Tuesday 8 June 2010

Politicians@Work: Doorstop Demagogues

How important it is to be in tune with the man in the street: and how useful when he gives you such clear, yet nuanced input that's so in keeping with your own views.

"Plumped on Andrew Marr's soft seat on Sunday, David Miliband kept a straight face** as he claimed: 'What people said to me on the doorstep was we think you're doing the right thing with this points-based system; we think you're doing the right thing with the phased entry of Romania and Bulgaria, but why did it take you so long?'."

And I expect that was lots and lots of people wasn't it, David, who had these nice and detailed things to say about phased entry and points systems ? But it isn't just Banana-Boy who encountered these acute street-level political philosophers: Ed Balls did, too, and they said:

"Look, we're not racist, and we support our EU membership and we know that immigration's important for the NHS, but look what it's doing to my community, to my child's job prospects, to our housing queues."

Well of course MiliBalls would mostly have been knocking on doors in Labour areas. When I went canvassing during the election, what people said to me was:

"Look, we agree with transferring macro-prudential oversight of the financial sector to the Bank of England, and you are doing the right thing on the introduction of smart-grid technology, but we don't think David Cameron should wear that green tie."

What did they say to you on the doorstep ?

ND


** which is quite difficult for him

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

They said,

"The security camera in front of the lift has been vandalised; what are you going to do about it?" and,

"I'm German/Italian/Latvian/you name it... have I a vote?"

Still, I nailed the complaining Italian,

"Genoveffa" I said, "One of Cinderella's ugly sisters, wasn't she?"
Oh well, much too old and ugly to have children needing a school south of the Euston Road, so we didn't care about her vote anyway.

But the chorus was,

'No more Brown."

I regret that I was not nearly fanciful enough in delineating Brown - Bloomsbury has originality, style, inventiveness, venom.

hg

Bill Quango MP said...

Mostly people complained about pot holes, parking and how useless they thought Brown was.

Jan said...

Milliballs are both turncoats like their mentors TB and the sainted Alistair and Mandy: "It wasn't me guv"

ModernLibertarian said...

"Get off my doorstep"

Budgie said...

Canvassing for UKIP in a previous election one oldie said: "Are you going to cut my pension like the Conservatives?"