ambition. As Labour member Coogan said, when interviewed about the drama: “I have no idea what anyone in this Labour government actually thinks. If they have any compassion or strong motivation it gets absorbed into the mush of a politics that isn’t really about anything.”
I couldn’t agree more. And it may help explain a survey of Britain’s Generation Z (those aged between 13 and 27) which found that 52% of them believe this would be a better country “if a strong leader was in charge who does not have to bother with parliament and elections.”
My first thought on reading that was that instead of cutting the voting age to 16 we should raise it to 28. My second was, who can blame them? They probably pine for strong leaders with strong principles because they don’t see any. When they do, they respond.
Think back to the so-called “youthquake” that got Jeremy Corbyn within a whisker of Downing Street in 2017 when he took 40% of the overall vote. It was the highest turnout of the 18-24 age group for 25 years and 62% of them voted for Corbyn’s Labour.
Maybe because, despite being derided even by a huge wing of his own party as a man out of time, Corbyn looked more principled, straighter and thus cooler than his rivals. He spoke about giving young people what my Boomer generation had taken for granted: job security, a roof above our head, a free education, hope.
Look at the recent American presidential election where 56% of young men voted for Donald Trump as youth rejected the vacuity of Kamala Harris and swung behind someone who pulled no punches and spelt out what he stood for.
The thing is you don’t have to like someone who sticks to their guns and speaks their mind regardless of whether it makes them unpopular, to admire them.
Politics would be a hell of a lot more interesting, and might even engage a disconnected audience, if its major players sounded human again, and less like AI robots assembled with the off-cuts from a focus group floor.
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