For the Love of Tony

I agree that the girly Democrats should adopt the gruesomely effective tactics of their opponents and employ an actor to help them win the next election. George Clooney has to be favourite, surely? He seems bright enough—more to the point 'the most handsome man in the world' would guarantee you at least half of the vote before you even fire up the bullhorn. The only drawback is that George actually has some political views and might even stray into talking about policy. You could coach this out of him, get him to dumb down a bit—maybe you could get Joel and Ethan to write his speeches and even pencil in character details? My guess is that 'slightly dumb but impossibly handsome' would beat 'just plain dumb' every time, bearing in mind that George and Arnie would be on a level playing field in the celebrity stakes, George perhaps having the edge here too? In my view there would be no contest.

However, I disagree that it is rare for a political candidate to go out to fight without the seemingly pre-requisite manifesto with which to defend themselves. The British Tories do it all the time. They just had their Party Political Conference. This used to be, for all three major political parties, a forum in which to debate policy matters and agree a manifesto—the ideal of consensus no more than a quaint anachronism these days. At the last two General Elections the Tories got suckered into the trap of simply denigrating the opposition rather than promoting their own agenda and were beaten like dogs on both occasions. They haven't learnt from their experience. In a recent Radio 4 interview, Shadow Chancellor Michael Howerd—an old Thatcher favourite—would not be drawn on how he intends to cut taxes should the Tories win the next Election, primarily because he hadn't actually devised a plan yet. He was hectored by Welshman John Humphries on the subject for about half an hour, haemorrhaging credibility with each deliciously painful second that passed. This was grim stuff for Howerd and his boss, Mr Ian Duncan-Smith. It exposed for anybody who cared to listen that their political agenda, if you can call it that, involves targeting the weaknesses of others and attempting to exploit them rather than formulating a credible manifesto of your own. Worse still, the only thing resembling an answer that either man has come up with to explain how they will cut taxes is that Labour have employed large numbers of civil servants to monitor their policies and that these posts are 'surplus to requirements'. Mmm...lower taxes, higher unemployment...sounds familiar. Indeed it was Maggie who really fine-tuned the concept of political attack as the best form of defence so it's poetic justice that two of her acolytes should be hoisted by their own bloodstained petard. A word of warning here for any so-called socialists who have been wallowing in their schadenfreude for the unfortunate Mr Blair. For the love of Tony Benn, consider the alternatives!

Matt Jones
28 October 2003