Politics, and particularly politicking, is increasingly all about the soundbite - or in the case of U.S. presidential hopeful Howard Dean, just plain sound. For incumbents it's so easy. Why talk in depth about issues when most of the time that means going on the defensive. That's one reason you've got to give credit where it's due and in this case I'm talking about Tony Blair's meet the people campaign. He's out there facing tough questions from students and others on tuition fees and related subjects. You may not agree with him - and I find I more and more that I don't - but he does take and answer questions. Over the water, however, there's someone who's more interested in talking about ribs.
Posted by Joe at January 25, 2004 12:12 AMheh.
I thought the same thing when I saw Tony talking on Newsnight. He's very articulate and appears to be quite principled, but I can't agree with his principles most of the time. It's all very well "doing what you think is right", but he's not a benevolent dictator, he's a democratically elected representative... or so I assumed.
Posted by: Lisa at January 26, 2004 01:29 AMThe thing with our form of government though is that it IS a benevolent dictatorship. Give any party a majority (a healthy majority is even worse) and you effectively give them the power to do as they please. It's only every 5 years (4.5 being the norm) we get the chance to rap them on the knuckles.
Posted by: Joe at January 29, 2004 11:24 AM