Electioneering & Dirty Politics

I haven't been as involved with an election since 1979. Being on Facebook makes a huge difference. I get posts from all my friends with different views. I also listen avidly to BBC 4 Today & PM & watch selected programmes on TV.

What emerges is three things:

• Our unreasonable expectations of what an individual poltician will know & be able to trot out when being bombarded by aggressive interviewing.
• How some politicians think that personal attacks, (or rather slagging off), is acceptable & wins them votes.
• How some politicians twist the truth, (lie), & try to frighten the electorate into voting for them.

It's all very unsavoury & I actually think quite dangerous. Between the Great Wars the propaganda machine & totally unprincipled leaders took the population with them by similar tactics. I'm not saying that the Consevatives are doing the same thing, but there are similarities.

However the blame lies partly with us - the Electorate. We are allowing dirty politics, post truth lies & character assasination to be accepted as reasonable & normal. It isn't.

Politicians who resort to these tactics will behave in a similar unprincipled way when elected. They will change their mind on policy promises without blinking an eye. They have already done it.
We accept Soundbites & Slogans from Tentative Theresa who turns in the Tide while Thatcher Turns in her Tomb.

How many of us could remember all the facts & figures for multiple policies when being harried by terrier interviewers who don't even listen to the answers. They routinely interrupt & shout & don't let the interviewee finish the answer. I would imagine it's akin to torture. We the people deserve to actually hear the policies being fleshed out. We do deserve to hear the politicians being challenged to back up their policies, but in a reasoned way. Not a barrage of words where you can't actually hear anyone properly.

I'm actually sick of it all. Please lets have more reasoned, intelligent two way, proper, discussion by people who actually know what they are talking about.