to be so irritated by people who make no attempt to engage with the world around them

[GrowSomeCress]

It's probably unreasonable of me to find it quite so irritating, but I can't stand it when people don't know/care who the PM is, who the ruling party is, what's generally going on in the news, or know really really basic geographical facts.

I watched a TV programme once where a reporter went around some members of the public showing pictures of well known figures (think Clegg, Cameron, Miliband) and the amount of them who didn't have a clue was worrying, even when they were told the name.

If someone is ignorant of fairly basic facts, such as the identity of the PM, then they are, by definition, ignorant.

zebra there are a couple of funny stories along those lines.

I think it was footballer Steve Mcmannaman, was knocked out during a match, he couldn't answer the question 'who is the prime minister' and was sent to hospital. Sadly, he really didn't know who was prime minister and nothing to do with being unconscious.

Someone else, knocked out, asked who he was, didn't know, so the manager (Don Revie I think) said' Tell him he's fookin Pele and send him back on'

I get most of my current affairs info from the radio and newspapers, so I could recognise a picture of David Cameron but that's about it.

The comments about ignorance are bizarre! It means not knowing about things - making an active choice not to know about something doesn't make anyone less ignorant of that area of knowledge.

Holly

Anyone who doesn't know who the prime minister is, is obviously ignorant. If they find that insulting that's their own fault for lacking such basic knowledge. It's one of those things that would be genuinely difficult not to know.

There was a very good advert encouraging people to vote a few years ago, where two men were talking and one said he didn't do politics and the other replied fine we won't talk about it then. The first guy then started ranting about hospital waiting times and the cost of prescriptions, the other stops him saying but you don't do politics, the first then rants about what his children are being taught in school, the second guy stops him and says but you don't do politics, this continues with multiple scenarios until there's basically only football they can talk about where the second guy says I don't do football!

Was very good and sums up my feelings, by saying id you don't do politics then you aren't interested in what's happening in the NHS, Schools, with benefits, our roads, our libraries, how much tax we pay, so much of what we take for granted is government led.

Voting is not pointless

What if all the labour, Tory, Lib dem, SNP and so on voters though will not bother this time it's all the same (which is not true look at the changes in the last year) and the ony voters that did bother were UKIP or BNP

I'm genuinely astonished that there are people who don't know who the PM is.

How can you not know?

I only ever (have time to) listen to the news on the radio on my way to and from work. So I have an idea about what's going on, but not a clue what anyone looks like

Well. Except Cameron, Clegg, Milliband. And I can name all the CBeebies presenters no probs.

Katz

Not voting doesn't always mean not interested in politics.

boney - i agree, but i felt the take home message was why it was important to be interested in politics