The lowest levels of trust in politicians have been recorded. This was evident even before Thursday’s defeat of the Tories at North Shropshire.
And, yes, I know that saying we don’t trust politicians is a bit like announcing there’s a pretty good chance the sun will rise in the East tomorrow.
My apologies for saying the obvious. After all, columns like this are meant to tell you things that maybe you didn’t know.
So let’s try this statement for size: it’s not necessarily the politicians’ fault.
Is it too much to take in?
Especially coming from a man who’s spent roughly half his life interviewing politicians and trying to nail them to the studio floor.
A man who’s tried to prove the old gag that you can tell a politician is lying when you see their lips move.
Lying is what they do, isn’t it? They may not be all there, but they are enough to establish the tone.
The lowest recorded level of trust in politicians has been reached (pictured: Tony Blair). This was evident even before Thursday’s defeat of the Tories at North Shropshire.
Yes, I know that saying we don’t trust politicians is a bit like announcing there’s a pretty good chance the sun will rise in the East tomorrow. Sorry for being obvious.
When they’re not trying to dodge a perfectly reasonable question by insisting they’ve already answered it, they simply resort to making stuff up.
Sometimes they behave like saloon bar chancers because they’re simply greedy and regard the public purse as their own little piggy bank to keep them in the style to which they’re accustomed.
Douglas Hogg was a Tory MP who claimed several grand for his expenses to get his moat clear.
They sometimes offer whatever little influence they have to the next bidder even though the rules prohibit it. The oil sheikhs are their favorite target. In the latest grubby little exposé, this week, the MP needed the cash to pay his kids’ school fees. This is as though it’s acceptable.
And if they’ve had a great deal of influence, such as being a former prime minister, they can aim even higher. Then, as David Cameron demonstrated, you’re talking millions, not thousands.
Undelightful is the fancy word to describe this kind of stuff. The other word for this is sleazy. This explains why only 5% believe that our elected officials act for the best interest of the country and not their own.
It is so sad.
How sad that politicians have forfeited the nation’s trust in them.
And how strange that someone like me, who’s been accused of contributing to this erosion of trust, should now be suggesting that perhaps it’s not their fault.
And if they’ve had a great deal of influence, such as being a former prime minister, they can aim even higher. Then, as David Cameron demonstrated, you’re talking millions, not thousands
Maybe. But there’s a problem with that word ‘forfeited’. The word ‘forfeited’ suggests it once was that politicians did not have time to pluck their nests as they were busy being polished by the grateful citizens. However, such an opportunity never existed.
I’ll take you back in time to Robert Walpole. He was a man of vision. The longest serving prime minister. He was also known as a double-dealer who used his personal funds to fund his incontinent sexual lifestyle.
However, that was only 300 years ago.
According to Victorian legend, moral probity was the guiding principle.
That’s not to say that Gladstone admirers were surprised at the revelations. Gladstone was known for his relationships with simple women. His foreign secretary once said he’d known nine prime ministers, five of whom had committed adultery.
Then there was another great prime minister, Lloyd George, a man not averse to a little insider-trading and flogging of honours to finance his ‘personal’ political fund.
That wily old prime minister Harold Macmillan summed it up nicely in the 1950s: ‘If it’s morality you want, go and ask the bishops.’
It is perhaps too high of us to expect politicians to follow the rules and display some decorum.
Are you too cynical My own experiences over half a century spent as an outsider are telling me that I am not as cynical, but rather unrealistic.
Politics is among the most difficult professions. Nice guys, sad to say, usually don’t win.
That wily old prime minister Harold Macmillan summed it up nicely in the 1950s: ‘If it’s morality you want, go and ask the bishops’
Winners are intelligent, hardworking and articulate.
These qualities are important. These are the exact same traits you should have to be successful in every job. Doesn’t matter whether you want to run a chain of shops or the government of the United Kingdom. It helps if you have a set of values consistent with your ambitions — but it’s not essential. The most important thing is to convince people that what you have.
And this is why I have come to believe that ‘trust’ is not really the word we should be using when we talk about politicians.
Some of them may be in it to make a buck. However, not all.
If they’re bright enough and personable enough to win a seat in parliament and rise up the ranks, then they’d be bright enough to succeed in Civvy Street and make much more money.
Some are bent, of course. It is not common for many.
And I know it may not always be obvious, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult for MPs to break the rules without getting nabbed. That’s partly because newspapers like this one invest huge amounts of resources trying to do the nabbing.
It’s also because the overwhelming majority of MPs themselves are making it more difficult by tightening the rules they play by.
Then there’s you, the public.
What happened Thursday? This was after Owen Paterson, one MP who took advantage of his position to get rich, and the PM tried to defend him last month.
Johnson won the election to succeed Paterson, and voters reacted with fury.
And the message they delivered when they chose to overthrow that massive Tory majority was simple: we don’t trust you. Whether it’s over shabby stuff such as who pays for your wallpaper, or more serious stuff like allowing parties to go ahead when their own rules consigned the rest of us to our homes.
On Thursday, North Shropshire voters turned against Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the by-election that replaced Paterson. It was a fury they did credit.
Trust in a functioning democracy is based on this principle. It is up to us whether we want it or not.
We may know that politicians aren’t so different than the rest of us. All of us are imperfect humans.
We can’t help but get mad at the government. It’s our right. More than that, it’s our responsibility.
The social workers who betray the children they have sworn to guard.
Police chiefs that fail to defend us. Care home operators who only care about profits.
Top civil servants with great power, but who seem not to answer anyone.
My eyes were fixed on the minister in front of me too often, and I was often a victim.
In a democratic society, someone has to be held accountable for the people. I did that over 33 years.
This page has been my home for only two years. Since then I feel humbled to have received the enormous compliment of being able to read and comment on them. And to those of you who have written to me — often correctly pointing out the errors of my ways.
I am signing off this week not because I have nothing left to say — there’s no such creature as an old hack with nothing to say — but because there are many things I want to do.
One of them, I’m happy to say, will still include making the occasional contribution to this newspaper.
In the meantime I shall steal the words of an old colleague who used to sign off thus: ‘If you have been . . . thanks for listening’.