Len Goodman, the Strictly Come Dancing judge, admitted on the Andrew Marr Show he knows nothing about politics. He said he was uneducated and left school at 15.
He may well lack a formal education, but he will have struck a chord with many this morning. Len mentioned Gordon Brown said Britain was best placed to weather the economic storm, yet it has been proved we are not. Len is right when he says we need more honesty in politics. He said we should say when we get back on our feet again, we will be able to give Africa money to help fight climate change, but not now as we can’t afford to dole out £1.5 billion.
It will not be the intelligentsia who will be electing a new government next year. It will be people like Len Goodman, who do not complicate politics, but look at politics in a practical common sense way. Politicians take heed.
8 comments:
oh, you mean idiots!
yep, that's the result of 30 years of Tory/Labour economic policy
30 years of most famillies needing a dual income to survive has resulted in nearly two generations of maladjusted and under-educated people. Hope it was worth it.
does 'the price of everything and the value of nothing' ring any bells?
NO. I don't mean idiots, and that remark is condescending.
The people who will elect the next government have unfortunately been lied to systematically by the current Labour government, an electorate that has been told that if only government could be bigger and take more control of things then everything will be ok. Guess what, that's simply not true, if the state was better at making decisions about people's lives than the individuals themselves, the Cold War would have ended very differently. What we need is a government who believe in pushing power downwards and outwards, either to a lower level of government or preferably to individuals themselves.
If Gordon wants to play saviour of the world, he is welcome to go and buy a cape and some tights (with his own money), but we need a government now whose priorities are in the best interests of this country (and not in re-election).
The people are being hoodwined though, Andrew and the headlines about Labour's class war strategy backfiring was welcome news this week.
Len Goodman may be 'everyman', and left school when he was 15 blah blah blah, but so did my dad and he didn't remain ignorant. Len's view that politicians say one thing and do another is symptomatic of the majority of people, but it's not something to embrace and pander to, it's a tragedy. Len's ignorance needs to be pointed out. He's a voter, but that's where his contribution should end. If he can't say anything intelligent, why speak at all.
Daniel and James: I completely agree.
Ralph: Len wasn't being ignorant and has every right to express his views whenever he wants to. I thought he made many intelligent points this morning, but of course without the spin we are used to when listening to politicians.
Hi Andrew, thanks for your reply. I'm not sure I heard him make any intelligent comments and it appeared he just wanted to make an excuse that he left school young and as such was ignorant. That's what Bob Marley meant when he wrote 'emancipate yourself from mental slavery'. I'm with everyone who thinks we went to war on false pretences, but his default position on climate change mitigation is very disappointing. The more people who take this view that nothing can be done until we can afford it, the less chance anything will be ever be done. I think it's time Len did some charity work in third world countries to see whether we need to spend money helping people or not.
Thank goodness Len has voiced what most of us have been saying for years, shame he never got any proper answers but I'm not suprised, our opinions don't count no wonder less people vote!
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