After the initial Prime Ministerial TV debate Clegg saw his personal popularity leap to the dizzying heights usually reserved for such national heroes as Winston Churchill; a public approval rating of as much as 81%. Yet a YouGov Poll for the Times reveals that while his popularity is still not far off that ludicrous number, when exposed to his policies voters are avidly hostile. This discrepancy in opinion is what happens when we let the media turn our elections into soap operas and popularity contests.
Back in 2008 the British watched the American elections closely and now they want an Obama of their own; an outsider, someone espousing the usual glib popularist leftwing benevolence that so much of the BBC watching public never seems to tire of, and in Nick Clegg they found it. And just as the American’s hysterically applauded Obama’s campaign for ‘Change’ without ever so much as stopping to ask what it was they were being changed to, only to wake up the next morning to a President attempting to turn their entire national outlook upside down and impose on them healthcare reform that sent most American’s weak at the knees, so too the British are now doing the same with their own Obama.
With Lib Dem policy on immigration getting as little as 28% approval or their policy on the Euro just 22% in this latest Yougov Poll, it is hard to see how the leader of the party promising such strongly opposed policies can still be on a popularity rating of 79%. Of course as New Labour has taught us a little bit of spin can go a long way and Clegg certainly knows how to handle himself. But doesn’t it say something worrying about our democracy when so many people are going to be trundling down to their local polling station this Thursday to cast a vote for a party that they clearly know next to nothing about.
Back in 2008 the British watched the American elections closely and now they want an Obama of their own; an outsider, someone espousing the usual glib popularist leftwing benevolence that so much of the BBC watching public never seems to tire of, and in Nick Clegg they found it. And just as the American’s hysterically applauded Obama’s campaign for ‘Change’ without ever so much as stopping to ask what it was they were being changed to, only to wake up the next morning to a President attempting to turn their entire national outlook upside down and impose on them healthcare reform that sent most American’s weak at the knees, so too the British are now doing the same with their own Obama.
With Lib Dem policy on immigration getting as little as 28% approval or their policy on the Euro just 22% in this latest Yougov Poll, it is hard to see how the leader of the party promising such strongly opposed policies can still be on a popularity rating of 79%. Of course as New Labour has taught us a little bit of spin can go a long way and Clegg certainly knows how to handle himself. But doesn’t it say something worrying about our democracy when so many people are going to be trundling down to their local polling station this Thursday to cast a vote for a party that they clearly know next to nothing about.
No comments:
Post a Comment