A Cure for Politics?

Pilchard Defenestration is, of course, the UK's current most popular anti-politician. As we all know the rest of the population has grown increasingly disenchanted with both politics and the politicians who inflict it all on us. Consequently, there has been increasing interest in such election candidates as Defenestration. They are the candidates who oppose all the current political parties and their cynical electioneering. All of them hold out a promise to voters that they will – somehow – be different.

Although, as most people not infected with the political virusknow, anyone who takes even an anti-politics stance can become infected with politics. Especially if they get too close to anyone carrying the virus.

Although many people are immune to politics, it is always possible for them to catch a new strain. Particularity, if they have not – over the years – learnt to inoculate themselves against infection. Hence the sudden popularity of the Liberal Democrats during the 'I agree with Nick' TV debates a few years ago. Many people who had regarded themselves as immune to politics found themselves – often against their will and better judgement – feeling a need to vote Lib Dem after those broadcasts. Despite them having a contempt for the other two parties they thought would grant immunity to the political disease.

Of course the same happened when, recently, the UKIP and Liberal Democrat leaders attempted a debate. Many formerly immune to politics suddenly, in the days afterwards, found themselves considering voting UKIP.

Although, it must be said that, for most people, a dose of politics, although possibly worrying for friends and family of the infected person, soon passes. It goes, leaving nothing but a headful of meaningless statistics that prove nothing and a small scar on the memory.

It therefore remains to see if Pilchard Defenestration and his anti-politics stance are really all he claims. Is he a cure for politics or a carrier of another mutation of the political virus? The same virus that has infected many people who previously thought themselves immune to the banal inanities of politics and the political process.

Doctors specialising in the disease of politics say it is too early to tell if Pilchard Defenestration and his followers are really carriers of some new political virus. Or if they are – as they claim – the cure that mankind has been longing for ever since Aristotle was one of the first to warn the word about the disease he called politics.

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]