If a film were to be made about the current gang of main party leaders running the race before the 7th of May General Election, the cast would not look too appealing. David Cameron would be played by Tom Hardy as Bane in a suit and a tie, Ed Miliband by a wet rat eating a sandwich, Nick Clegg by the snake from the Garden of Eden, and Nigel Farage by a bad set of false teeth. The women party leaders – Nicola Sturgeon of SNP, Leanne Wood of Plaid Cymru, and Natalie Bennett of the Green Party – would be played by Mel Gibson as William Wallace, a stock photo of a leek, and the Queen in a council house, respectively.
The whole farce would then be topped with approval ratings as cold as the Siberian winter, and a game of musical chairs instead of a televised political debate.
‘You have only adopted the leadership; I was born with it, moulded by it’, says the jawbone of the current Prime Minister, crafted by the privileged for the privileged in the halls of Eton and Oxford. Generally perceived as the only one of the party leaders with the habitus of a leader, yet he has been accused of lacking the conviction and vision of a leader. Add here the failure to fulfil practically any of the points of his 2010 pre-election ‘contract’ and you have a man with 16 strikes but who is still in the game.
This simply means that the contenders are no better. Ed ‘Two Kitchens’ Miliband might actually be the main reason why Labour has not been able to tear any gap between them and the Tories in opinion polls. As the Andrew Ridgeley or John Oates of British politics, Q&As with the Labour leader have clearly demonstrated the public’s preference of the other part of the duo – in this case Ed the Red’s brother, David.
Achieving the lowest approval rates of all the leaders is quite a feat, considering Nick Clegg’s disastrous U-turn on tuition fees and the catastrophic result of the European Elections last year. There is even a chance that the invertebrate of Sheffield, whom most of the sensible people would kick out as the party leader at least after May 2014, loses his seat in the Parliament, in which case it would be more appropriate to have that empty seat from Westminster to represent Lib Dems in the party leader debates.
Nigel of South Thanet is possibly the most skilled politician of the lot. However, he is also a power-hungry hypocrite, as we all know. Surely, it must be expensive for the self-titled ‘poorest man in politics’ to commute from the 1930s to the modern day every morning – which might just explain his massive expenses of £2 million as an MEP. The leader of the ‘People’s Army’ (which sounds like Marx for dummies, doesn’t it?) has the blessed position to say anything he pleases, because his troops are not going to check the facts.
Regarding the last three leaders – Natalie Bennett, Nicola Sturgeon, and Leanne Wood – their gender does unfortunately still play an unfair disadvantage in the modern-day society. The Tories have already during their campaign highlighted many times that the only female prime minister of Britain was from their party. Yet, she was also more masculine than all of the current line-up combined.
In terms of actual leadership, Natalie Bennett’s recent radio interview with Nick Ferrari cast an oil tanker-sized shadow on her credibility, while Nicola Sturgeon still remains a complete question mark as she has only been the leader of her party for less than half a year. All we know for sure is of course that she will be coming down south ‘to burn Westminster’ and make England like the Balkans in the 1990s, as prophesied by Paddy Ashdown.
The current political system just doesn’t leave any room for desirable leadership to function. It rewards short-sightedness, populism, black & white thinking, self-interest, and narcissism. The effects of policies are directed there where the vote is most likely to come from to guarantee re-election. None of these characteristics are really that appealing in any human being, especially if that person is supposed to make large-scale decisions on your behalf. And even on behalf of the people yet to be born. This being said, it clearly is no wonder why the public does not trust their leaders.
On the other hand, we as the public have a tendency of expecting our leader candidates to be robots that never make mistakes and to deliver instantly what we want from them. They won’t. And they will make mistakes – some more grave than others. We need to make a distinction between failing to declare £200,000 in donations and making a funny face while eating a bacon sandwich.
And just remember that the parties are not identical with the leaders who represent them. ‘Even if you don’t like a striker you don’t give up supporting the team’, said Noel Gallagher. Register to vote – the more youth vote counts, the more youth voice matters.
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