BBC Breakfast News is on in the other room, and I’m listening with a cocked ear, but I had to do a double take when one of the presenters, while discussing Alistair Darling’s extraordinary interview with The Guardian, asking “was he right to be so honest and blunt about the economy?”

Now, I know BBC Breakfast News presenters do not represent the pinnacle of analytical and observational thought, but such a question is utterly ridiculous, and the fact that it was uttered at all shows a serious problem with political discussion. Of course Alistair Darling is right to tell the truth – we’ve been pining for years for somebody form New Labour, or any party to be honest and talk straight with us. In fact, I’d go sop far as to say that many of the problems we face now stem at least in part from an unwillingness of the government to present anything other than a positive outlook to the electorate.

Think of it like a marriage: you can survive for a few years in a relationship by presenting yourself to your partner as you want them to see you, but inevitably at some point they’re going to see the downsides – and if you haven’t been communicating with each other honestly throughout the relationship then those downsides will hit all the harder. If you are honest and present yourself ‘warts and all’, at least you have a foundation of truth to fall back on.1

Criticising politicians for dishonesty but then berating for talking straight is purely childish, and it is largely thanks to this damned either way attitude of the media that we have a ‘political class’ to complain about.

*P.S* CentreRight are at it too. Honestly. How can we profess to value honest politicians if this is how we treat them when they talk straight with us?

  1. I think I’m doing well enough in relationships to start being confident in my opinions/advice – 7 years with my partner (so far): 1 of them married, 2 of them with a daughter… [↩]