Wednesday 17th September

Blandness.  Corporate blandness, sameness, the same smiles, the same phrases, the same policies largely.  And the more you see of them the less you are able to believe that they are real people; they must surely have been designed by committee, by focus groups, by political scientists – who are trying to design the least offensive, most homogenized and inoffensive people ever.  Why is it that the two most popular politicians are Boris and Nigel Farage?  It sure aint for their policies.  It is because they are real people.  The minders, the PR people who are trying to make Ed or Dave or Nick electable are terrified of any blunders, any faux-pas; any possible flaws which the media can jump on and crucify their puppets with.  But you know, the opposite is actually true.  Maybe people don’t actually mind that Ed looks like Wallace, or that he pulls silly faces.  Maybe they see in these “errors” the possibility of a real person peeping from behind the mask; and actually they like it.  The press tried to crucify Gordon for his poor eyesight and handwriting, but their was a backlash; the public didn’t mind at all.

Charlie Kennedy did more for the LibDems than any other party leader, because he was recognizable, he was real.  Okay so he smoked, he drunk too much – well, funnily enough so do rather a large section of the electorate, and even those who didn’t really liked him.  But he was packed off and we got Ming and then Nick, the ultimate salesman, whose star is so diminished he is sure to be dumped too as soon as the next election is over.   I can remember Kinnock before he became party leader, and he was real enough.  But they tried to turn him into a statesman, put him in smart dark suits and stopped him telling jokes.  And he lost.   So, come on politicians, let your guard slip a bit, show us some humanity, some real passion.  Or we might stop voting for any of you and who knows a real lunatic like Nigel Farage might get in.