THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

If it weren't for political scandals and lunacy,

we probably wouldn't bother to vote at all

ROD LIDDLE

Why are we so disillusioned with, or uninterested in, Our politicians at the moment? The current thesis — propagated, in the main, by politicians themselves, and swallowed whole by journalists who should know a lot better — is that they are traduced and misrepresented by a vindictive and irresponsible media.

Before he was promoted to the rank of Education Secretary, Charles Clarke was the — unelected and many would say imposed — chairman of the Labour party, who spent much of his time attempting to convince broadcasters and print journalists that the dwindling electoral turnout was down to them, i.e., the messengers. Journalists spend too much time on 'process' rather than 'policy', the strange, bat-eared former public schoolboy avowed; hence the 'public' — that lumpen, undifferentiated mass — became alienated and estranged from and, indeed, bored by the entire business. 'Process', it later transpired, meant stuff like Stephen Byers and others telling lies all over the place.

Clarke is not alone in promulgating this absurd argument. In fact, it has become almost an article of faith among the political classes of Left and Right, a mantra to be recited ever,' time there is an election and the turnout slips, inevitably, below 40 per cent: there's nothing wrong with how we act or what we do — it's how we're represented. There were echoes of this self-serving theory of victimisation in Estelle Morris's weak valedictory interview on Newsnight. And, more clearly still, in that revelatory cri de coeur from Tony Blair to the assembled hacks at the end of the Cherie Booth/Peter Foster imbroglio: 'You've had your pound of flesh..

Here we are, they cry, citizens who wish for nothing more than to be of service to the public, and you pursue us as if we were criminals. Really, guys, it's just not fair. And it is undermining faith in the political system.

The extent to which this notion has taken root beyond SW I is surprising. The BBC, for example, recently carried out a review of its political programmes and decided, among other things, that there was too much cynicism kicking around and that more attention should be given to those neglected 'policy' issues, rather than to the stuff of 'Westminster gossip' (i.e., people telling lies to the electorate).

It is a theory, though, which is very easily disproved. For a start, at every election where, locally, some scandal, pursued with avidity by the media, has occurred, the turnout has gone up, not down. Voters become energised by the possibility of booting out a miscreant, and turn up in their droves to do so.

Secondly, it is precisely because there is so little for the public to get a grip on in terms of policy issues — the lack of an ideological divide — that we voters sometimes fail to see the point of turning up at the polling booth. We would like to be given the choice between conflicting analyses of society but, instead, we are invited to be the judges in a rather ghastly beauty contest.

Look what happened when the BNP stood for election in Burnley, Blackburn and Oldham: more people voted. They had something tangible to vote against. And, indeed, for.

So, this might explain why the turnout overall has dropped over the last ten years, but it doesn't explain why politicians themselves are now lower in the public esteem than even lawyers.

Two instances from last week's Prime Minister's Questions provide a clue, however. The first was a classic of its kind, so let me share it with you, in case you missed it.

Charles Hendry is the Conservative MP for Wealden, in Kent and Sussex. His constituents suffered badly in the recent floods and there was no doubt. in Mr Hendry's mind, as to who was responsible for this. Not God, or even global warming, but Tony Blair. 'Does he understand why people in Wealden feel betrayed by the Prime Minister?' he cried, having earlier suggested that Mr Blair had promised to stop the floods, somehow.

You can imagine them, can't you, the benighted people of Uckfield and Buxted, wading about in their galoshes, murmuring to each other, `Gaw, look at this rain. It's worse than ever. I blame that ponce, Tony Blair, Tell you the truth, I feel bloody well betrayed. . .

Of course, the appropriate response to such a whacko allegation from an opposition MP is simply this: 'The Honourable Member for Wealden is an imbecile. Next question, please.'

accept that this contravenes parliamentary etiquette, so something less foulmouthed but equally dismissive would suffice, I suppose. But that's not what happened. That's not what the PM said. What actually happened was that the Prime Minis ter leaned forward and proudly announced that since New Labour had taken office, '5,000 homes which would have been flooded have not been.'

Now, I would defy any member of the public who witnessed this bizarre exchange to come to any conclusion other than that both Mr Hendry and Mr Blair are mentally ill. It is an exchange so utterly removed, so totally divorced, from the real world that it could quite easily pass as satire. But it was not satire; there was no irony.

Nobody believes Tony Blair can stop the floods. Nobody believes it is his fault that flooding has occurred. You can knock up a few flood-prevention schemes here and there but it won't stop the rain, or, on exceptional occasions, the flooding.

And nor does anybody believe the PM's entirely typical assertion that New Labour has stopped the flooding for — what was it again? '5,000 homes'. Why did he engage in such a flagrantly stupid argument? Why? Because that's how politics is just now: a succession of flagrantly stupid arguments and dishonest statistics. This is what you get when principle and philosophical disagreement are removed from the parliamentary equation.

Later, and more seriously, we were able to observe another example of why we have all become so disaffected with politics. The Prime Minister was asked a sensible, very clear, question by Charles Kennedy about the likelihood of war being waged against Iraq. What happens if the UN inspectors find nothing but the US still wants to invade, was the gist. What will Britain do then?

I cannot, offhand, think of a more salient or important question to be asked of the Prime Minister. But it is a measure, perhaps, of our chronic disillusion that nobody was very shocked or surprised that Blair didn't even remotely attempt to answer it. What would it take for our troops to be committed to war was the essence of the question. Obfuscation and side-stepping was the answer.

Normal people, when asked important questions, realise that they are important and attempt an answer, or perhaps confess that they do not know. Normal people, hearing Blair's strange, evasive, circumlocutions on the issue of Iraq, should feel deeply aggrieved and — yes, Mr Hendry, this time the term is appropriate — betrayed.