In defence of politics..

[monkeytrousers]

..and politicians too actually!

As Bernard Crick says, politics, with its compromises and power struggles remains the only tested alternative to government by coercion, making both freedom and order possible in heterogeneous societies.

Politicians do need to up the level of debate but they can only do that if we, as active citizens, show some receptivity to politics on the whole.

It's not good scowling at what is happening to Tessa Jowel and dismissing politics as a dirty business. It is necessarily imperfect, messy and complex, and I do not envy politicians their jobs one bit - the are damned if they do and if they don't. Yet we very rarely appreciate that the world would be a very dangerous place without them.

I agree Monkeytrousers. Particularly as parents I think we have a duty to show an interest in the way our country is run. Politics, the way it is portrayed in the media, can be over complicated and off putting but if you break it down it's just a load of ordinary people doing a complicated job. Some of those people are well intentioned and some are self serving - the fun is in figuring out which is which

Thankyou Carmenere!

Now, come on the rest of you lets beat the crap out of this one, I know you all want to!!

I think we should all take an active interest in politics, after all it affects almost every part of our lives, from the healthcare we received to standard of our childrens education. I can't think of one part of our lives that isn't affected by politics in some way

I agree jco, I thought those ad's that tried to get people to vote were spot on, you know the ones that more or less said if you don't do politics, you can't really give out about the government

You're right carmenere they were spot on, certainly got me thinking!

I teach teenagers and have just done a lesson on politics - not many of them could see the point of voting and once we got over this, not many of them could see the difference in the parties.
I have now organised a debate amongst the students with MPs from the 3 main parties (hopefully - if the Tory will ever return my calls) to hopefully encourage the next generation to think about politics.

Did you teach them what an absense of politics would mean, MoB?