Paxman disagrees with Brand, Loughton disagrees with both, and everyone, and everything, and.......

I quite enjoyed the Paxman, Russell Brand interview , it raised some valid points about the whole idea of how, "we the people" are not particularly involved in how our country is run, aside form one day every four or five years when we get to choose between three or four people, preselected to represent tens of thousands of us.

It seems that after Brand's Anarcho-Eco-Marxist suggestions of moving forward and Paxman's, "it may not work but we don't have any better options available", response, the BBC seem to have thought that it would be a good idea to ask Tim Loughton what he thinks about it. Obviously if you want an unbiased view of how people regard our politicians, the best thing to do is to ask one, not just any one, but one who holds viewpoints which wouldn't be out of place in a Dickens novel.

Here's the response:

The article pretty much speaks for itself when Timbo claims that our lives are affected greatly by politicians, who are elected by very few people. How can they be representative of us if less than one in three of us had anything to do with them being in the job in the first place? In the case of Loughton, taking into account the voter apathy that put him in the job and crediting this with the lack of faith in the whole parliamentary system, there are more people in East Worthing and Shoreham that did not vote for Loughton than there were that voted for him. So under a true democratic system, nobody should have got the job instead of Loughton. I for one think that this would have been a definite improvement on our current situation.

Again he claims about how difficult it is to be an MP and how much "blood, sweat and tears" he puts in, when in reality he is only sweating because he doesn't have to pay for his own heating bills because he claims them on expenses, so turning on the heating is not a problem for him like it is for the rest of us, as for blood and tears, these are human secretions and as a former banker, Timmy cannot possibly be anything near human in any way.

As for the amount of "Effort" he puts in, maybe it does take a fair bit, after all, talking bullsh*t so fluently 24/7 can't be an easy task for anyone, so yes all that effort has been noted, and filling out all those expenses forms must take a fair bit of time in itself, especially when you try and claim for your heating bill twice over.

What else did he claim?
I mean in the interview, not on his expenses, that's another blog post.

The first paragraph is the usual nonsense, after all, it appears that he did "mind", when both myself and Sussex Police challenged him for things that he had done both in Parliament and in his constituency, he seemed to "mind" quite emphatically and had to go and have several very public tantrums about it. There have also been several other cases where people have questioned his actions, like his attack on Sarah Tether for not having any kids, of when he tried to wreck the same sex marriage bill, and there was that time that the Prime Minister sacked him, and on all of those occasions I'm not entirely sure that he came across as someone who didn't "Mind" a bit of criticism.

If he thinks that MPs are under constant attack, he should take a walk in the shoes of the pensioners who can't put the heating on this winter, the disabled and terminally ill who are forced to fight for benefits that they are entitled to, or any other group attacked by his government, whilst they all get rich and fat, watching the weakest amongst us dropping like flies because they've got all the cash themselves.

 The idea that he believes that the 18-24 year old voter are simple enough to not vote on the strength of a Paxman interview, which let's be honest, most of them never would have seen, or through a few articles in the New Statesman, a magazine not often read by non voting 18-24 year olds either, really doesn't give credit to this group of voters/abstainers as having their own thoughts or opinions.

The idea that the average 18-24 year old, who just happens to watch Newsnight  because they're not engaged by politicians, will be persuaded to not vote because Russell Brand told them to, is exactly the point that Brand appeared to be making in the first place. They are simply not engaged in the system and claiming that Brand's views which were made on a media outlet that most of them wouldn't be interested in anyway, is scapegoating.  The reason that they don't vote is because of people like Loughton, and all the other MPs who do not engage with them because they believe that their views on politics can only be influenced by "celebrities", give the kids some credit, they already know, as we knew when we were fighting the poll tax on the streets of London, that politics affects every angle of all of our lives, but simply ticking a box just doesn't seem to be enough to change anything to a degree that it will actually have a real and meaningful impact on their lives. Especially when they see that the names on the ballot form are getting their bills paid whilst their own grandparents can't afford to heat their homes, or feed themselves.

The claim the any young person would say "Gosh, Russell said we shouldn't bother to vote, let's not vote", just goes to show that the youth that Loughton envisages are straight out of a Famous Five book. I expect that after Timmy's version of modern youth have been out to vote, they all head down to the river for a picnic with lashings of ginger beer to celebrate their effect on the democratic representation of their constituency, this is not the youth of this country, they are more likely to be using ginger beer bottles as Molotov cocktails because they are genuinely p*ssed off with the way that they are regarded as sheep, led by celebrities, with no independent thought processes to call their own, by people like Loughton who view them merely as numbers on a ballot return.

The last paragraph, really screams for the same question that Paxman asked Brand, to be asked of Loughton. So if this isn't the way to improve youth engagement in politics, What is? Telling people not to listen to naughty Russell, will make no difference, there are plenty of people out there already who neither vote, nor listen to Brand, they decided not to vote themselves, he is merely a spokesperson for a feeling that has been brewing for many years, the only reason that the politicians finally noticed it was because it appeared on Newsnight and in the New Statesman, otherwise they would still be completely oblivious to it, as they are to the rest of the real world.

It's just good that these thoughts have finally made their way into the mainstream, and who'd have thought that it would be that cheeky scamp Brand, what done it.

Take care out there in InterwebLand
K