Politics and More Bollocks
Editor’s Note (2026)
This essay was originally written for MySpace in 2008. It reflects my opinions, frustrations and sense of humour at that time. Although lightly edited for clarity, it remains substantially as originally written.
Well, I must admit that although I generally think musicians should keep their noses out of politics, I simply can’t resist saying something about it.
Comedians are at it.
Why shouldn’t I?
So… where do I begin?
Probably with my grandfather on my mother’s side of the family, who was a huge influence on me.
He was born in 1900 and died in January 1986, on the very day of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. During his lifetime he served in both World Wars. He did his duty. He served his country.
Voting…
What motivated men like my grandfather to fight in two World Wars is, of course, open to debate.
The threat of invasion undoubtedly played a part, but I struggle to believe they were fighting simply for the abstract ideals of “freedom and democracy” in the way modern politicians like to suggest.
Think of the men at Dunkirk.
Many of them knew they weren’t coming home.
Their attitude was more along the lines of:
“When I’m dead, perhaps someone else can climb over my body and get another foot up the beach.”
That’s a sobering thought.
Whenever I’m confronted by another layer of pointless bureaucracy dreamt up by politicians, I often think of those men.
Perhaps their sacrifice had rather more to do with protecting their families than preserving the careers of future politicians.
After all…
War is surely the failure of politics, isn’t it?
My grandfather came from very humble beginnings.
He left school at fourteen with very little formal education but somehow survived on his wits.
He described himself as a Menshevik. I was never entirely sure what he meant by that beyond some flavour of socialism, but I do know he possessed a profound distrust of authority.
That may explain one or two things about me.
I even have a photograph of him eating his last bag of chips before VAT was introduced.
Talk about making a stand.
He was an exceptionally brave man—particularly during the First World War, when he was awarded the Croix de Guerre.
Yet despite everything he’d seen and endured, he voted only once in his entire life, and only because my grandmother nagged him into it.
Within weeks, the politician he’d supported had apparently landed directorships with four banks on a salary exceeding £100,000 a year.
Back in the early 1950s that was an astonishing amount of money.
You could probably have bought half of Wales and still had enough left over for a sizeable bucket of Hockings ice cream.
Public enthusiasm for voting in Britain has now fallen to remarkably low levels.
Personally I find that rather encouraging, although I suspect the reason has more to do with apathy than political philosophy.
Nevertheless politicians continue claiming they possess a “mandate” to introduce sweeping legislation that many people neither expected nor wanted.
Since 9/11 we’ve seen enormous amounts of public money spent in the name of security, often accompanied by increasingly intrusive legislation.
Take ID cards.
How, exactly, were they supposed to stop terrorism?
To me it looked suspiciously like a very expensive exercise in gathering information.
I wouldn’t have been remotely surprised if somebody somewhere happened to own shares in the company producing the cards.
Politicians also seem to spend a remarkable amount of their working lives arguing with each other—at public expense.
Look at the MPs’ expenses scandal.
Good grief.
No wonder they look so miserable when they lose elections.
Becoming an MP is beginning to resemble winning the National Lottery.
In fact, these days you probably need to win the lottery just to finance an election campaign in the first place. Which rather raises the question…
How democratic is a system that costs so much merely to participate in?
I occasionally watch Question Time, hosted by the ever-respectable David Dimbleby.
One discussion centred on the proposed European treaty.
The comedian Marcus Brigstocke argued that the treaty was so complicated the public shouldn’t vote on it in a referendum because ordinary people couldn’t possibly understand all its complexities.
Using that logic…
How on earth are ordinary voters supposed to determine whether politicians themselves are intelligent enough to understand it?
If choosing politicians is even more complicated than understanding the treaty, perhaps we shouldn’t vote at all.
Tony Blair certainly wasn’t elected because people had carefully analysed constitutional law.
Youth.
Charm.
A dazzling smile.
That seemed to do the trick.
Politicians continually tell us Britain is a great success story.
Really?
Half the country appears buried beneath personal debt.
People are binge-drinking themselves senseless.
Some are apparently pulling out their own teeth.
Yet somehow Parliament continues congratulating itself.
As far as I’m concerned, if parliamentary democracy remains our system, then perhaps the very best election result would be…
…a hung Parliament.
Six hundred and fifty politicians scratching their heads, unable to agree on anything whatsoever.
At least then they wouldn’t be able to fuck anything else up.
And, lest we forget…
Adolf Hitler was democratically elected too.
Part two..