Wind Tunnel Politics

So we have UKIP ruling our roost in the European Parliament, where they can do little damage. I have reservations about this result being replicated at a general election - beyond a policy of leaving the EU and stopping immigration, no-one knows UKIP's other policies - even their website it light on anything other than issues directly impacted by immigration. A one-trick pony.

This result is a consequence of the UK's main political parties being stuffed to the gills with a political elite, whose only function is to get elected and whose only experience is politics - straight from university to party researcher and then climbing the greasy pole of the political career, where native cunning is rewarded by being parachuted into a safe seat and loyalty is eventually rewarded by a seat in the Lords and the chairmanship of some august corporation.

Policy today is not formed from deeply held conviction, but by focus groups and targeted at winning over the largest voting bloc while not rocking the boat too much - nothing too radical. No wonder the parties and their policies all start to look similar - it's the wind-tunnel car design principle where all cars start to look like they all come from the same jelly-mould. 

We no longer have a left and a right - just a messy agglomeration of middleness - and a couple of one trick ponies on the fringes.

I'm reminded of a quote by Samuel Johnson: "A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent, and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of violated rights, and encroaching usurpation. This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend publick happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errours and few faults of government, can justify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by reason, but caught by contagion."


The Sleep of Death seems to have returned after 24 hours! Left the phone's battery out all night, but it still went into the SoD 30 minutes later.